These Avengers Popsicles are so fun!

Instead of baking for myself on Mother's Day, I opted for the easy way out and just enjoyed some store bought popsicles with the kiddos.

The Original Brand Popsicle makes all kinds on neat themed frozen treats these day and I love love (love!) these Avengers Assemble ones.

They make them in Iron Man, Hulk, and Captain America colors - with a surprise of color inside too.

Popsicles are always a hit around here, and honestly it made this Mother's Day even easier for me.  No bake, no mess, and fun.

AND bonus - we just saw the new Avengers Age of Ultron movie this weekend! It was really good guys.  If you are super hero fans (or even if not) go see it! There are the same Avengers everyone loves - but it also introduces a few new characters as well.  Ultron of course, but Vision, and also Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself! 

All in all a great Mother's Day weekend!  Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I truly hope you enjoyed your day.  Have a great week!

If you want to see more Avengers treats, you might like these Avengers Rice Krispies Treats

Or these Avengers Peeps Pops from a couple years ago.  

Star Wars Creature Cupcakes - May the 4th Be With You!

Happy Star Wars Day! May the 4th Be With You.  

I've done a bunch of Star Wars posts over the years but this one has to be one of my favs.  The creatures in the Star Wars movies are always so cool and really make the movies so special.  (I don't even mind Jar Jar Binks so much - I know sorry hard core SW fans!)

I made a bunch of my favorite creatures in edible form for you and in celebration of all that is Star Wars today.  Most of them are made starting with some Ghost Marshmallow Peeps that I found frozen in our freezer.  Most all of the detail is made with melted candy melts in various colors, some pretzel sticks, and various sprinkles.

Hopefully the Star Wars fans can identify at least a few of these.  Below (clockwise) a Bantha, Acklay, Jawa, Rancor, and Sarlacc.

A couple of Mynocks:

A Taun Taun and the Wampa

This is the 3rd wampa I've done!

And better pics of the Mynocks and the Sarlacc pit

A happy Star Wars creature reunion photo!

Can't wait to see all the new creatures in Star Wars VII coming out this December.  What's your favorite in all the movies?

You may also like some of the other Star Wars treats I've made over the years.  See the Star Wars category on the right hand side of the blog for all the links.  The Yoda Bundt Cake is my 2nd fav!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Star Wars Day!

Oh and if you'd like the directions on how to make any of these, please just send me an email.  Some are easier than others and use melted candy wafers on top of marshmallow Peeps as the base.

Spring Carrot Gardens Made from Cereal Treats

The 60-70 degree weather on the East Coast is definitely putting me in the mood do some gardening.  Every spring we re-plant an herb garden and have been trying some vegetables here and there.  Last year we grew edamame and jalapeños.  The jalapeño plant went nuts and since you can only eat so many of them I usually left random care packages of Sugar Swings treats and jalapeños with friends.  Not odd at all right??  This year we will be trying to grow our own heirloom tomatoes so wish me luck!  I haven't tried growing carrots yet, but I think I might want to try planting some rainbow ones.  I used them awhile back to make some carrot cupcakes and I love the colors.  Aren't they so pretty?! 

Until I can grow my own real ones, I made an all edible carrot garden from cereal treats.  You can tint the cereal/marshmallow mix orange and shape like carrots or slice into the "garden" to see them "growing" inside.  

I wasn't so sure how this one would come out but I think you can see the carrot shapes in the cocoa krispies "dirt" for a different twist on the surprise inside treat.  Check out the details on how to make the carrot garden here at sheknows!

Thanks for stopping by and definitely get out to enjoy the weather!

PS if you have any tips on growing heirloom tomatoes please leave them in the comments below! THANKS!

Surprise Inside Rainbow Filled Cupcakes

Happy Spring everyone! We just had a weekend full of little league baseball and the weather was absolutely beautiful.  Thank Mother Nature that it finally is Spring.  To celebrate I made more cupcakes.  

These cupcakes will trick you though.  They seem all plain and boring right??

But then cut inside, and ta-da, RAINBOW!  Does anyone ever get tired of rainbows and rainbow treats?? Well obvi not me.  Inside or outside or both.  I'll take them all.  

She the how to here at sheknows.

Enjoy the Spring weather and better yet go watch the new Star Wars 7 trailer that just came out!



