Wow first post of 2019 and we're already into February!
Good thing it's a fun one
Some Star Wars treats - Heart Shaped Ewok candies for Valentines Day!
Start with some heart shaped chocolate covered candy. I used peppermint patties but you can use whatever is your fav. There's so much available in stores right now since all the V-day candies are out and about.
Melt some white chocolate and "paint" it on the top. It just gives it a nice rustic feeling and allows the characters to stand out more.
Once dry, use assorted color melted candy wafers and add the Ewok details.
I used a photo from google and made them really simple. Fur color, contrasting hood color, sprinkle for nose, and use a black edible food writer for eyes.
Super simple
AND
Of course I needed to add the Endor Princess Leia since the scene when she meets the Ewok Wicket is one of my favs.
We love Ewoks so much that we named our Chow Chow Wicket!
When she was a puppy the kids thought she looked like a little baby Ewok so they chose her name.
Even grown she still looks like one to me!
Such a pretty pup
Although don't ask me how many times when people ask her name and we say "Wicket" they say "Oh Wicked is she a naughty pup?"
Now I usually say "Her name is Wicket because she looks like a Star Wars Ewok" and that usually works!
You can also add some cutie cute Ewok-ish Valentines Day sayings like:
You Ewok my World!
Our Love will Endor
I Endor You
OK that last one is supposed to be like "I Adore You" BUT for you long time married folk (like me!) perhaps "I Endure You" is actually appropriate Valentine!
One of my favorite cookies are butter cookies. So simple, delicate, and delish. I even love those mass produced ones that come in the tins that your mom or grandma keeps thread and sewing stuff in!
I had the great idea of making butter cookies but in the shape of hearts for valentines day.
Mix up a simple butter cookie recipe, add it to a piping bag, and pipe some pretty hearts.
Sounds easy enough right??
Can I tell you how HARD it is to pipe butter cookie dough?? Piping these hearts took like an hour and much forearm strength!
But if you can persevere through it you can fill them with a lot of jellies and jams in fun colors.
or use marmalade - what's the difference between jelly, jam, and marmalade? I'm too lazy to google it today.
I must be getting old because I love butter cookies ESPECIALLY with a thin layer of fruit flavor. It kinda goes along with my love of bundt cakes as well. Welcome to middle age!
The hearts were supposed to look like rose shaped icing that is super popular. However, my kids saw these and asked me if these cookies were supposed to look messy. I of course said yes because I was just happy to have gotten through the batch without throwing the entire thing in the garbage.
They tasted awesome no matter how they looked. Tender butter cookie sandwiches made with real vanilla beans with a layer of jelly inside - SO YUM! And I love using the contrasting colors of the jams - even the mint - I've always wanted to try mint jelly!
Although they take a little muscle your Valentine will definitely appreciate the effort - and did I mention they are super tasty?!
Piped Heart Shaped Butter Sandwich Cookies
by Michelle Clausen February 5 - 2017
Ingredients
2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 vanilla bean
Variety of jelly/jam/marmalades (blueberry, cranberry, mint, orange, lingonberry)
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Whisk dry ingredients together.
Cream butter and sugar together until pale and creamy.
Add in egg and scraped vanilla bead seeds.
Add flour mixture 1 cup at a time until just mixed.
Pump some iron to build up arm strength then add dough to pastry bag and pipe heart shapes.
Bake until edges are just golden about 10-12 minutes.
Once cooled spread flat side of cookie with jelly and top with another cookie.
Prep time: 45 minutes Yield: about 2 dozen cookies
Hey all, it's February and time for all that is pink and red and heart shaped!
I love decorating graham crackers so decided to make some really simple edible valentine day treats made with lots of fun candies of the season.
If you head down the candy aisle you can't miss all the Valentine's Day goodies overflowing. My kiddos also love chocolate graham crackers so decided decorate them with some of their fav candy.
