I know it's been the new year for at least 1/2 a month already so I guess that means I'm already behind!
I did finally get around to making a new treat though - so that's a win!
I've made decorated graham crackers a few times before (see below post) and I've had an idea for more jelly bean birds - but this time on pretzels decorated like little birch trees.
Start with some graham crackers as your "canvas"
Dip pretzel sticks into white chocolate (as your "birch trees) and add to the graham crackers
Since these are winter scenes - add more white chocolate as "snow" and before hardened add jelly beans in various colors as they will be the winter birds
Use an edible marker to add birch tree rings - or you can just paint it on using black or brown food gel
Add more birds - eyes are made with the edible marker and beak/feet with some yellow candy melting wafers
Add a border with more melted chocolate and some sprinkled powdered sugar as more background snow
Perfect little winter bird scenes to go along with the frigid temps in the Northeast coast!
Here are some other easy decorated graham crackers or jelly bean bird treats you might like:
My edible crafting with marshmallow PEEPS continues!
The fun people that work with the PEEPS brand were kind enough to send me some of their latest seasonal flavors! Sugar Plum Delight, Cinnamon Roll, Red Velvet, and Sugar Cookie. How fun are they??
Although they are already very festive, you can add some easy details and make them really ready for any holiday or Christmas party.
Make them into wintery polar bears!
Or give them fun little Christmas hats!
Birds get cold too so add some tiny ear muffs!
Or turn them into reindeer - or go directly to the most famous reindeer of all
I usually add PEEPS to cupcakes (which would be A.DOR.A.BLE) but this time went with a Christmas-y chocolate chip cookie cake.
I mean who can resist a huge chocolate chip cookie during the holiday season??
The cookie cake disappeared in no time flat last nite!
Holiday PEEPS Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
by Michelle Clausen December 18 -2016
Ingredients
PEEPS chicks in assorted flavors (I used red velvet, sugar plum, sugar cookie, and cinnamon roll)
1 roll of refrigerated cookie dough ( I used chocolate chip)
Assorted sprinkles and candies for decorating: orange candy coated sunflower seeds, green m and m's, black and green dot sprinkles, holly and berry sprinkles, red-green-white candy corn, vanilla tootsie rolls, large red ball candy,
Purple candy melting wafers (cut in half)
1 cup of vanilla candy melting wafers
1/4 cup chocolate chips (or chocolate candy melting wafers) and green candy melting wafers
Green and red food writers
Vanilla buttercream (tint some red and green)
More holiday sprinkles for cookie cake
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
For Rudolph Reindeer PEEPs: Melt chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and add to a freezer bag. Snip an end and pipe antlers onto parchment paper. Let harden 5-10 minutes before moving. Attach to cinnamon roll chick with melted chocolate. Attach large red candy to with melted chocolate as nose. Use melted vanilla candy and add detail around neck and add green sprinkle in center.
For Polar Bear: Melt vanilla wafers in a microwave safe bowl and add to a freezer bag. Snip an end and pipe ears and nose onto sugar cookie flavored chick. Attach black buttons and nose detail with more melted candy. Soften vanilla tootsie roll for 7 seconds in microwave. Roll out long strip for scarf. Cut to size with clean kitchen shears. Color with red and green food writers. Wrap around chick as scarf.
For Bird with earmuffs: Attach green m and m's to side of chick with melted candy. Add white band with more melted vanilla candy melts. Attach orange candy coated sunflower seed with more melted candy. Attach 1/2 of purple candy melt wafer to side as wings.
For Red Velvet chick with hat: Melt green candy wafers in a microwave safe bowl and add to a freezer bag. Snip an end and pipe small discs onto parchment paper. Add christmas candy corn. Attach small red ball sprinkle on top of hat with more melted candy. Let harden 5-10 minutes. Use more melted candy and attach holy around neck of chick. Add holy berries for detail. Attach hat to top of chick with more melted candy.
For cookie cake: Add cookie dough to a 9X3 springform pan. Spread cookie dough evenly. Bake for 30 minutes or until top of cookie is just browned. Let cool completely.
Remove cookie cake from pan and pipe buttercream around the outside top edge. Add christmas or holiday sprinkles.
Hey all! I'm trying to get myself into the holiday spirit since we're only about 2 weeks away from Christmas (and Hanukkah too!)
