Sugar Swings! Serve Some: memorial day
Showing posts with label memorial day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memorial day. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Flag Shaped Coconut Macaroons



Any coconut fans out there? How about coconut macaroons?

I'm not talking about the super trendy macarons that are everywhere now.   I mean macaroons, the sweet and mostly coconut-y treats that I personally love!


I thought red, white and blue macaroons would be fun and I wanted to shape them into US flags for the 4th of July holiday.  Start by making a batch of macaroon batter divided into 3 bowls.  Leave one bowl as is and tint the other 2 with red and blue food gels.


Shape into flags and add non-pareil sprinkles as "stars" or use star sprinkles if you have them.


Bake until just done for about 15 minutes (depending on size of your flags and your oven) but watch them and take out at the first sign of browning of edges.


If you have coconut fans then these fun flag shaped macaroons will definitely be a hit!

flag shaped coconut macaroons by sugarswings.com

Bring them to a party for a unique sweet treat!

Happy Fourth of July to those who celebrate! How do you plan to spend your 4th of July??


Red, White and Blue Flag Shaped Macaroons
by July 3, 2018

Ingredients:

1 and 1/3 cup sweetened flaked coconut
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tablespoons all purpose flour
2 large egg whites
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
red and blue food gel
white small non-pareil sprinkles

Directions:
  1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
  2. Add all ingredients (up to vanilla) together in bowl and mix well
  3. Divide mixture into 3 bowls
  4. Add red gel to one of the bowls and blue food gel to another
  5. Shape into flags using the mixtures (use spoon to drop mix onto baking sheet and butter knife to keep edges straight)
  6. Add sprinkles as "stars" on to blue section
  7. Bake for 15 minutes (depending on size of your flags and your oven) but watch them and take out at the first sign of browning of edges.
Prep time: 30 minutes Yield: about 12 macaroons.  Stores 1-2 days at room temperature (or 2 weeks refrigerated - you can also freeze them to last longer)
Other coconut treats you may like:

Coconut Covered Cake Bite Bunnies


Mini Snow Ball Cake Bites


Snow Monster Cupcakes


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Friday, May 23, 2014

Red White And Blue Frosted Cookie Stacks


Holy Cow, Memorial Day is almost here! And if you are like me, the long weekend totally snuck up on you and you may not have any time to prep for a last minute invite to a BBQ or party.  


That's ok, these super simple treats can be thrown together in about 15 minutes.  I'm not sure who first came up with frosting cookies, and stacking them, but it's pure genius. I love anything easy and cute, and these are most def both. 

Start with some store bought cookies.  Of course you can use home made if you just happen to be so inspired, but I always seem to have a packs of cookies laying around, you know, in case of emergency.


PLUS I found these gems at Trader Joes, Speculoos Cookies.  How have I never had these before?? Crisp caramelized cinnamon spiced cookies? Heck yeah.  AND they have such a cute little design on them.  AND this is also the stuff they use to make cookie butter.  Come on, Cookie Butter!!?


Start with some vanilla icing and tint some red and blue.  Pipe onto the cookies.  And sprinkles (optional).  The End.  

I used some homemade buttercream for this (I always seem to have some leftover in the freezer) but you can use store-bought too.  The piping makes them look "fancier"!


Use any assortment of cookies you have around. Add some sprinkles.  Sprinkles make me smile so I try to put them on everything.  Don't put them on meat, meat + sprinkles is just weird.  


These little cookie stacks even make a neat birthday treat in a pinch.  


Happy Memorial Day to you all and I'll be thinking of all the women and men who have served and their families that have lost loved ones while in service.   Enjoy the long weekend and be safe.


Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
Tip Junkie's Tip Me Tuesday

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Wednesday, July 3, 2013

8 Treats all Red, White & Blue - Happy 4th of July!


So I had hoped to have one more 4th of July post before the big day, but alas, life gets in the way.  I did look back and I seem to have a thing for these colors because as you'll see there's lots of red, white and blue all over here.  

Like these baked wheat donuts with sprinkles (above) - Plain glazed donuts, blah.  Add sprinkles and SuperFunHappyTime.

AND

these Little Uncle Sam cupcakes - I promise no fondant was harmed in the creation of these little guys.


Some sweet and salty pretzel snacks (using goldfish crackers) - Red, white and blue goldfish?? Win, win, and win.


More baked donuts - ok ok these are more red, white, and teal but look how cute they are! Again, sprinkles!


 Ice cream topped angel food cupcakes (the color au natural).  Seriously one of the best cupcakes I've ever made. For reals.


 Flag pretzel snacks - Please excuse my obsession with all things sweet and salty!


