Unicorn Poop Cookies

My sister sent me a link to this recipe. Gross? Not really, we used to make cow patty cookies (better known as no bake cookies) when we were kids. Unicorn poop...why not? They're only kids once.

Ingredients:

1/2c butter, softened
1/4c shortening
1c sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Food coloring
disco dust  (It turns out that disco dust is just for decoration and not meant to be eaten.  I substituted Wiltons Cake Sparkles)
sparkle gel
star sprinkles
Wiltons sugar pearls (The original recipe calls for rainbow, but my girls picked pink)



The unlabeled bottle is Wiltons Cake Sparkles. I was substituting this for the Disco Dust. I bought all these (except the food coloring) at Micheals.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla. Slowly add flour, baking powder and salt. Divide the dough into smaller bowls and add food coloring. We used neon colors in blue, green, purple, red and yellow. Well, because unicorns poop rainbows, right? Chill for an hour.



On a floured counter, roll out the dough into "snakes". When you've got five snakes, combine them and roll into one "snake". This is probably the most labor intensive portion of the project. Form your poop and put them on a greased cookie sheet.



Bake the cookies in a preheated oven at 400°F for 8 minutes. When you take them out of the oven, immediately press in the sugar pearls. You want to push them halfway down into the cookie or else they will just roll off the cookie. Allow the cookies to cool. Then squirt a little sparkle gel on the cookies and "paint" them on with an unused paintbrush. Add star sprinkles and disco dust. (I substituted Cake Sparkles for disco dust.)



Look at those kids, working hard.



Voila! Unicorn poop cookies!

Note: The sparkle gel will always remain a bit tacky. Do not stack these cookies.



Source: http://makingmemorieswithyourkids.blogspot.com/2012/03/unicorn-poop-cookies.html

Pinkalicious Popcorn

I was going to make the girls green popcorn tonight just because it's so close to St. Patrick's Day, but Kaitlyn requested PINK!! This is a fun recipe for movie popcorn, or for the holidays...you can use any combination of food coloring depending on the occasion.

Ingredients:
2/3 cup popcorn kernels, popped
2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup half and half
1 Tbsp light corn syrup
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
6 drops red food coloring (or any other color you'd like)
wax paper


Directions:
Pour popped popcorn into two very large mixing bowls, set aside. In a large saucepan whisk together sugar, half and half, corn syrup and salt. Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly until sugar has dissolved. Heat mixture to 232 degrees, stirring occasionally. Immediately remove from heat and pour in vanilla and food coloring. Drizzle mixture over popped popcorn. Gently stir popcorn until mixture is evenly coated and coating begins to dry (you'll notice the popcorn kernels separating). Pour mixture onto wax paper and allow to dry about 20 minutes. Store in an airtight container.

Dessert Island

Here is a cute snack that the kids can help make. It would be cute for a beach themed or pirate themed party, but we couldn't wait that long.

You'll need:

Pudding cups
graham crackers
Pirouette wafers (I used Pepperidge Farm)
green Laffy Taffy candies
Whoppers
Icing

Put the graham crackers into a sealed plastic bag and crush with a rolling pin. Remove the lid from a pudding cup and pour the crushed graham crackers on top of the pudding. Place the cookie stick in the cup. With clean scissors, carefully cut four leaves out of the green Laffy Taffy candy. Pinch the leaves together at one end. Use a small amount of icing to attach the leaves to the top of the cookie stick. Place two Whoppers in the "sand" for coconuts.

Easter Cupcakes

We made these this weekend just for fun. I had cut the recipe off a cupcake box a few weeks ago. The kids really enjoyed decorating the cupcakes.

Ingredients:
1 Box yellow cake mix
water, vegetable oil, and eggs called for on the cake box mix

Decorations:
2 1/2c shredded coconut
1 container of vanilla frosting
m&m's
orange gumdrops
whopper robin eggs (next time I'm going to try jelly beans)
yellow and green food coloring

Mix up the cupcake batter following the instructions on the box. Bake as directed and allow to cool. Divide the coconut in half and place in ziploc bags. Add 4 drops of food coloring to the bag. Shake to mix. Frost the cupcakes with white frosting. Top with yellow or green coconut. For eyes, add brown m&m'. Cut orange gum drops to resemble a beak. Place on cupcake. Add Robin Eggs to the green cupcakes. If I had thought about it, I would have bought some red licorice strips to turn the green cupcake into a basket.

Ants on a Log

I am not nearly as patient with my kids as I should be. They like to "help" me cook, but that usually translates into more dishes, a bigger mess, and a mommy who has lost all her patience. I realize that this is a short-coming on my part so I've been letting them into the kitchen to help more often. This is a recipe that I let Kaitlyn help me make.

Ingredients:
Celery Sticks
Peanut Butter
Raisins

It's pretty self explanatory. Kaitlyn uses a butter knife to put peanut butter on the celery sticks and puts the "ants" on the peanut butter. Of course, then she decided she didn't like raisins and picked them all off before eating the celery stick, but it was still a fun activity to do at snack time.

*You can also substitute cream cheese for the peanut butter.

The Lost Art of Popping Corn

I learned how to pop popcorn on the stovetop as much out of necessity as for fun. Our microwave is acting wonky. It's one of those built in models. We told the property manager that it wasn't working properly, but I've learned this property management agency is slow to fix things. Bummer for us. Whenever we pop popcorn it pops maybe half the bag half of the time. The other half of the time nothing pops. So today, I learned how to pop popcorn using only a 5-quart pan and a lid. It's so easy that I can't believe I've never done it before. Plus, my lids are glass so I have the fun of watching the corn pop. I'm easily amused, I know.

You'll need

2 Tbsp oil, olive oil works just fine
1/4c of popcorn kernels
salt

Turn the burner on to a med-high heat. Add the oil to the pan with one or two kernels of popping corn. Hold the pan on the heat with the lid in place, shaking the pan back and forth a few times a minute. When these tester kernels pop, your oil is hot enough. Add the remainder of the popcorn kernels to the pan and replace the lid. Continue to shake the pan back and forth a few times a minute until the corn finishes popping. Pour into a bowl and add salt. The whole process takes less than five minutes.

Taste the Rainbow

I first saw this on the Facebook page of a high school friend and I thought, "I can do that!!". (Thanks Kristy!) What a fun project for kids on a rainy day! You'll need:

White Cake Mix
1 1/4 c. water
1/3 c. vegetable oil
3 egg whites
Food coloring

Cool Whip

Mix the cake mix, water, oil, and eggs. Divide batter evenly into six bowls. Add food coloring according to list below.

Drop cupcake paper into muffin pan. Evenly distribute the purple batter into 18 muffin cups, smooth over with a spoon. Distribute blue, then green and so on (smoothing the batter between colors). Divide the cake mix sparingly because it adds up fast, by the time you get to red, the cups are full!!

Bake the cupcakes at 350F for 20 minutes. Before serving, drop a dollop of cool whip (cloud) on the cupcake.

For rainbow colors:
purple: 9 drops of red, 6 drops of blue food coloring
blue: 12 drops of blue food coloring
green: 12 drops of green food coloring
yellow: 12 drops of yellow food coloring
orange: 12 drops of yellow, 4 drops of red food coloring
red: 20 drops of red food coloring

Seriously, the hardest part of this recipe was getting the toddler to stop licking the batter while I wasn't looking.