I've used jelly bean birds a bunch of times (scroll down to see more!) so I thought I'd try some little winter birds this time around.
I also love love LOVE mini things so thought they'd be cute on some mini chairs or trees.
The chairs are made from pretzel sticks "glued" together with some chocolate.
The chairs have a nice rustic look and are perfect perches for these little birdies!
I love Jelly Belly jelly beans because they have great colors and some look almost mottled and very much like bird colorings already. Add some little details - super easy with some melted candy - and you get some cute little winter birds. Don't forget to add simple eyes with a black food writer!
The trees are made from Hershey's Bells and Kisses stacked on top of each other. Use whatever flavor you like since it gets covered in green melted candy wafers. I used peppermint to go along with the winter theme.
Use your favorite cupcake recipe and white frosting as snow.
Put all of it together to make a fun little winter scene.
And don't worry about being perfect with you candy melt "piping"! Small details are needed and it doesn't take a lot of skill. Once you practice on one or 2 birds it gets easy and the results are super cute!
Making these cupcakes really did help to get me in the winter holiday spirit!
Thank you for swinging by and have an AMAZING weekend! Take time to enjoy the moments and don't forget to spread some kindness in the world!
Little Birds on Pretzel Chairs and Tree Cupcake Toppers
by Michelle Clausen December 9 -2016
Ingredients
Pretzel sticks
1 cup chocolate chips or chocolate candy melts
Assorted color jelly belly beans
1/4 cup of black, blue, red, and yellow candy melts
Black food writer
Hershey's Kisses and Hershey's Bells chocolate candy
1 cup of green candy melts
Star sprinkles
White non-pareil sprinkles
12 of your favorite cupcakes with white icing
Instructions:
To make chairs. Break or cut pretzel sticks into sizes (2 long and 9 smaller pieces)
Melt chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl and add to a freezer bag. Snip and end and add some chocolate to pretzel stick and attach as in picture to "glue" chair together. Let harden at least 15 minutes before moving. Repeat for as many chairs as you need.
For birds: Select jelly beans colors you like. I like Jelly Belly as they are a little mottled which make great birds! Melt each color wafer in a microwave safe bowl and add to a small freezer bag. Snip and end and add some details to birds (beak, wings, top feathers) as in pictures or use your creativity! Let harden at least 5-10 minutes or until candy is dry.
For trees: Melt green wafers in a microwave safe bowl and add to a small freezer bag. Snip and attach Kiss to Bell to make tree shape. Add more candy to outside of chocolate to make green trees. Before candy dries, add either bird or star sprinkle on top (candy must be starting to harden to easily attach or you can hold it in place until candy is firm enough to hold it in place). Before candy dries also add some white non-pareil sprinkles on outside of trees.
Once chairs are ready, use more melted candy and attach birds to chairs randomly.
Add trees, birds, and chairs to iced cupcakes as toppers.
That's more like a science fiction book year than a real life year, right? Just to make me feel real old these things will be 30 years old this year:
The Olsen twins - really they are 30?? Depressing.
Slippery When Wet by Bon Jovi - Good thing Jon and the boys have aged so well!
Stephen King's It - still the scariest book I've read. #thatclown
Ferris Bueller's Day Off - My all time fav movie and Ferris has one of my fav quotes:
Even more true in today's smart device/always connected life.
Well to get over that I made more little candy people. You guys know I've done different little people a bunch of times - but this time I wanted something "wintery". I got some inspiration from cookies I saw awhile back with the cutest little eskimos on them so I had to try to make them.
They always start the same with some vanilla tootsie roll as the head and a Hershey's bell shaped chocolate as the body. Glue them together with some melted candy wafers and dip in more melted blue candy wafers to add "coat" and "hood".
The rest of the detail is added by "piping" on melted candy and adding sprinkles for detail on the coat.
The girl and boy Eskimos together are my favs!
And you get a bunch of cute little Eskimo cupcake toppers (or you could say they are little Asian kids in winter coats!)
Either way they are cute on top of a cupcake!
I'm wondering what are going to be the food trends of 2016?? More dessert mashups? Rainbow everything? Sriracha Oreos?? Maybe sensors on foods to really see how they make you feel?? I'm ready for whatever 2016 brings!