Marshmallows Peeps, Mike and Ike, and Hot Tamales
And my oldest loves loves LOVES conversation hearts. As with Peeps you kinda either love them or hate them. I love Peeps but I'm not into those chalky hearts. He on the other hand finished off a big bag in a week! Sheesh.
Putting them together is really simple. You basically ice a graham cracker with royal icing, add the candy in fun ways - like these flowers or add marshmallow heart Peeps, then let the icing dry.
Have them for a fun valentines day dessert or wrap them up for handing to your Valentines day sweeties!
Chocolate, icing, and candy with some cute sayings - So fun!
Since I can't watch the news these days without getting a headache I think I'll get my motivation from these conversation hearts! They make a lot of sense to me in this seemingly intolerant time we all are living in.
Be kind and empathetic to each other - remember try not to judge unless you've walked a day in someone else's shoes. Have a great week!
Chocolate Graham Crackers Decorated for Valentines Day
by Michelle Clausen February 2017
Ingredients
Chocolate graham crackers (or you can use your favorite flavor)
Assorted candy like Mike and Ike's, Hot Tamales, Valentines Peeps, and Conversation Hearts
Non-pareil sprinkles
Instructions:
Spread royal icing across tops of graham crackers.
Add candies to while icing is still wet. Use Mike and Ike's or Hot Tamales to make flower shapes. I cut them in half but you could leave whole as well. Add conversation hearts or Valentines Peeps to the centers. Decorate with more candies as desired.
Sprinkle with non-pareil sprinkles.
Let dry for at least 2 hours.
Wrap in treat bags or store in airtight container for 1 week.
Happy 2017 all! Can you believe it's officially 2017?
We celebrated the new year away from home and up in Maine on a snowboarding and ski trip with some good friends. It was so nice to get away and detach from the usual routine. It was also really cool to come down a mountain as a family! My hubster, oldest kiddo, and I all snowboard and the twins ski. The kids can all get down most blues and greens and I have to say one of my favs from the trip was looking around and seeing my kids coming down on their own with us next to them. It was really amazing. One of my new years resolutions is to make sure I take time to enjoy these special moments many that happen everyday.
OK enough of the mushy reflectiveness, onto the treats!
As you know we are huge SW fans so we went to see Star Wars Rogue One recently. Can I say I loved this movie without sounding biased? I mean I think I loved it more than The Force Awakens. Rogue One is the story in between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. It basically tells the story that depicts the infamous opening movie crawl and provides context on how A New Hope (the first Star Wars movie) came about. My oldest kiddo, a self proclaimed Star Wars nerd, also loved it as much as I did.
And what do you get a Star Wars nerd for Valentine's Day?
Star Wars chocolates of course!
I seem to have collected a plethora of shaped ice cube trays and that includes many Star Wars themed ones. Great for jazzing up your drinks with fun cubes but even better as molds for treats.
Since one of my least favorite things to do is dip cake bites/pops into melted chocolate, I use these molds to make no dip cake bites too. It's pretty simple. Add melted chocolate or candy melts to coat the mold, let candy harden, add some cake bite mixture, cover with more melted candy and let harden.
Pop the candy out of the molds spray with some color mist or similar spray food colorant to add some silver accents. Darth Vader is done with milk chocolate, stormtroopers with vanilla candy melts, and Han Solo in carbonite (no cake mix in center) with dark chocolate. Add the trooper detail with a black edible food writer.
Use Pearl or Silver spray!
If you have some heart shaped boxes you can add them and make some super special Valentine's for your favorite Star Wars fan!
Aww don't they make a cute couple?
Who can say no to Vader??
Happy 2017 everyone and I hope you are off to a great start to your year!
