Sugar Swings! Serve Some

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Rainbow Inside Shamrock Cookies


So I made some chocolate covered "shamrock" cookies for St. Patty's Day.  And sorry, I know I just did rainbow cupcakes tinted with all natural colors last week, but I can't help it.  There is just something about having multi colored anything that makes me smile and forces me to make more and more rainbow treats.

And rainbows inside the cookies - heck yes!! 


Surprisingly, I don't actually have a shamrock shaped cookie cutter.  But I figured hearts would work work ok for this.


To speed this up I started these with a boxed sugar cookie mix.  
  1. Divide into separate cookie dough balls (as many colors as you want in your rainbow)
  2. Tint with your fav food gel colors
  3. Roll each color out to about 1/8 inch thickness and stack one on top of each other
  4. Cut slices off and then roll that into about the size of your cookie cutter (too big or too small and you won't see some of the colors of your dough)
  5. Bake - these are mini cookies (only about 1 inch in size) so they baked only about 5 minutes @ 350 degrees
  6. Once cookies are cooled, dip into good dark chocolate 
  7. Decorate or drizzle with your favorite sprinkles or go for multi color candy melt drizzles


The little mini rainbow cookies are super cute on their own, and would have worked just fine this way, but I wanted to try for the rainbow surprise inside look.


I did make a few larger cookies to, so you can see the rainbows even better! 


Arrange 4 of each heart together and you get your "shamrock" cookies! OK they are really 4-Leaf Clovers, but you get the point!


Do you love rainbows too? What's your favorite rainbow treat to make or eat? And it's finally warming up in the northeast (woohoo!!) so it's time for some spring treats soon!  Thanks so much for coming by, have an awesome awesome (awesome) week! 

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Rainbow Cupcakes - All Natural Colors



Most of you know that I don't need an excuse to make rainbow filled treats (I mean I have a rainbow page there's been so many) but I do love how all the rainbow stuff starts showing up with St. Patty's day around the corner.


And I have done rainbow cupcakes before - super bright and colorful made with the typical food gels and colorings to make them.  But since I made those awhile ago, I've also been experimenting with getting colors from natural food colorants, like in this Halloween Bundt Cake, in these Blueberry and Strawberry Striped Krispie Treats, these Whoopie Pies, and these 4th of July Madeleines.

The colors for these rainbow cupcakes are made from this stuff:  


Freeze dried cranberries, freeze fried blueberries, carrot puree (yep baby food!), baby spinach, egg yolk, and crispy mandarin orange slices.  I think for most of these ingredients, you'd say ok, yep I get that.  Most are fruit and carrot is in carrot cake.  But spinach in a cupcake? Yes, and you know what it doesn't taste like spinach at all once you add it to the cake mix.  Really, it doesn't taste spinachy at all.


Start with your favorite white cake recipe or even faster, use a boxed mix.  Mix up as directed but add about 1/4 less liquid.  Separate evenly into 5 bowls as your white canvas!


For the colors:

Yellow: add 2 egg yolks to a bowl with the cake batter

Pink: add 2 Tbl crushed freeze dried cranberries (I put them in a mortar and pestle and go to town to pulverize as much as possible

Orange: add 1 Tbl of carrot puree plus 2 Tbl of crushed mandarin orange pieces

Blue/Violet: add 2 Tbl crushed freeze dried blueberries

Green: food process 1 cup of spinach leaves with about 1 Tbl milk.  Add about 2 Tbl of the puree to the batter



That's pretty much it! Then just add a little of each color to your cupcake liners.  I went with plain white so you can see the color through them.  There will be tiny little pieces of the fruit/veggie but that didn't really bother me, and didn't affect the taste or texture at all.  


Then bake them up as usual.  

Don't they look like funky muffins this way? They would be so fun served just this way on their own. 


But I had to add some homemade vanilla buttercream of course.  And I pretty much love the contrast between the rainbow colors and the whiteness of the frosting.


I think these are one of my fav cupcakes now.  Both the look and taste.  They still taste pretty much taste like a white cake, but with a little bit of flavor that you just can't put your finger on.  My kids didn't even ask about the colorings, just thought cool, rainbow cupcakes!


And although I have found you can't get super bright colors from some of the natural colorants, they are still pretty cool colors and fun!


