Tag Archives: candy melts

December 3, 2012 · 10:07 am

Elf Munchies

This snack munch is easy and pretty and sure to impress!

Elf Munchies

Ingredients:

About 8 cups of popcorn (1/2 cup of kernels if popping them fresh)

12 oz white chocolate chips, almond bark, or white candy melts

Assorted sprinkles

Directions:

1. Pop some popcorn. You can use microwave popcorn if you want, I just don’t know how it will taste if you get the buttery kind. I used white popcorn and popped it the same way I make my Kettle Corn, but without the sugar. Let it cool.

2. Melt white chocolate chips, almond bark, or white candy melts until smooth. Pour over popcorn and stir until evenly coated. I added sprinkles while my husband was stirring. Non-pareils, jimmies, and quins!

3. Spread popcorn out on wax paper. I broke it up so that there were no large clumps.

4. In freezer zip top bags, melt green and red candy melts. (I like to use leftover candy melts for this because it doesn’t have to melt perfectly smooth to be pretty as drizzle!) Massage bag until smooth. Snip the corner of the bag and drizzle the candy over the white chocolate coated popcorn. I finished off with some more sprinkles – snowflakes this time!

5. Wait for the candy to set up completely, then break up popcorn and store in a airtight container or zip top bag.

This would be so cute to leave out with cookies for Santa. The elves deserve some treats too!

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Filed under Candy, Misc

Tagged as candy melts, popcorn, sprinkles, white chocolate

March 23, 2012 · 8:00 am

Red Velvet Cake Balls

We’re back with my BabyCakes! These are what I refer to as cake balls, not to be confused with cake pops.

Here are the first ones I made a while back… along with some tips and some mistakes. (Number one tip being use a piping bag/zip top bag to fill the reservoirs.)

These were for a 15 year old’s birthday party, and the request was for red velvet. My manual that came with the babycakes had a recipe for red velvet, so I used that.

(I have never made, or even EATEN red velvet until I made these. Not bad, not bad… maybe that’s why the world is currently obsessed?)

The recipe made about 40 cake balls.

For the icing, I wasn’t sure what to use. For the lemon cake balls, I used my regular cookie icing. It was light and soft, and perfectly complimented the lemon.

For these, I wanted something heavier/thicker, but still somewhat soft. (As opposed to hard chocolate shell or something like that. In the end I had a combination of the two. I mixed together candy melts with a tiny bit of milk, then melted it in the microwave. The mixture was thin, so I added a bit of powdered sugar to make it more like icing. It was actually easier to dip these balls into than regular candy melts.

I don’t know exact measurements, but I would say I used about 1/4 cup candy melts and a teaspoon or so of milk. I melted for 20 seconds, then stirred until it was completely combined. I added about a spoonful of powdered sugar, but more can be added to get a good consistency. Too thin, add powdered sugar… too thick, add a few drops of milk. Pretty sure you can’t really screw this up.

The end result was colored (from the candy melts – no food coloring needed), vanilla flavored, dried well so that they could be handled, and was soft to bite into. Like a frosting shell. I will definitely be making this again for cake balls!

Here is the inside! Pure fluffy cake…

psst! – Kendra, see my little clippy on the piping bag up there? These things are heaven. Don’t leak and easy peezy to get on and off.

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Filed under Cakes

Tagged as blue, cake balls, candy melts, green, icing, purple, red velvet

February 20, 2012 · 8:00 am

Cookies & Cream Truffles

a.k.a. Oreo Balls or Oreo Truffles.

Chances are, you have had these, or at least seen or heard of them. This is not some new idea or concept that I created. But they are brilliant. And easy. And oh so yummy.

Let’s get started.

We just need 3 ingredients.

An entire pack of oreos. If you must eat one, just buy the 2nd bag. Trust me, you want all the oreo goodness of the entire bag in this!

An 8 oz. block of cream cheese. I used 1/3 less fat. Can’t even tell the difference, so might as well be somewhat healthier, right?

