Gift Idea: Homemade Marshmallows & Cocoa Mix

My love affair with homemade marshmallows began years ago, when my husband was in grad school, we were living in Oregon and I made a ridiculous purchase of marshmallows at Williams-Sonoma.  I still, to this day cannot believe I paid so much for those marshmallows, but they were good and I figured I would give it the o' college try (errr, grad school wife try, rather) and see about making them myself.  I did, with great success (cutting them into shapes that first year.  Trees for Christmas, hearts for Valentine's Day), and have never looked back (well, I do still look at the back of the box, when I pop into Williams-Sonoma, to see the price climb each holiday season).  Here are two recipes that will make you feel like a gift giving champ!

Find my recipe, for fluffy marshmallow perfection in a blog post 

from several years ago.  Marshmallow link.

See all those delicious flecks of vanilla bean?  Be still, my heart.

You'll see the full step by step on the old marshmallow post, but 

I cannot get over how much I love cutting huge, square marshmallows!

I bought cute little paper 'fruit' crates at the craft store (they were

labeled as food safe, FYI) and then popped the filled crate

into a clear cello bag and tied with hemp rope.  I decided I needed

to send hot chocolate with the homemade marshmallows, so I filled 

large Ball jars (they were narrow, yet rather tall...a style I had never

seen before, but am now obsessed).  To create this hot chocolate

concoction of love I put the grater attachment in my food processer

 and shaved big bars of dark chocolate (I bought the large bars

from Trader Joe's).  The shavings yielded quite a bit, but I decided

I wanted to gift more hot chocolate so I did equal parts dark chocolate

shavings, unsweetened cocoa powder, confectioner's sugar and a

pinch of sea salt. 

YUM YUM YUM!

On the back of the little label I attached to the 

hot chocolate mix, I placed the directions of

1/3 cup mix to 1 cup hot milk.

I think this is a gift that should extend well into the New Year!

Who wouldn't love to receive this from their Valentine?

xo.

Crispy 'Nests' with Grape 'Eggs'

I didn't even think of putting this on the blog, but when I told one of my besties about them she said, YOU HAVE TO BLOG THAT!  This tasty treat turned out cuter and tastier than I could have imagined, and were the perfect treat for little kindergarteners learning about birds! 

Here's what I did:

Simple, simple...follow any ol' recipe for rice crispy treats EXCEPT sub 1 cup of golden graham cereal and 1 cup pretzel sticks for 2 of the cups of rice cereal.  If you aren't making these into nests, transfer the mix to a buttered 9x13 pan and watch the bars quickly disappear.  If nests are on the agenda, use a large scoop to portion out the sticky mix onto parchment paper.  I then put a bit of coconut oil on a standard tablespoon and formed the nests.  Nests are organic matter, so remind yourself of that if a few look like they belong in the HOT MESS column.

 Little nests.  I transferred them to a lidded container for transport to kindergarten.
Sending the washed and dried grapes in a separatecontainer to be added at snack time. 

Of course these will be a perfect spring treat, to switch up for the old

chow mein bird nests we all devour around Easter time!  

Kid and Parent approved in taste and appearance, FYI!

xo.

Rice Crispy S'more Bars!

 

 

Oh YUM!  All the goodness of a s'more, 

folded into a rice crispy treat!

What you need:

1 bag + 3 additional cups mini marshmallows

1 stick of butter
9 cups crispy rice cereal

5 cups Golden Grahams (don't buy generic on this one, 

I find they actually taste generic!) 

3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 tsp sea salt

buttered 9x13 pan

 

 In a large stock melt, over medium heat, melt the butter

 and the marshmallows (reserving 1 cup of the marshmallows

for a bit later) stir in the sea salt.  Once melted add the 2 types 

of cereal. Once cereal is coated, fold in the reserved cup of 

marshmallows and the semi-sweet chocolate chips.

 Press the mixture into a buttered 9x13 pan 

(I butter the back of a spatula to press)

 

 Yum Yum Yum!  I made these for the made up

holiday 'National S'mores Day'! We were so 

excited to celebrate, with these tasty treats!

  I mean you could basically call these breakfast bars!

Enjoy!

Candy Houses & Cocoa

It was a snowy day...just perfect for having some neighborhood kids over for

candy house constructing and lukewarm cocoa.  Oh what fun it was!!!

All the goodies for construction (and snacking, of course)

Frosting in the front right corner was perfection for 'glueing' the

graham crackers together and making drippy icicles.

Frosting:

1 c Marshmallow Fluff

3 c Confectioner's Sugar

1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla (in case you want to eat it, make it tasty!)

1/4 tsp sea salt (to balance out the fluffy sugar concoction)

Water (tablespoon at a time, just to thin out a tiny bit)

=

PERFECTION

My cheeky little monkey put on her 'holiday costume' before her

friends arrived (in my head I thought, 'more like your uniform...')

I put aluminum foil over paper plates for added stability, and because

the pattern on the plate was summery.

I made 'party favor' Rudolph cookies.  I saw a picture of these in a magazine at the

doctor's office, but there wasn't a recipe...so I decided on peanut butter cookies,

with pretzel 'antlers' (I couldn't remember if the picture shown was whole pretzels...

would have been much easier!!!  Will do that next year!)

chocolate chip 'eyes' and a peanut m&m 'Rudolph nose'.

Baked the cookie with pretzels and chocolate chips pressed in at 350 degrees

for 6 minutes, pressed the peanut m&m in and baked 2 more minutes. 

The m&m tended to crack if baked longer.

Contemplation! 

I want to live here.  A candy A-frame...get outta town!

This time of year, when I feel like cocoa is OFTEN NECESSARY,

I make up a small container of ganache and leave it in the fridge

for quick and easy cocoa making.

Ganache:

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips 

1 cup half & half

1 T unsweetened cocoa powder

 pinch of sea salt

(I made it with fat free half & half, because I had that on hand)

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of ganache per cup of milk in a saucepan.

It is delish!

Does it get any better than this, for a 3 year old? 

Finished product #1!  'Symettry'

Finished product #2! 'The Shack'

Finished product #3! 'The Camper'

Finished product #4! 'A-frame'

Good times for these little kiddos!  It was off for some sledding, after this

crazy rush of sugar.  Such a perfect, snowy day!!!