Can't wait for Dec 2015! Have a great week!

Game of Thrones - Wolf, Dragon, and Lion Oreo Cookies

Woohoo!!! Game of Thrones is back! Season 5 starts at 9 PM EST this Sunday.  Hasn't it been like forever for the new season to come back around??!

Get ready for more blood, guts, and glory in pursuit of the Iron Thrown.  All to be ruler of the Seven Kingdoms.  Seven Hells.

I made cupcakes for the series a couple years back (find them here) so wanted to do something a little bit different this time around.  I was going to make some lemon cakes - since lemon cakes seem to be the red velvet cupcake of the show - but didn't have the ingredients around this weekend.  Instead you get some Oreo cookies decorated up as some of the animals that are the house sigils.  Think of a sigil like a Harry Potter patronus - well kinda sorta.  I used the basic method for making wolf cupcakes that's in the Hello, Cupcake book which uses marshmallows to make the snout and ears and red fruit strips for the inside of the mouth.  Instead of icing I used candy melts in various colors to add detail as I wanted to be able to pick up the cookies without them being messy.  Another great tutorial for making howling wolf cupcakes can be found here on Annie Eats.  Eyes are candy coated sunflower seeds, teeth is white candy melt.  If you plan on making them (if you are crazy like me) email or leave a comment and I can give some more specific directions.

My fav family with the worse absolute luck of all time are The Starks.  Their house sigil is a Dire Wolf - think wolf on steroids.  Each of the Stark kiddos has a dire wolf as their lifetime bud.  Well most still do anyway.

And the arch nemesis of the Stark's are the Lions of Lannister.  A family with major issues and they prove that money can't buy happiness - although it makes life way more interesting in King's Landing. They are the perfect family to hate, except for Tyrion.  One minute you hate him, the next you love him - mostly you love him.  A Lannister always pays his debts so watch out.

And I can't wait for Daenerys (aka the Mother of Dragons) and her 3 cuties to come stormin' back to King's Landing to take back to the Iron Thrown which was so rudely taken from the Targaryens.

So grab your cup of ale, wine, or mead and your fav house sigil oreo and enjoy this Sunday's season opener.

There's bound to be a shock or 2 or 3 and please George R.R. Martin - finish the last book!  Thanks for stopping by and have an AWESOME week!

Waffled Cupcake Stacks

So have you ever just needed to smash up some stuff?? I have many reasons for that lately.  

1) I have to wear a dumb boot around for the next 4 weeks as I apparently have a stress fracture on top of my left foot.  

Said dumb boot

Not from some super coolio reason like I missed landing a fake ollie on the snowboard or a freak accident like an NYC taxi cab ran over it - no it's just from normal wear and tear.  How boring right?? Getting old plain stinks. And 2) Trekking around on a boot into NYC for my day job is a royal pain in the arse plus (I also really need a better story for what happened) And 3) this is throwing a major curve ball into my regular exercise routine - so my normal outlet for releasing some much needed steam is not really working out so well either.  BLAH. BLAH. BLAH.

So I took it out on some innocent cupcakes.   

But then I felt really bad and made them into cute little desserts.

With a cherry on top of course.  

See all the details for Waffled Cupcake Stacks here at sheknows!

The Avengers - Age of Ultron Super Hero Rice Krispies Treats Fun Snacks

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #KreateMyHappy #CollectiveBias

So by now you probably know I kinda have a thing for Super Heroes.  I used to blame it on my kids but I'll fess up and admit that I love them too.  There's just something about the colors, the super powers, the stories, etc that makes me fall into the various super hero fandoms like so many others.  If you check out the side bar menu you can see I've made quite a few super hero treats.

These Rice Krispies Treats fit right in since they are for the new Avengers Age of Ultron movie coming out soon. 

I started with Rice Krispie Treats which I found at my local food store, Shop Rite.  You can find them in the aisle with other snack bars and fruit snacks.  Every time I see them it brings me back to being a little kid.  I remember everyone's fav treat was Rice Krispies Treats and it was a huge deal when we had them back in the day.  They still put a smile on my face when I see them!

They  also make easy and super portable school treats, especially with so many nut/peanut and gluten allergies.  These pre-packaged ones definitely speed up the process of making these super hero'ed up treats.
  