Candy Melts. One bag was not quite enough. You could also use regular chocolate chips, or almond bark. I couldn’t find almond bark at my grocery store so I went with candy melts.

Chop up the oreos in a food processor. If you don’t have one, you could put them in a big zip top baggie and smash them. They don’t have to be perfect smithereens, they will still be amazing.

Mix the oreo crumbs and cream cheese together. I used my Sheila, but a wooden spoon would also be fine.

Pop that in the fridge for 10 minutes or so to firm up a tad.

Roll into balls, set on a wax paper lined baking sheet, and pop it back in the fridge.

At this point I made sugar cookies, so the balls probably sat in my fridge for over 2 hours. I would think 20 minutes would be sufficient though.

Once the balls are chilled, melt your candy melts (or chocolate) and dip the balls one at a time into the candy with a fork, tapping the excess off on the side of the bowl. They don’t have to be perfect.

I started off doing okay, they were looking pretty cleanly/perfectly dipped, but then a couple balls got scraped and the oreo started mixing into the candy melts. I almost started stressing but then I realized it made them look like cookies and cream, which makes perfect sense! So that’s why I decided to call these Cookies & Cream Truffles.

After the balls are all coated, pop the tray back in the fridge to harden up. Once they are set, eat one. Then peel them off the wax paper and break off the excess candy if possible.

Store in the fridge until ready to eat.

I actually made these for my brother (by special request) for his birthday yesterday. Glad I did, they were pretty tasty!

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Tagged as candy melts, chocolate, oreos

January 27, 2012 · 9:00 am

Funfetti Krispy Treat Cake

Once again, an idea from Pinterest has brought me here. Though I tweaked this one a bit.

As the title suggests, what sets these rice krispy treats apart from regular krispy treats, is the addition of funfetti cake mix. Not prepared cake batter. Just dry cake mix.

I had this box of holiday funfetti, so I decided to use it. (My brother works at a grocery store and found it after Christmas for super cheap.)

Since everyone is pretty much over the red-and-green thing by now, I added in some other colors to hide that it was holiday funfetti.

The colored sprinkles I bought at Layer Cake Shop, in a colored sprinkles assortment. I love having the colors separate because I can mix them however I want, or I can use just 1 specific color. (Like I did here for over the hill cookies and here for a 6 year old’s birthday cookies. Also think baby showers!)

See? Can’t even tell it was meant for Christmas!

Okay I have to be honest here. I have never made rice krispy treats until now. I learned a few things.

First you melt 3 tbsp butter and 1 10-oz bag of mini mallows in a large pot. It looks clumpy until it starts to melt fully.

Once it’s smooth, mix in 1/3 cup funfetti cake mix (or yellow cake) a spoonful at a time.

Sprinkle time! This is where I got a little messed up. (Pretend this next photo isn’t blurry.)

You want to have about 1/4 cup sprinkles, equal to about 1 full jar like you’d buy at the grocery store. Pull the pot off the hot burner and mix about half of the sprinkles into your melty mallows. Mix quickly and as little as possible – the sprinkles will melt and turn your mallow mixture greyish like mine.

Mix in 6 cups of rice krispies , then press into a greased pan. Normal people use 13×9 cake pans, I decided to go with a bundt/jello mold pan. If you use a 13×9, you can sprinkle the remaining sprinkles on top.

Let it sit up for at least an hour. This is my Krispy Cake once I popped it out of my pan… oh yeah I forgot to mention I threw some sprinkles in the bottom for good measure.

Now comes the part where I got a little crazy. I put a little bit of candy melts in a bag, and melted them at 30 second intervals until they were smooth. Okay so I did 5 colors.

Then I snipped a corner of each bag and squeezed colors all over my funfetti krispy bundt. Then I used the rest of my sprinkles. A lot of sprinkles. Here is the mess I was left with:

I let the candy melts set (maybe 2 minutes) then transfered it with a cooking spatula to my cake plate. Then just cut and serve!

Quick and tasty!

