You can do this - painted macarons and chocolate candy sweets

I am so excited to share two of my favourite DIY edible projects with you today. 

Not everyone has the time (or the skills) to make all of the pretty edible sweets that we see on Instagram. Taking a cookie decorating workshop has been at the top of my "wish list" for a while. For now, I am happy to just add hand painted details to pre-made macarons and create these simple candy treats.

My Easter themed hand painted macarons are very easy to create using vodka, gel food colouring and of course pre-made macarons. My macarons came from Macaronz. I should point out that the colours of the macarons were more important to me for this project than the flavours.

Here's the supplies that you'll need to paint on macarons: vodka, gel food colouring, paint brushes for baked goods and a small paint palette.

1. Painting with gel food colouring and vodka is very much like working with watercolour paints. Add a small amount the gel food colours into the paint palette and water it down using just a little vodka. The more vodka you add the more "watered down" the colour will become.

2. Paint your design using the food safe paint brushes on the macarons. And that's it!

Pretty simple right?  You can use my examples as inspiration to make these yourself or come up with your own designs. 

Tip: Get a couple of extra macarons to practice on first. Practice with different paint brushes and test your colours. You can just eat the test samples so it's a win/win ;)

Note: The vodka paint does not make the macaron soggy and it does not change the taste of the macaron. From everything that I have been able to research on this technique, the vodka evaporates so it's safe to give these to children. 

My Easter themed macarons included a chick, bunny, and whimsical decorated egg and carrot patterns.

If you want to use these painted macarons as party favours head over to this blog post for packaging ideas.

I love candy melts and they are a basic baking supply that I stock in my pantry all year round. I used vanilla chocolate candy melts in lollipop molds to create these pretty and easy Easter theme candy treats.

Here's the supplies that you'll need : lollipop candy mold, lollipop sticks, (vanilla) candy melts, chocolate M&Ms, assorted candy sprinkles, microwave safe containers.

1. Place the lollipop sticks in the candy molds. 

2. Melt the candy melts as per the instructions on the package. 

3. Pour the melted candy into the candy mold.

4. Working quickly before the melted candy hardens in the molds add sprinkles and M&M chocolate candies to decorate.

5. Allow to completely harden for an hour. Pop them from the molds and you are done.

I think that these would make wonderful party favours and you can find more information on how to package these in this blog post.

I like to display sweets on sticks in jars filled with candies or coarse sugar. This display idea works whether you are serving these (unpackaged) treats on a sweet table or setting them up as a favour/take away.

Tip: I use paper straws that have been cut to different heights in the jar to hold the lollipop sticks in place and add to the visual presentation.

Have a sweet (long) weekend!

Creating sweet tables has to be one of my favourite things to do during the holidays. 

You don't need to have a lot of different treats to create a holiday sweet table. I used assorted serving dishes, buffalo gift boxes, burlap ribbons, mini trees and lights for my festive set up.

I prefer to put out a little bit of everything in smaller containers and then refill them every once in a while so that the display looks some what full for most of time.

Here's how I set up my little stress free sweet table:

Buffalo plaid gift boxes are both functional and decorative in my set ups. If you don't have gift boxes, you can create a similar look using books covered with wrapping paper "jackets" like I did here.

I have created these snow globe inspired jars filled with cookies as hostess gifts for years. This year I thought that it would be fun to make one for myself and use it as the focal point of my sweet table display. 

 I use coarse sugar to create a snowy base in the glass containers.The mini gingerbread house and cookies are from Mad Batter Bakers. The container is more of a display element so you may want to fill another serving dish with gingerbread cookies for guests to easily take and eat.

I filled a candy dish with custom made sugar cookies from Emma's Sweets. You can add coarse sugar to the bottom of the candy dish so that the cookies will stand up.

Another small candy dish was filled with assorted colours of french macarons from Macaronz and placed on a gift box for height.

Not everything on your sweet table has to be baked goods. I like to fill larger containers with chocolates, popcorn, candy and nuts.

Once the serving dishes have been set up I fill in large spaces with gift boxes tied up with ribbon. I like to use pretty gift boxes in my holiday decor and in January I fill them with Christmas tree decorations for storage.

Finally I add in mini trees and battery operated strings of lights.

Guests may think that your sweet table is too pretty to eat so make sure that you tell them it's okay to help themselves!

Sweet table set up tricks for your Halloween treats

Are you hosting a Halloween party this weekend? Here's a few of my tips and tricks for setting up a Halloween sweet table. 

Tip no. 1 - It's okay to use an assortment of different containers and cake stands to display your treats. If you are going to use coloured dishes just try to keep them all to one colour so that the colours of the treats will take centre stage. 

Tip no 2 - Keep your treats simple and don't stress about having to make everything yourself. I used a combination of store bought treats (donuts and two-bite brownies) and combined them with some easy to make treats (candy bark and a chocolate covered cereals) and bulk food candies (gummy worms and candy covered popcorn).

The candy bark was so easy to make using melted chocolate and assorted candies and sprinkles. I was inspired to make my candy bark after reading the recipe in SheEntertains magazine.

Whenever I don't have time to make brownies I buy one-bite brownies and decorate them with store bought cake icing and sprinkles. Everyone just assumes that I made them myself. 

Trick no. 3 Use some Halloween decorations in your set up that work with the colours of your treats. I added pumpkins that I decorated!

Tip no. 4 - Try to elevate some of your serving containers so that everything is not at the same height. I used a few wood slabs in my set up - stacks of books or set up boxes will work too.

I decorated a number of pumpkins this fall using paint, glitter, tissue paper, chalk markers and gold paint markers. You can see some of them here and on Instagram.

The gold polka dots on my pumpkin were created with gold tissue paper and mod podge. It took me less than 15 minutes to decorate the pumpkin and all of my polka dots are the same size!

Here's a quick tip for cutting perfect tissue paper circles - use a paper punch! I find that it is easier to punch three or four sheets of tissue paper along with one sheet of text paper. 

I hope that your weekend is boo-tiful.