Am I right??


Make some for St. Patty's Day (or whenever really!). Thanks for stopping by, I am hoping the weather people are wrong and I won't wake up to 6 inches of snow tomorrow.  I love winter and all, but really enough is enough! Come on Spring!  Have a great week!

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
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Sunday, February 23, 2014

Matryoshka (Russian Nesting Doll) Cookies for the Sochi Olympics



So I finally got around to doing some cookies for the Winter Olympics.  Just in time for closing ceremonies! Well I guess its better late than never.  I was watching the Olympics the other nite and NBC did a short story on Matryoshka dolls, or Russian nesting dolls.  I've always loved them.  Cute little hand crafted dolls that get smaller and smaller and fit neatly inside each other? Heck yeah! They go perfectly with my love of tiny things AND my Type A personality.   Here's another interesting history of the dolls if you are interested.  I don't actually own any of the dolls (hint hint to relatives reading!).


So of course I had to work them into something.  I went with sugar cut out cookies.  Roll out and bake your fav cookie recipe.  I used vanilla tootsie roll for the doll faces.  Microwave the candy about 7 seconds, or until its soft and you can roll the candy flat.  Then cut out the circle shapes with icing tips.  Large to teeny. 


I then "drew" the dolls on with candy melt.  You could use royal icing too, but I find candy melt is easier for me and dries faster when you need to use a few colors like for these dolls. You can get really creative with colors and design like the real dolls, but I kept it pretty simple.  Before the candy melt is dry, attach the candy faces.  Then add rosy checks with flat pink sprinkles, a tiny heart for a mouth, and dabs of black candy melt for eyes.  Oh and add hair with brown or yellow candy melt too.  

I like them because they are kinda hand made and unique like the real dolls.  (NOTE: although I'm sure most are now not actually hand made anymore, but I like to pretend they are).


And of course since these are for the Sochi Winter Olympics, I needed some in the Olympic colors!


I always love watching the Olympics (both Winter and Summer) and have been trying to get the kiddos interested as well.  These cookies helped! Hope you like them too.  Congrats to all the athletes  that competed, you are so amazing and talented.  And thanks to you all as always for stopping by.  

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday
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Monday, February 17, 2014

Molded Chocolate Surprise Inside Cupcakes


Hey there everyone! I shared these awhile back over at The Southern Institute, but thought I'd share a little more detail on making them.

It seems like surprise inside treats are over the place these days.  Stuff inside cakes, chocolate, cheesecakes, cupcakes, pretzels, etc.  Pretty much anything goes if you can sneak something into another something sweet.  

I had also wanted to use this Wilton Candy 3-D mold.  It's relatively simple to use too.  

                            

  1. Fill to a designated line on the mold with melted chocolate or candy melt. 
  2. Snap the top into place so the candy fills in the mold and also hollows out the cupcake top and bottom. 
  3. Let harden and pop out of the mold.  I put mine in the freezer to let the chocolate harden faster.  Any chocolate or candy melt pops out of molds easier when very cold. 
  4. Fill the bottoms with your candy of choice (I went with Sweetarts Hearts).
  5. Add more melted chocolate around the rim. 
  6. Attach the cupcake tops.


You could really fill with these with any small candies you like for the surprise (great for using up leftover candy from Valentines Day too) but I thought Sweetarts would work well for this.


For the cupcake tops, I added a few different candy melt colors to a zip lock bag and then melted in the microwave.  Once all melty, you can swirl the colors around in the bag before adding to the mold.  Once assembled you can add a large sprinkle on top to finish it off (attached with more melted candy).  You can really design and decorate your cupcakes however you like.  Smaller sprinkles all over a solid color cupcake top would be really pretty and cute too.


They are really festive on their own but the surprise candy inside makes them even better.  Especially since you need to break them open.   If you didn't want to have candy inside you could even write a sweet little note.  A special little something-something to your little one or significant other.  "I love you hon, please put away your clothes when they are folded in the laundry basket." That would work well, right??


These were wrapped up as special Valentines for the kids teachers but I think they would be super cute birthday or shower favors too.  You could totally color coordinate with the the party.