P.S. Obviously I now have leftover cake mix. I have seen many-a-recipe with dry cake powder, so I am saving it in a mason jar until that day comes.

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Filed under Misc

Tagged as candy melts, funfetti, marshmallows, rice krispy treats, sprinkles

December 31, 2011 · 6:52 pm

Rainbow Treats

Rainbow Treats for a rainbow party!

Cupcakes…

and cakepops!

The purple and red were chocolate…

and the yellow and blue were vanilla cake!

I really <3 cakepops. Bakerella, you’re a genius!

If you love cakepops too, you should try making them! I have had some hard times, did some troubleshooting, and I updated my cakepop instructions. Let me know if you try them and how they turn out!

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Filed under Cake Pops, Cakes

Tagged as buttercream, candy melts, chocolate, rainbow, vanilla

December 6, 2011 · 8:30 am

Chocolate Cupcakes

Here are some cupcakes I did for a friend:

I did the same chocolate cake recipe I used here, but this time with chocolate buttercream frosting.

Now for my adventure with the frosting:

I had never made chocolate frosting before, so I started off with the frosting recipe on the cocoa box. It was too runny to pipe, so I ended up adding a lot more powdered sugar to make it thicker. I honestly couldn’t tell you what the end quantities were… next time I make it I will keep better track of it. If I had to guess, I used at least 2x the powdered sugar. It still wasn’t thick enough, so I decided to add another stick of butter. The butter would not integrate into the frosting (because it was so runny) so there was little lumps of butter throughout. I stuck the whole thing in the fridge thinking it would thicken up a bit and then I could try whip it again. Still didn’t work… As a last ditch effort, I stuck the whole bowl of frosting in the microwave. I let it all get runny and melty (and smooth!) then I stuck it back in the fridge for a while. When I pulled it out and stuck it back in the mixer, it whipped up perfectly! I will be making it again, as it was approved by the chocolate lovers in my family. Except next time I will know exactly what to do to thicken it up!

The bling on top is blue candy melts with clear sugar crystals. Same technique as the pumpkins here.

I love these plastic cupcake boxes. The cupcakes slide in and out easily, nothing gets messed up from bumping into each other, and they are stackable!

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Tagged as candy melts, chocolate, chocolate frosting

October 28, 2011 · 10:04 pm

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Halloween cupcake time! These were for kids attending a Christian school, so they couldn’t be anything scary… No jack-o-lanterns, bats, spiders, ghosts, etc. Instead we did just regular pumpkins, without the faces.

I used the same technique for these pumpkins as the paw prints from my Puppy Cupcakes. This time I wanted to add some sprinkles. (Kids love sprinkles!)

Outline the pumpkin…

Fill it all in…

Swish it all around with a toothpick to make it smooth…

Cover it in sprinkles, and shove a little topper in it…

These are the giant confetti sprinkles I used for the toppers. My husband broke them perfectly for me so that they would look like stems.

Aren’t they gorgeous? I got very excited about these

I found these awesome cupcake boxes at the baking store.

All packed up safely ready to go to school!

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Tagged as buttercream, candy melts, halloween, pumpkin, sprinkles

October 19, 2011 · 9:50 pm

Puppy Cupcakes

I got an email on a Monday wanting to confirm that I was still making puppy cookies for Wednesday. Uhhh I don’t remember ever being asked to make puppy cookies! I was slightly freaking out, not knowing how to respond… I politely said I couldn’t find any correspondence regarding puppy cookies.. and she realized she had forgotten to ask. phew!

It was too late to try and make cookies, so I offered to do cupcakes instead. Puppy was the theme, and she asked for them in fall colors. Since I was crunched on time I couldn’t do anything fancy like with fondant or something.. this is what I came up with:

I melted dark chocolate candy melts and loaded it into a squeeze bottle. Squirted it onto wax paper into little circles, smooth it out and then let it harden (which I seem to have no pictures of… except in the corner of the one below!) This was easy peezy!

