Sugar Swings! Serve Some: April 2013

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Superman Whoopie Pies!


So it's whoopie pie time! Or as my kids call them "wumpie pies"!  Every year the hubster requests whoopie pies for his birthday instead of birthday cake.  Last year we did "devil dog" inspired whoopie pies and another year it was planet shaped whoopie pies.  I've also done some designed whoopie pies here, where you "decorate" the whoopie pie cakes before baking.  (I always love how this looks in the finished cake!)

For this year's birthday whoopie pies, I decided to use this technique and make some superhero inspired pies for the birthday boy.  The recipe is straight off the Marshmallow Fluff site.  It's the very first whoopie recipe I ever used and it's simple and everyone always loves them.


Put your batter in a zip lock bag, snip and end, and pipe your circle whoopie pie cakes.  Make a separate batch of the whoopie pie batter and leave out the cocoa.  I add the same amount of wheat flour to make up for not adding the cocoa.  Once batter is mixed up, separate into 2 bowls and add your food coloring.  Since I did Superman, I tinted half yellow and half red.  Put each color into a zip lock bag, snip an end and "pipe" the Superman logo.  Do the yellow background first.


Then add the "S" in the red batter.  You can use whatever design you like.  The batter is thick enough to keep the shape relatively well.


Bake at 350 for only about 7 minutes or so.  Keep an eye on them as you don't want them to brown.


Add the scrumptious marshmallow fluff icing/filling, and assemble your pies.  I also had some leftover tinted batter so made some mini vanilla whoopie pies too.


Even lettering works well with this technique, so I made a message for the birthday boy, who really is a kid at heart!


And you get some fun Superman Whoopie Pies to celebrate another year on this big blue ball.

In a world were there is such senseless violence such as the recent events in Boston this week and Newtown not so long ago, it really does give me comfort to know that my kids have a great role model in their dad.  He really is our real Superman around here.  Happy Birthday babe!  You're amazeballs.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Birds on a Wire Graham Cracker Cookies...!


So guess what my new favorite food to work with is??!  Graham Crackers! For Easter I posted these graham cracker bars and found these tasty crackers an awesome canvas to work on.  And who doesn't like graham crackers??? I think it's a rule that you have to love them, I mean they give them to people in the hospital, so it must be loved by all, right??

My kids love the cinnamon flavored ones, but they also come in honey or chocolate flavored but even plain old graham crackers are awesome.  PLUS for me they are a huge time saver because these could have also been done on sugar cookies, but that's an extra step and all that was needed for the base of these "cookies" was to tear open a new pack.


The birds on a wire idea came to me while I was staring at all the left over jelly beans we had from Easter, and we had A LOT! But I love all the fun colors they come in.  I also saw these super cute M and M chicks from Sweet Simple Stuff, which inspired these birdies!  And really this entire cookie is so easy to make:
  • Take your jelly beans and add a yellow or orange candy melt beak (add a little bit of candy wafer to a zip lock bag and microwave until just melted, snip an end and "pipe" on).  You could also just melt the wafers in a microwave safe bowl and dip a fork or toothpick in to add the beak.
  • Use an edible food writer to add eyes  
  • Break graham crackers into squares
  • For the sky background use blue and white candy melts mixed together 
  • Add "wires" with some melted chocolate for the birds to sit on
  • Add your jelly bean birds while the candy melt is still wet
  • Pipe on some little bird feet
  • Add a candy melt border in white to make it pretty as a picture!

And you get some fun and colorful (not to mention super easy) "cookies" to welcome the birds back for spring.  I love the look of the speckled jelly beans for the birdies! You could always use regular cookies for these or royal icing in place of the candy wafers, really, whatever you happen to have handy.  For me I always have candy melt hanging around in a rainbow of colors.


Anyhoo, hope you like them and thanks as always for stopping by! The weather forecast is for warmer temps in the Northeast, so I'm hoping that means spring is here to stay.  

Here are some other super cute candy birdie treats for you to enjoy!

Easter cupcakes with bird nests
Easy blue birdies
White chocolate candy filled chicks
Baby bird nest pretzels
M and M chicks

Sharing with these fun bloghops too!

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It
AND look at all this fun cupcake related stuff out there too! I'm guessing the cupcake trend is here to stay!

  

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Easy Spring Flower Candy Pops


Is it spring yet???! I think I'm ready.  After a couple weeks with colds around here which included 2 kids with double ear infections, pink eye, coughs, runny noses, nebulizer treatments, and then of course the grown ups get the same, yeah, I think I'm most definitely ready for spring time!

And these quick and easy flower pops, do remind me of the season!


Although I use a lot of color in my sweet creations which come from food colorings and food color gels, I do try to incorporate foods tinted from natural colorings when I can or as experiments, like these whoopie pies, this red velvet cake, these cupcakes with fruit glazes, these red, white and blue madeleines, these lego and super hero yogurt pops, and these cupcakes in fall flavors !


The color for these flower pops come from dried fruits including freeze dried blueberries, raspberries, and bananas, dried apricots, crystallized ginger, dark semi sweet chocolate, and pumpkin seeds (or pepitas).  I pretty much raided the local trader joe's and whole foods nearby!


These really couldn't be simpler.  
  • Melt some white chocolate in a zip lock bag
  • Snip an end and pipe your flower onto some parchment
  • While still wet, add your dried fruits/seeds
  • Let harden
I love the natural colors that deepen when the fruits are dried, and they really stand out against the white chocolate for the flower base.  You can mix and match or make any designs you like!


This was my attempt to get my kids to eat some dried fruits etc so I can change up their school snacks every once in awhile.  Because really, how can you eat pretzels and applesauce everyday and not be sick of it??  Although it was a big failure in that vein (I don't think I ate any of that stuff when I was a little kid either), my co-workers enjoyed them!


Did you know you can draw pictures in pic monkey?? Don't judge the art work people! This is why I work in sugar and not paint and pastels!

Thanks for swinging by, and have another awesome week!

Check out these fun treats made with dried fruits!

Mini dried fruit and nut cakes
Rice krispie treats with dried fruit
White chocolate bark with dried fruit
Fruity coconut cream truffles
Mexican bread decorated with dried fruit

And stop by these fun bloghops (and share your own!)

Tidy Mom's I'm Loving It