Start with your blank "canvas"

Print out some pictures of your favorite super heroes - either the hero logo or other familiar details.   I went with an Avengers theme, but go for your fav characters!  I have all sorts of colors of melting candy wafers/melts so I used them as my "paint".  I put some candy melts in a freezer baggie and microwaved it for about 10-20 second intervals until just melted.  Then snip an end of the baggie and "pipe" on the detail.  To layer colors, wait until the first color is dry. It only takes a minute or 2, depending on how thick you add the color.

I also did Ultron and Vision, 2 of the new characters from the Age of Ultron movie due out this May.

Hopefully you'll recognize the others!

We love RCTs on their own and these were a huge hit not only with the kiddos but the adults here too! 

If you like these treats, please visit the Rice Krispies Treats contest page and enter to win by voting for your favorite entry! 

Eligible entrants will vote on their favorite Kellogg’s® Rice Krispies Treats® recipe on the Kellogg’s Family Rewards® Website and via various social media platforms to be entered into a random drawing for a chance to win prizes.

Twenty (20) Grand Prize winners will be randomly drawn at the conclusion of the Sweepstakes from among all eligible entries received. 

Contest voting is open 3/24 - 5/3/15

Here is how you VOTE:

1. To enter via Twitter, Pinterest and/or Instagram, go to any of the Social Platforms and include the hashtag #RKTreatSweeps and the name of the Treat recipe you’re voting on in the copy of your post.
2. You must also send or share a link of your post to RKTreatSweeps@kellogg.com in order for your Social Platform entry to be verified.  To send or share a link of your post with the Sponsor, go to the Social Platform(s) containing your Treat vote post, go to your profile, select the tweet/pin/post you would like to share with the Sponsor, and copy the link (Twitter) or share the post (Pinterest & Instagram) to RKTreatSweeps@kellogg.com 

Visit the Rice Krispies Treat page for more details and Good Luck!

What neat ideas have you had for Rice Krispies Treat Snacks? Or do you like them plain and straight out of the package?

Super Hero Rice Krispies Treats

Makes: 8 Superhero Treats

Prep Time: 1 and ½ hours (make sure you have all the melting candy wafers you need – you can mix wafers to get colors you cannot buy in stores)

Ingredients:

8 Kellogg’s Rice Krispies Treats

Plain M and Ms

Assorted colors of melting candy wafers/melts

Directions to make your favorite superhero characters:

1. Find pictures of your favorite superheroes (either logos or familiar details).
2. Add ¼ to ½ cup of candy wafer to a quart sized freezer baggie.  Microwave in 15-20 second intervals until candy is just melted.  Do this for each color when you are ready to use it.  Snip a small end of the corner of the baggie and “pipe” your colors on.  If the candy hardens, re-microwave for 10 seconds.
3. For Iron Man: Use red candy to cover the entire treat.  Add blue M and Ms as his core while candy is still wet.  Once red candy is hardened add detail with black, yellow and white melted wafers.
4. For Thor: Use gray candy to make buttons for his chest plate on parchment paper and let harden.   Use blue to cover entire treat.  Add some red in the corners and add the gray candy “buttons” while blue candy is wet.
5. For Black Widow (or you can do Spiderman similarly): Use red to cover entire treat. Add a large brown mega M and M and small plain brown M and M while candy is still wet. Add spider legs with brown or black candy melt and red for Black Widow’s logo on the spider’s back.
6. For Hulk: Add purple (bottom), light green (middle) and dark green (top) candy melt to cover treat.
7. For Captain America: Make a red circle in center of treat.  While circle is still wet, add a round blue candy wafer.  Working out from the circle, add a white ring, then red ring, etc.  Add white star with white candy wafer.
8. For Hawkeye: Cover treat in purple candy.  Once purple is hardened, add black detail.  Add black arrow (made from black candy melt) on top.
9. For Ultron: cover treat in red candy.  Once dried add gray/black face detail.  You can get gray by mixing about 10-15 white wafers with 1 black wafer.
10. For Vision: Add yellow V shape.  Cover bottom in gray candy and top with purple candy.  Add outline in black.

Disney's Frozen Themed Oatmeal Cream Pie Cookies

Well here it is the first day of Spring and we have a forecast for more snow in NJ! Par for the course with this Winter season on the East Coast.  In fact the kids have a half day due to the predicted snowy weather.  Go Figure! 