Star Wars No Dip Cake Bites
by Michelle Clausen January 11 - 2017
Ingredients
2 cups of chocolate chips
1 cup vanilla chips or melting wafers
1 and 1/2 cups of cake mixture (1 and 1/2 cups of crumbled cake and 1-2 Tablespoons of frosting)
Black food writer
Silver Color Mist spray
Instructions:
Melt each flavor of chips/wafers in microwave safe bowl in 10-20 second intervals until candy is melted. Add to quart sized freezer bag. Snip an end and coat mold with candy (ensure thick enough to coat all sides of mold but leave a space to allow for filling). Tap mold to remove air bubbles and to make sure all parts of mold are coated well. Reheat candy as needed. Freeze mold for 5 minutes.
Remove mold from freezer and fill cavities with small ball of the cake mixture. Press to cake fills mold cavity (see photos). Cover with more melted candy. Tap to cover evenly. Freeze for 10-15 minutes.
Pop cake bite out of mold.
Add detail to Stormtroopers with black edible food writer.
Spray with color mist. Let dry 10 minutes.
Add to Valentine's day boxes.
Prep time: 1 and 1/2 hoursYield: about 20-25 cake bites
This one also starts with gingerbread cut out cookies. Heart shaped 1) because Valentines Day is this weekend and 2) my kids love gingerbread all year round. Also I saw these cupcakes topped with rainbow white chocolate curls awhile back and its been on my to do list forever. I thought candy curls would be perfect on these cookies.
Start with blocks of colorful candy. Instead of tinting white chocolate chips, I used candy wafers/melts in various colors. Melt the wafers in the microwave and then add to a silicon ice cube tray. I have a tray for big square cubes that worked great for the candy blocks.
Once the candy is hardened again, pop them out of the mold and use a vegetable peeler to make the curls. Keep peeling until the block is gone. It takes some time but worth it and I have plenty left for other projects.
Make them in all the colors! Curling the candy was strangely therapeutic for me. Aren't the rainbow colors so pretty?!
I decided to add the candy curls to cookies.
Add some royal icing and before it dries just sprinkle some of the curls on top. Mix and match as you like - there is really no way to mess this up.
If you follow my Instagram you know I'm a bit obsessed with these candy curls!
I love the fun and whimsical look they give the cookies. You can use a couple of colors like purple and pink.
Or you can go full on rainbow too!
Super fun and really easy. I can't wait to make more treats with these rainbow vanilla candy curls. I'll apologize ahead of time for using them in lots of upcoming posts!
Oh and happy almost Valentines Day! We are headed out to Park City, Utah this weekend so will be spending Valentines Day with some of our oldest friends AND getting the kiddos up on skis/snowboards in Utah snow. Boarding on powder is way different than on the ice and blown snow here on the East Coast! Enjoy the cookies and thanks for stopping by!
Oh also sharing some fun printables here - there are labels for Valentines day as well as other holiday labels and stickers too. Bonus they are all free!
How to Make Valentines Day Gingerbread Cookies with Candy Curls (makes about 2 dozen)
1 roll of refrigerated gingerbread cookie dough or boxed mix (follow directions on mix)
Hey there! Valentines Day is just around the corner so I thought I'd share some fun cookies. They are gingerbread too. I know gingerbread is usually saved for the holiday season, but why?
My kiddos all love gingerbread so I make them cookies throughout the year in this flavor.
These cookies are extra special because they have heart cut outs and are topped with a variety of toppings. I love all the flavors of freeze dried fruits available and they are simple to sprinkle on top of still wet royal icing.
The freeze dried fruits crush really easily and give an nice concentrated fruit flavor (and awesome color too!).
I also added some other fun stuff I had in the cupboard like dried blueberries, candied ginger, goji berries, lavender, and pistachios.The taste was great with all the flavors and the gingerbread together.
I'll admit the kids went for the plain iced gingerbread cookies of course, but they did make super pretty gifts for the past holiday season (and for cookies for Santa!).
What are you making for Valentines Day? Do you go for a special savory dish or something sweet or BOTH? (I'm the later!). Thanks for swinging by, have a great weekend!
How to Make Valentines Day Gingerbread Cookies (makes 2 dozen)
1 roll of refrigerated gingerbread cookie dough or boxed mix (follow directions on mix)