Red, white, and blue madeleines (also made with natural food colors) - Make these now!


Some marshmallow candy cupcakes - aka bite sized fun!


 Thanks for indulging my perusal down red, white and blue lane.  Hope you all have an awesome 4th of July holiday to those who celebrate!
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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Ice Cream Topped Angel Food Cupcakes - Cupcake Couture Blog Party "Sprinkles Will Fly"



So another Cupcake Couture Blog Party! I can't get enough of them.  Betsy from Java Cupcake and Carrie from Bella Cupcake Couture are hosting again BUT this one is a patriotic cupcake theme! That means a whole lotta Red, White, and Blue.  You just cannot not smile when you see those colors together! And I can't wait to see what everyone whips up for the upcoming 4th of July holiday.


It really is a must to have red, white, and blue for the 4th and I love coming up with these colors without using any food gels/dyes.  This red (ok pink!) and blue (yeah ok purpley-blue) are from fresh berries only.


And my cupcake wrappers were these fun stars and stripes in red, white and blue!


I wanted something a little different cupcake wise, so went with angel food cake cupcakes (from a boxed mix to speed up the process). They baked up great!  It's basically like you are eating air, so you can eat like 1 or 2 or 12 without the guilt (ok pretend that is true).


And yay for berry season!  I made some blueberry and strawberry sauce by cooking about 2-3 cups of berries with about 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2-3 teaspoons of water.  Cook until the berries breakdown and make a nice thick sauce.

blueberry sauce - yum
strawberry sauce - double yum
Nothing goes better with angel food cake then ice cream.  So in place of frosting, these cupcakes have a scoop of red, white, or blue ice cream on top!


The white is plain vanilla ice cream, the "red" is vanilla mixed with a little of the strawberry sauce, and the "blue" is vanilla mixed with the blueberry sauce.  I added about 1 tablespoon of the sauce to about 2 cups of vanilla ice cream.  Definitely let chill, preferably overnite (you can see my strawberry ice cream was not as firm and that was about only 2 hours after I mixed it up.


You can top with a jelly bean "cherry" or sprinkles or whatever other toppers you like! And you can make these ahead of time and freeze the entire cupcake.  That seemed to work well since I needed these for a birthday party.

And the flavors of fresh berries, ice cream and angel food cake together--to quote a famous facebooker, Oh. My. (10 points if you get that reference).   You can also just dump some of the sauce over the entire cupcake to really kick it up several hundred notches.  Heat the sauce up a little before pouring it over.  I seriously could have eaten all of these on my own they were that good!  


I had a lot of fun with these "cupcakes" for the par-tay AND if you want to see some other cool patriotic themed cuppies, please stop by and say hello to these other fun bloggers playing along!

A Pumpkin and A Princess
An American Cupcake in London
Bella Cupcake Couture
Chronicles of a Foodie
Creative Food
Cupcake Project
Cupcakes Take the Cake
Diary of a Mad Hausfrau
Haniela's
Hoosier Homemade
Hungry Happenings
In Katrina's Kitchen
Inside BruCrew Life
Java Cupcake
Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons
Love From the Oven
Make Bake Celebrate
Not Just a Mommy
Not Your Mommas Cookie
Pint Sized Baker
Sugar Swings! Serve Some
The Baking Cup
The Decorated Cookie

AND there is a GIVEAWAY!!

              

Thanks to our amazing Prize Pack sponsors for their generous donations!  Please, visit their websites to see more of their fabulous products! 

Bella Cupcake Couture
The Smart Baker
India Tree
Lucks Food Decorating Company
Pretty Party Details

To enter to WIN this Prize Pack, simply fill out the entry form below.  

Contest opens 25June13 at 0700 PST and closes 1Jul13 at 2359 PST.  One winner will be chosen and announced within 48 hours of the contest ending. Winner will be contacted via email by betsy@javacupcake.com and will have 48 hours to claim their prize.  If they do not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be chosen.

This contest is open to residents worldwide. (WOOHOO! and GOOD LUCK!!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And again, thanks so much to Carrie and Betsy for hosting and pulling all of this together (again!).  I really had had a blast with this one! 
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Thursday, May 30, 2013

Patriotic flag and graduation pretzel snacks


So how is it almost June already??? I know I complain about the time flying by so fast all the time, but seriously - it's almost summer! My kids are almost out of school and I still need to figure out summer plans for them...sheesh.  And I've had all these grand ideas of a bunch of spring sweets and crafts to do with them, and never got to really any of those I was thinking about doing in April and May and here we are at June.  Oh well, we played Chutes and Ladders and sorted Legos into colors so it's easier for them to rebuild some stuff, and we flew kites this weekend too.  I'm hoping that's more important and they remember that fun stuff when they look back versus me having a few more blog posts! Priorities right?!