See? Some really colorful "cupcakes" for anyone who may be tired of the real thing (but really is anyone besides my kids tired of cupcakes?). Not me! But for some kids (or adults) that can't eat gluten this also is a great way to give them a cupcake too!


Wishing you all a great President's Day Week.  Here's hoping you get a great deal on an appliance or mattress (ha!).  


Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday
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Sunday, February 9, 2014

Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cookies



Um, did you know Valentines Day is this Friday? I know right, how the heck is that possible?? I mean there are hearts and red velvet stuff galore all over other blogs and Pinterest, but I still keep thinking that it's a couple weeks away.  Well less than a week away now.  


And the hubster is leaving us for sunny Florida for a trip this week.  I'm just hoping it doesn't snow anymore because I'm so not handy around the house, especially with things like gas powered snow blowers.   Thanks for deserting us hon - Enjoy your dumb sun!  

So to make us feel better I made some cookies.  Shaped like strawberries.  And dipped in chocolate.  Like chocolate covered strawberries.  My blogging friend Sue from Munchkin Munchies has made 3D sugar cookies before like these little apples and these strawberries! So adorable.  I knew I wanted to try making them so decided on doing some strawberries.

I also have a little confession.  I am not a huge fan of chocolate covered strawberries.  I mean I love strawberries on their own, and chocolate on it's own, just not so much put together.  In general I don't really like chocolate with my fruit.  I know some people LOVE it.  There are businesses dedicated to adding chocolate to fruit and fruit to chocolate, which is cool - its just not my favorite.  


But I do like the look of chocolate covered strawberries, and these happen to be really easy to make.  Start with a store bought sugar cookie mix (you could use homemade too of course).  Mix as directed plus 1 tablespoon more flour.  Tint red.  You could even add strawberry flavor/extract if you wanted.  I didn't because I just wanted the look, not taste of strawberries here.  Then shape the dough in tablespoonfuls like strawberries.


Add sesame seeds to look like strawberry seeds.  And the most important part FREEZE them for at least a few hours.  Overnight would probably be great if you have the time.  Then bake the cookies directly from the freezer at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes.  They will flatten too much if you bake for longer or don't freeze them well.  

You can see they still flattened a little once baked 
Once cooled, dip in good dark chocolate.  And add stem/leaves with some melted candy wafers.  I used dark green mixed with a little of the chocolate.  Pipe leaves and stems onto parchment and once hardened add to the cookies with more melted candy wafers.


And you get some pretend chocolate covered strawberries.  For anyone that doesn't like chocolate and fruit (like me!).  Just in time for Valentines Day!


Wishing you all a great week and a special Valentines Day for you and your special ones! 

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
Kitchen Fun and Crafty Friday
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Sunday, February 2, 2014

The Lego Movie - Minifig Cookie Pops


So I'm assuming my kids are not the only ones excited for The Lego Movie opening this Friday!  Lego can do no wrong around this house, and I think we've spent a small fortune on Lego sets.  But whatever, the kids love them and they are super creative with them.  Right now both boys want to work at Lego as designers - or as video game testers (yeah, get in line kiddos!).


Well to support their growing obsessions even more, I made them some mini cookie pops for the new movie.  I've posted before about using my mini gingerbread silicone pan here for mini superhero gingerbread men.  So these were done was pretty much the same way, except I used a sugar cookie mix and added a little more detail.  

Here are some of the main characters:

Love Benny the old 70's Lego minifig!
All the detail is done with Wilton candy melts.  I have them in pretty much every color, and then just mix up any colors that Wilton doesn't make.

Here are some of the super heroes! (I'm not sure why Superman is sad and The Flash looks like he just had plastic surgery.  I did them all pretty fast!).  

Wonder Woman and Green Lantern are also in the movie (among others!)
And some of the other characters.  There are so many in the movie that it would be almost impossible to do them all!

Will Ferrell voices President Business (it's gotta be good right?!)
And I threw in a regular minifig dude just for fun.  These are really easy and all you need are the yellow, red, and blue candy melts.


The trailer looks really good.  And some big names as voices.  All the Wills - Will Ferrell, Will Arnett, Will Forte, Morgan Freeman, Jonah Hill (what isn't he in these days?), Liam Neeson, Charlie Day.  Even some Star Wars oldies, Billie Dee Williams and Anthony Daniels!

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