Tuesday 13 December 2011

Marshmallow Bouquet and the Heart Shaped Nut!

My little granddaughter Hope came over to ask me something and I showed her the picture I had taken of the wonderful heart shaped walnut in a shell she gave me the night before. I was so thrilled when she gave it to me. I love that she notices the little details and that she knows how much I adore hearts. I photographed it on my paper fabric background and decided it would be totally FAB as a Valentine card…I’m nuts about you! I shall re-photograph it properly



Anyway, she saw an opened bag of marshmallows on my windowsill and asked if she could have one. I said “No! I want to dip them in chocolate first” I said, so that is what we did.

Hope rang homeand asked if she could stay and then Grace ran across to play too. We started by melting milk chocolate in the microwave. We melted dark and white chocolate too. We pushed ALL the marshmallows onto barbeque sticks and then I found some oasis blocks and soaked them in water so we could stand our sticks in them to let our marshmallows dry.
I showed the girls how to swirl the mallow in the chocolate and our first attempt was pretty disastrous!!! FAR too much chocolate stayed on it and when we stood it up it all dripped off!! We decided on a better method. Here it is, from the top, in case we ever want to do it again or if you want to give it a go:

·       Push barbeque sticks in mashmallows and set aside

·       Break up the chocolate into a glass bowl. Microwave it to melt on a medium setting. Stir every 30 seconds or so. We melted white, milk and dark chocolate.

·       Soak oasis in water or find something else to stick your barbeque sticks into. Maybe half a grapefruit or a potato?

·       Swirl the mallows into the chocolate. Press the end on the mallow against the side of the bowl and swirl gently to remove the excess chocolate. Do the same with the side of the mallow too


·       Now for the fun! We worked in pairs, one person twirled the mallow stick while the other one sprinkled on sugary goodies.

      We used citrus flavoured sugar strands, blue and green sugar crystals, and best of all…tiny silver stars. TIP: Use a plate to catch all the runaway sprinkles so they can be put back into the jar. Have a clean plate for each variety.


·       We piped some of ours with dark chocolate. You can make a piping bag from silicone paper folded into a cone shape. Fill the cone with the melted chocolate and then snip a teeny-weeny bit off the end and drizzle it all over the chocolate covered mallow. You can be very creative here and write names or draw heart, stars and other tiny designs too. Work quickly as the chocolate sets quickly!

·       Finally, set the mallows aside to set and then make them up into a bouquet for a very special friend. It is a good idea to keep them in a lump of oasis and tie them up with cellophane and a pretty bow. I photographed our finished arrangement and then added a few words to the picture in Picasa and printed it out as a gift card.

I took our bouquet round to Lynda’s the next day and she was thrilled! She adores mallows.

 This was the girls favourite part. Clean up time!
Hardly any washing up required!!







6 comments:

Gina said...

That looked like lots of fun!

Sandie said...

What fun! The marshmallows look truely scrumptious.

Anonymous said...

Looks fun! Hugs Lynda xxx

dandelion dreamer said...

It was a lot of fun and kept the gilrs blissfully amused for an hour!! We are now in the process of assembling an Ikea gingerbread house...FAR more difficult. Will post it if it survives. Hah!
It's good to be back here. Putting photos on my web album is the answer to getting them on here

Sandra Rowney said...

I had to laugh, I got all the way down through the lovely chocolaty stuff to the comments place on your blog and there was a advert...to drop 3 dress sizes. Are you kidding? :)

Zue said...

You still are havng fun I am glad to see. That would be the best Valentine card design, ever!
Microwaving chocolate is so much better than heating over a hot pan.. Brill!!
Your little ones give you so much fun don't they:)? :)
Sue xxxxx