Well I did get a chance to make a couple quick treats for a family party.  Some fun and easy flag pretzels and some mini graduation hat pretzel snacks.


The graduation hats are just the hats that you can find here but in mini form - that Bakerella is so smart and fun (shhh, I pretend I know her and we're friends, she's met so many people she probably would be too nice and polite to say otherwise!).  The bases are mini Reese's peanut butter cups (and because my kids have nut allergies) I also found mini Rolo candy.


For the graduation hats, start with a square pretzel base.  Add some white chocolate or candy melt to the pretzel, add the Rolo or peanut butter cup, and then add a small square of chocolate for the top of the graduation hat.  I just melted some chocolate and piped out squares freehand and let harden.  Once hardened, attach with more melted chocolate to the candy base.  


Add a tassel with some yellow candy melt (or whatever color works for your graduate!).  I added the year in black candy melt too.


The flags are also on square pretzel bases.  All the detail is candy melt in red, white and blue.



I didn't have any mini star sprinkles so just used some white nonpareils - which worked pretty well for this and it was quick, just sprinkle them on the blue candy melt while it's still wet.




These really didn't take much time to put together.  Really the longest part was melting the candy in the microwave in intervals to do the red, white and blue parts of the flag.

And you get some sweet and salty snacks that really are so tasty - you can't eat just one! These type of pretzel snacks really are easy and fun to bring to a get together.  I've done other versions here for 4th of July, here for a Super Bowl party, and here for Halloween.  All a little different but fun and best of all, quick and simple.


Congrats to my cousins as well!!! One graduated from 8th grade (a big high schooler now), one from college (dude, time to get a real job) and another from medical school (woohoo free medical advice!).  Very awesome and proud of the bunch of ya!  I'm actually the oldest grandkid in our family, so it really is amazing to see my "little" cousins in Swingers speak "all grows up"!

Hope you are enjoying the last days of May and the beginning of June - here is one thing I pinned ages ago that I am DEFINITELY doing this summer!  Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!

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Sunday, July 1, 2012

red, white, & blue madeleines......!


aren't these colors so pretty??...and ok maybe it's not really red, white, and blue....maybe more pink cream and purpley-blue, but guess what they are made with all natural food colorings so i'll take 'em!....and you may be sick of madeleines from me since i've done them a bunch of times before like here for halloween, here for the winter holidays, and some pink ombre ones here....



but i love making them because they are so stinkin' easy....i use this recipe all the time, and just change the colors up depending on the holiday or theme....this time to mix it up a little i wanted to use some natural colorings versus the food gels (don't get me wrong the food gels/colorings come in super handy and give you any rainbow of colors you like, but i always like to try to experiment to see what you can get with the natural ones too).....when i saw these at trader joes, i knew i needed to try them in some goodies....freeze dried fruits, they are crunchy and still sweet, so i figured you'd be able to make them into a nice powder....


being a pharmacist....i was able to break out my old mortar and pestle and grind some stuff up (also good to take out any frustrations you have going on!)...blueberry and strawberry powder....


....which i then added to some of the madeleine batter...i probably added about 1/4 cup of powder to about 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups of batter (you could use a sieve and filter out the larger particles but i wasn't that motivated).....add each color to a zip lock baggie, snip off an end and pipe into madeleine pan....the powder made the batter a little thicker and i was worried it wouldn't bake up the same, but it turned out fine.....


...the batter is thick enough to hold its shape a bit and you can "pipe" the different stripes....


bake @ 375 degrees only for about 6-8 minutes depending on your oven....definitely keep an eye on them since they are small and bake up fast---you don't want them to brown as that will hide the color, and you want the color to stand out!


...and you get a bunch of super easy madeleines all ready for a 4th of July par-tay!...the strawberry and blueberry color and flavor really made these super tasty too.....i really like how the powdered freeze dried fruit added the color and flavor....i want to find some other freeze dried fruits/veggies too and experiment with color too...oranges, pineapple, raspberries, red grapes.....exciting! (is it weird i get excited about stuff like this??)

have an awesome week, 4th of july is in the middle of the week which stinks...but we're taking the kiddos to hershey park for a couple days this week (shhhhh don't tell them....it's a surprise!!) so that should be fun...actually they love staying over in hotels....pretty much any hotel....so if we told them we were staying overnite at a holiday inn in town, they'd be super happy about that by itself, so hershey is just a bonus now....wish me luck, i'm tired already thinking about it :)


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