So as a last winter treat, I'm sharing some Disney Frozen themed oatmeal cream pie cookies!

Have you seen this cereal in stores? A "Collector's Edition" Disney Frozen cereal by Kellogg's. It has Snow and Ice Crystal marshmallows! Think Lucky Charms cereal but with blue and white marshmallows.  

#FROZENALLTHETHINGS

It works because my kiddo immediately had to have this cereal.  We don't eat junkie cereals as "cereal" but I do let them have it as treats.  I had to make something with them so decided on some oatmeal cookies, because not only are they delicious but I also swapped out some of the oatmeal for the Frozen cereal.  

I used the Vanishing Oatmeal Cookie recipe that comes on the Quaker Oatmeal can lid! Can't go wrong with that recipe.

I also added dried blueberries in place of raisins to keep with the "blue" theme.

Add to make them into oatmeal cream pie cookies, add a huge slather of some light blue tinted filling.  I used a mix of marshmallow fluff and cream cheese.  

And homemade ones are so much tastier than the store bought ones (in my opinion anyway!)

Make them today and devour one on Winter's last hurrah.  

If you don't have winter worries at all, make them anyway since there are probably a gazillion more #FROZENALLTHETHINGS to come since there WILL be a Frozen 2 movie.  (Um that's a no brainer Disney!) You can also get your Frozen fix on by checking out Frozen Fever which is a short you get when you see the Cinderella movie. (PS There is cake in it!!)

Have a totally awesome weekend and thanks for swinging by! More spring-y treats to come soon!

Frozen Themed Oatmeal Cream Pie Cookies (adapted from Quaker's Vanishing Oatmeal Raisin Cookies recipe) 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) plus 6 tablespoons butter, softened
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 and 1/2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt 
• 1 and 1/2 cups quick or old fashioned, uncooked oats
• 1 and 1/2 cups of Frozen cereal
• 1 cup dried blueberries

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix butter and sugars until fluffy.  Add eggs and vanilla and mix.  Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt.  Add 1/2 flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix well.  Add remaining flour mixture.  Mix the oats and cereal together and gently mix into the batter.  Add in dried blueberries.  
• Drop rounded spoonfuls onto parchment paper baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes.  
• For filling, mix 2 cups of marshmallow fluff with 1/4 cup of cream cheese.  
• Spread between 2 cooled cookies and eat!

Matcha Shortbread Cookies - 2 Ways

Since St. Patrick's Day is right around the corner I figured I'd add to all the green foods that show up this time of year.  

And believe it or not I've never made shortbread before even though shortbread cookies are one of my favs.  The dough is so simple to make - butter (and lots of butter), flour, sugar, salt and to green it up I added some matcha.  Matcha is green tea powder and if you like green tea then you'll LOVE matcha.  Plus it gives everything a neat green color.

I used small cookie cutters to cut out the little flower shapes but also added some of the dough to my madeleine pan.

Bake shortbread about 12 -15 minutes but don't over bake or the cookies will be too brown and you definitely want to see the color matcha gave them! (You can see my madeleines are a bit too browned when they came out of the pan - newbie move!)

I added a little matcha to some vanilla buttercream and slathered a bit between 2 of the cut out cookies.  A big green sprinkle added makes them look like little happy flowers.  

Or drizzle with some melted green candy wafers and other sprinkles and you have a neat green treat for St. Patrick's Day.  Enjoy with a cup of green tea or coffee!

Have an awesome weekend and thanks for popping by!

The matcha shortbread recipe can be found here on Martha Stewart

The Ultimate Layer Cake - Made of ALL your Favorite Desserts

With so many desserts and dessert combinations around these days I'm constantly changing my favorite.  I mean so many cookies, brownies, cheesecakes, doughnuts and not to mention the red velveting of everything! #redvelvetallthethings

Plus every other day there is a new kind of surprise inside cake.  Filled, rainbow, ombre, designs, etc. AND you guys already know my love of mash-ups, so the logical decision was to make an ultimate mash-up - a layer cake with a bunch of everyones favorite desserts!

I brought this to a family party and it was totally eaten up! I think there's enough in it to satisfy anyone's sweet tooth!

See all the details over here at sheknows.