Then I colored my frosting half orange and half yellow, loaded it into the piping bag a blob at a time of each color. Then it came out all swirly! (It kind of just looks orange here but trust me on the swirly.) Lastly I peeled the circles off the wax paper, and placed them on top the cupcake.

Overall I think the technique worked well and I will definitely be doing it again!

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Tagged as buttercream, candy melts, paw prints

September 17, 2011 · 2:46 pm

Cookie Truffle Balls

I found the inspiration for these here. Brilliant! Why did I not think of this sooner when I heard about cake pops? These are basically the same idea as cake pops/cake balls, except instead of using cake, you use cookies!

I baked my normal sugar cookie recipe, making sure to cook them a little longer than normal so they were extra crispy. Then I turned them to dust in my food processor. I guess you could put them in a bag and smash them if you wanted, but I didn’t want to end up with chunks. I used almost a full batch of cookies. (I baked a few for a friend with the same batch, pics of those soon.)

I mixed in cream cheese. I used my KitchenAid for this because it would have taken me forever to mix it in by hand. I just kept adding more until it all started to stick together in a huge clump. it came out to about 1 1/2 bricks. (Oh and I used the kind that’s 1/3 less fat.)

Then I formed balls (just like cake pops) and set them on wax paper. I did a few with sticks, but I left the rest just as balls so they could be cute little truffles.

They sat in the fridge/freezer for a few minutes, then they were dipped in candy melts. These I was making for a friend’s birthday, so I did her favorite colors.

The purple candy melts you buy were kind of a weird color so I added some purple food coloring (Gel kind only, you don’t want to add liquid to candy melts!)

Oh and she has a twin, so I made some for him too. His “favorite” colors are all his sports teams’ colors. I had a choice between red-gold (49ers), purple-silver-black (Kings), or orange-black-white (Giants). I chose red-gold because the ones I was making for his sister were going to be purple and I wanted them to be different. I was trying to figure out how I was going to do gold when I saw these at Michael’s:

They look perfectly gold! So I made them and they looked awesome. Then I tried to move them and they got really messed up and I got SOO mad at myself for trying to move them… so I remade them. Don’t they look awesome!

THEN my friend finally texts me back… see when I bought the “gold” candy melts it occurred to me that some people are allergic to peanuts. I have known these guys all my life and I figured he wasn’t, but it is still important to ask. Turns out, he IS allergic. Yeah, all his were completely done at this point. (Plus there’s the 3 that I had to redo because I tried to move them.) GRRRRR….

So then I had to redo all of his in red-white. They still turned out great but not as “wow” as the gold ones. Oh well.

…and then I needed a ride to dinner with them and the friend driving said she’d only pick me up if I made her some treats too. Anyone okay with getting paid in treats is fine with me! It’s not hard to guess that these were my favorites!

Everyone at work is getting the rest, so I just made them fun colors with what I had left. The ones with sticks actually came out pretty cute too.

I bought these cute little treat boxes at Michaels for the ones that were gifts. I was just disappointed that I couldn’t fit more in each one. Next time I will get the “candy” sized papers and make the balls a little smaller…

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Filed under Candy, Cookies, Misc

Tagged as blue, candy melts, cookie balls, pink, purple, red, truffles

August 1, 2011 · 8:10 pm

Strawberry Cake Pops

OMG Yum!

A friend is about to go back to school to Chicago in about a week. She was sad that we didn’t get to make anything while she was here all summer, so I told her to come on over Sunday and we made cake pops together.

I must have gotten lucky the first time I make cake pops, cuz I didn’t have any issues. These were much more difficult but we learned a lot so hopefully next time will be perfect again.

Lesson 1 – I think we put too much frosting in them because it was very wet. They just didn’t harden up enough and kept falling off the sticks. And they are WAY sweeter than last time. Almost too much for me to handle. Almost…

Lesson 2 – I think some of them were just too big. They started to crack while sitting upright. The smaller ones are okay, so I’ll just have to watch the size next time.

Lesson 3 – Mixing red candy melts with white candy melts does not make pink. I guess we could have just colored the white ones, but we really thought it would turn pink. Oh well.