1. Prepare the ice cream cone first. Glue large sprinkles onto the base of the cone with white Elmer’s glue. Make a hole into the top of the cone and insert a foil cake topper (ours is from ABC Cake Decorating in Orange, CA). If you don’t have a foil topper you can use your own home made streamers.
2. Using crepe paper, make 2 rosettes. This cute polka dot streamer is from Party City. With a hot glue gun, glue the cone onto the first rosette. Then glue the rosette/cone onto a plain headband. This simple headband is from H&M.
3. Using hot glue, glue the second rosette to the bottom so the headband is sandwiched between the two rosettes. See photo below. Voila! An ice cream cone party hat.
Here’s another last minute valentine treat for you. We posted this recipe at Halloween. But peanut butter hearts are just as yummy in February.
Ingredients:
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1/3 cup softened butter (My mom says the butter must be softened–not melted and not hard–so your dough turns out right. She said, “No one wants lumps of butter in their dough.”)
1 lb powdered sugar–you might not use all of this
chocolate for melting–you can use chocolate chips, Hershey bars, or whatever you’d like
white candy melts
white nonpareils
coarse salt, such as kosher or sea salt
Directions:
Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, mix the butter & peanut butter until smooth. Slowly add the powdered sugar until it forms a soft dough. Adding too much powdered sugar will cause the dough to crumble, adding not enough will cause the dough to be too soft to dip in the chocolate. You should end up with a stiff, but moldable dough. On your counter top, roll out the peanut butter dough with a rolling pin to a 1/2 inch thickness. Use powdered sugar on the counter and rolling pin if needed to keep the dough from sticking. We used mini cookie cutters in heart shapes for our treats. According to my mom, it’s best if you can let the cut out shapes sit out overnight to let them dry out a little bit. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler on the stove top or in a glass dish in the microwave. Dip the shapes into the white or regular chocolate with a fork and place onto wax paper or parchment to cool. Sprinkle nonpareils or a pinch of coarse salt onto the uncooled chocolate hearts. Place your finished treats into the refrigerator to help them set. Use a thin metal spatula to remove them from the parchment and to avoid getting finger prints on your valentine treats.
Chocolate dipped strawberries are the perfect dessert. They’re gorgeous enough to impress your sweetie and easy enough to make for your kids. I have even given these to my kids’ teachers for special occasions. And since Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, it’s the perfect time to give these yummy little treats a try. You can whip these up in less than an hour and look like a superstar!
Supplies: fresh strawberries with their stems on; chocolate candy melts or chocolate chips; optional garnishes such as white chocolate, dark chocolate, chopped nuts; a disposable frosting bag or quart size zipper bag
Directions: Carefully wash and thoroughly dry the strawberries. Melted chocolate won’t stick to wet strawberries. Melt a bag of chocolate chips or chocolate candy melts in the microwave in a glass bowl. Stir the chocolate every 30 seconds to keep from burning. Hold on tightly to the top of a strawberry and dip it into the chocolate. If you are using chopped nuts, roll the dipped strawberry in a small bowl of chopped nuts. Place the dipped strawberry onto a Silpat or piece parchment paper on top of a tray. If you are using white or dark chocolate for contrast, melt that chocolate in a glass bowl in the microwave. Transfer the melted white or dark chocolate to a disposable frosting bag or a quart size zipper bag. Snip a tiny hole at the bottom of the bag and gently squeeze the bag of chocolate to drizzle thin lines over the strawberries. Refrigerate the strawberries until you are ready to serve, at least 30 minutes.
Two of my daughters have already told me that they need to bring a decorated container to school to hold their valentine cards. Sara came up with this flower pot valentine card holder made from an ice cream container. It’s just big enough to hold your valentines and small enough to transport to school.
Supplies: an empty and clean ice cream container with lid, an exacto knife, pink and brown spray paint or acrylic paint, some sucker flowers (tutorial here)
1. Using an exacto knife, cut half of the lid away and carefully punch out 3-5 holes on the other side.
2. Paint the ice cream container pink or red and the lid brown. Let dry.
3. Place the lid back onto the container and poke sucker flowers in the holes.