Happy Happy New Year and Thanks for stopping by!
See the other little candy people cupcake toppers I've made here!
To make Candy Eskimos (makes about 8)
8 Hershey Chocolate Bells (I used peppermint bark flavored but they make a few different kinds now - pick your fav flavor) - you could also use regular Hershey's kisses (and snip the point off)
8 vanilla tootsie rolls
2 cups of blue candy melting wafers plus + 1/2 teaspoon of vegetable shortening
1/2 cup of white candy melts
1/4 cup of chocolate chips/chocolate candy melts for adding detail
Sprinkles - large white circles for mittens, red hearts for bowtie, brown sprinkles for coat lines, red heart for girl's mouth
Black edible food writer
Directions:
Unwrap tootsie roll and microwave for 5-7 seconds until just softened. Save a tiny piece from each. Roll the rest into a round ball with your hands. This will be used as the head. Roll a tiny ball from the saved candy and attach as a nose. (It will stick on its own to the head)
Unwrap Hershey Bells (this will be the body)
Add the white candy melt to a zip lock bag. Melt in microwave in 10-15 second intervals until melted and smooth. Snip a corner of the bag and "pipe" a dab to attach round tootsie roll to bell (use it like glue). Let candy harden (about 10 minutes)
Melt blue candy wafers in the microwave with shortening (will allow dipping to be smoother) in a microwave safe bowl. Use 15-20 second intervals and stir between intervals until candy is melted and smooth.
Hold by the head and coat the bell in blue candy. The candy should not be too hot as that will melt the chocolate. Allow candy to harden on parchment paper.
Hold by the now blue body and dip the back of head into blue candy (to make hood part)
Use the melted candy in the bag and add coat details. Reheat as needed. Do the same with the chocolate chips/wafers and pipe the hair. Add more white, brown or blue candy as needed to fill in any gaps and add any other details.
During the holiday season I like to make fun but quick treats for the kids. Since I work full-time out of the house and have 3 kids in elementary school, things get hectic and busy (as I'm sure it does in every house these days). The love graham crackers so I use them as "canvases" all the time.
These are my latest little winter scene graham crackers. Cute, fun and I think it took me 1/2 to throw them together. I think they would make great class treats or teacher gifts too. Use all sorts of flavors graham crackers too :)
I'm still recovering from the #12daysofStarWars countdown - 12 treats in 12 days was a lot! It was fun though so if you missed it you can see the last post and recap here. And we did see the movie this weekend! I won't give any spoilers but I'm sure all fans (the old and new) will love it. JJ Abrams did a great job and it has everything you think it should.
Happy New Year Peeps! Hard to believe it's now 2015, but I can tell its definitely Winter. How? Well because it's SO.COLD.OUTSIDE! Commuting into NYC in this weather is not so fun. It's that painful cold where you can't move your fingers in a few minutes. I think I'm gonna officially start my countdown to Spring - 67 days!
But in the meantime I made some snowmen. A little army of snowmen made from cereal. Mini Wheat cereal to be more specific and as if mini was not small enough the fun folks at Kelloggs made Little Bites Mini Wheats that are half the size of Mini Wheats! They made mini minis! Thank you Kelloggs people.
OK I know they might look a little like penguins, so feel free to call them Snow Penguins.
You guys know anything mini works for me so I had to scoop up a box.
The snowmen are made by "gluing" the mini wheats together with some melted vanilla chips/melting wafers. To get them to stand, add a blob of melted candy to parchment paper and while still wet, add the snowman. Once the candy hardens they will be sturdy and stand on their own.
Their scarves are made from fruit flavored Tootsie Rolls. To make them, microwave a Tootsie Roll for 5 seconds (to make it flexible) then roll candy flat. With a knife or pizza cutter, cut out strips for the scarves. Trim the ends to make it look more scarf-like!
Noses are a candy coated sunflower seed. I use Sunny Seeds because they are so tasty! Snowman eyes and buttons are different sized black sprinkles. I also added little marshmallow trees for some extra wintery scenery. They are just made by stacking star shaped marshmallows on top of each other and adding a yellow star sprinkle (also glued with melted vanilla candy wafers).
Enjoy them on their own or add them to cupcakes! Hopefully they make enduring this bitter cold a little bit easier.
Again happy happy New Year and have an awesome week!
