Chocolate Covered Pirouettes & Pretzels Rods

Tags

back up plan, Candy, cookie, cookies, dessert, luncheon, party snack, pot luck, pretzels, snack

When All Else Fails

There are good days and there are bad days. Then there are perfect days and epically bad days… Yesterday, was the latter…

I’m still not feeling 100% and today is our holiday luncheon at work… I like to make tasty and beautiful desserts.

Plan #1
Make a butter rum pound cake topped with dark chocolate ganache and garnished with crushed peppermints… I only have half the ingredients I needed… and I didn’t have time (or energy) to run out to the store…

Plan #2
I had planned to make an almond angel food cake with chocolate ganache… I’ve made it many times before. I was whipping my egg whites and soft peaks had formed, but I wasn’t getting the stiff peaks I needs before I added my flour mixture. My metal bowl was completely grease-free… yet still no stiff peaks… Then I went for my bundt pan… ah, it’s in storage. I quickly grab my baby bundt pan and attempt to make mini angel food cakes. I couldn’t figure out the timing, and teh texture of the cake was all wrong.

Plan #3
Melt dark chocolate in double boiler and dip in pretzel rods & pirouette cookies. Easy? Normally yes, but my double boiler is also in storage… So I have to place my small sauce pan in my larger one, keeping it balanced with my left hand… if it were to tip and get a drop of water in the chocolate, it would be ruined… Once chocolate hardened I placed the chocolate dipped pirouettes (I had chocolate pirouettes and vanilla) and chocolate dipped pretzel rods in a glass bowl… and headed to bed.

Chocolate Dipped Pirouettes & Pretzel Rods

Normally, I’d make these a little more gourmet by sprinkling with crushed pistachios or drizzling stripes on with white chocolate… but tonight it was the perfect balance or sweet and salty and easy…

Here’s to today being a better day…

Chocolate Topped Pretzels

Tags

Candy, chocolate, chocolate pretzels, pretzels, shower favors, snack

My BFF’s baby shower was a few weekends ago, and I made all the food. There were about 60 people at the shower and I had great reviews on everything I made. I forgot to take pictures of all the food until it was too late. Over the next few days, I’ll share a few of the things I made.

I got the idea of these chocolate topped pretzels from my other BFF’s sister (she made them for the last shower).

Chocolate Topped Pretzels

I started with small pretzel square and placed a vanilla wafer on each of them, I used orchid, light blue and light green. Then I microwaved them for 2 minutes on full power. I pressed a chocolate candy (I used green and blue dark chocolate M&M’s) into the melted chocolate and placed into the fridge until it was hardened.

These are the perfect balance of sweet and salty. Mmm, thanks for the idea Ashley.

Gummi Candy Take Two

Tags

Candy, gummi candy, gummy candy, recipe

In January I made some gummi candy, for my nephew’s birthday. To celebrate Spring, I made more gummi candy using my butterfly and dragonfly molds.

Gummi Candy Butterflies

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

Tags

Candy, chocolate cookie dough truffles, Christmas candy, cookie dough, cookie dough truffle, holiday candy, truffles

Almost everyone loves chocolate chip cookies and just as many love the raw cookies dough. Here is a great truffle recipe I adjusted to create delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

Ingredients: 1/2 c. butter. 3/4 c. light brown sugar. 1 Tbs. vanilla, 2 c. flour, 1 1/2 c. chocolate chips, 1 can sweetened condensed milk, 1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts.

Directions: Mix together butter and sugar until creamy. Slowly add milk, vanilla and flour. Mix in chocolate chips into batter. Roll batter into balls and place on wax paper lined baking tray, refrigerate to harden. Coat balls in the chopped nuts and keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

*You can also coat these in chocolate or  cocoa powder.

*I use this recipe when I make Cookie Dough Ice-Cream.

Did you ever sit down and eat a bowl (or stick) of raw chop chip cookie dough?

Gummi Candy

Tags

Candy, gummi candy, gummy candy, homemade candy, winegum candy

A friend of mine sent me a link he had found and requested I try the recipe and give him some feedback. I looked at the post and laughed, because I was looking to try a gummi candy recipe. I looked at this recipe and it seemed easy enough, besides I leapt at the chance to use my new candy molds. My nephew’s first birthday party is this Sunday and what better food critic than a group of toddlers and little kids?!

The directions were really easy and kids would love to make these! Make sure you use a liquid measuring cup to pour the liquid into the molds. I definitely needed to dust the backs of the candy with cornstarch before pulling them out of the molds, the were too sticky if not. I was a little nervous pulling them out of the molds, since they don’t pop out like chocolates and I was afraid of tearing them. They were extremely forgiving, not one single gummi tore. I used molds with varying depths and found they all worked just as well as the others. Hubster and Pumpkin equally enjoyed all the flavors I made, berry blue, lime, orange, lemon and strawberry. Pumpkin often picks out the flavors he enjoys, now I can make him only the flavors he enjoys. The recipe worked just as well with sugar-free Jell-o, homemade sugar-free candy? Score! For gummi bear consistency, use two packets of unflavored gelatin, for Swedish Fish® consistency use three packets. Pumpkin repeated saying, “I just don’t understand how you made all of these!”

Gummi Candy

*This recipe isn’t vegetarian and I’ve love to find an easy recipe for vegetarian gummi candy.