By Kelly Youngblood
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And the main ingredient on this Valentine’s Day menu!
With Valentine’s Day a mere 10 days away, have you thought about making any sweet treats for your little cupids yet?
If you’re looking for recipes to fall in love with, check out these delectable desserts that are simple to make and even easier to eat.
Sweet and Salty
You’ve probably seen both of these snacks around the Christmas season, but with just a little tweaking you can easily turn them into a Valentine’s Day treat.
For the Valentine’s Day Crunch, mix 2 cups of Cheerios, 2 cups of Rice Chex, one cup of pretzel sticks, and 1 cup of peanuts in a large bowl. Melt a tray of vanilla baking bars (like Candiquik) in the microwave. Pour over the contents in the bowl and gently stir it all together. Then add a cup or so of pink and red M & M’s. (I like to add the M & M’s after theCandiquik so they don’t melt as much.) Mix everything together nicely and spread out on a cookie sheet to let it cool. Before it completely hardens, add some sprinkles to make it even more festive. Then just break up the mix and enjoy. This is a great snack mix to bag up and hand out at a party.
There are many variations you can do with this crunchy mix. Take out the peanuts or use cashews. Add peanut butter chips if you love them as much as I do. Get creative with your ingredients! You could also use white chocolate instead of the Candiquik, but I’ve found it’s quite a bit more expensive.
For the Valentine’s Day Pretzel Buttons, line up rows of square pretzels on a cookie sheet. Add a Hershey’s Hug, Kiss or even a candy melt on top of each pretzel and place in a 350 degree pre-heated oven for about 3 minutes. Take the tray out of the oven, just as the chocolate is starting to soften, and place an M & M on top- that’s it! Place the tray in the refrigerator so the chocolate can harden up a bit.
Here are a couple of tips for you about the buttons. I found once the pretzels cooled, the candy melts had a tendency to fall off so I think I prefer the Hershey’s Kisses.
Also, I must give you a parental warning here. As I discovered in my baking experiments, certain color combinations of candy melts and M & M’s could lead to a, a-hem, a treat that’s more appropriate for grown-ups. As a few of my friends pointed out, the R-rated version of this treat would be great for a baby shower, bachelor party, or just a funny treat for your husband!
Cherry Chip Cookies
If you’re looking for a different twist on the traditional Valentine’s Day sugar cookie, this could be a winner. I found this recipe in a cookbook called, “101 Things to do with a Cake Mix.” I love making cookies out of cake mix- they come out so moist and chewy!
This recipe (which is named “Valentine’s Day Cookie” in the cookbook) calls for only 3 ingredients: 1 box of cherry chip cake mix, 2 eggs, and 1/3 cup of vegetable oil. I had never had cherry chip cake before so it was a new taste to me, but I liked it and thought it felt very “valentine-y.”
After you mix those three ingredients in a bowl, you scoop out spoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet. Then, according to the recipe, you mold those balls of dough into a heart-shape. I had trouble getting the dough off of my fingers because it had a very rubber-cement consistency to it, so making them into a heart shape was just not in my realm of capability. So I just skipped that step and put them in the oven for about 10 minutes. Once cooled, I iced them and covered them with sprinkles. Voila! Try them and tell me what you think!
Red Velvet Peanut Butter Blossoms
I saw this recipe on the website i am baker and thought they looked like a very romantic cookie to indulge in on Valentine’s Day. I had most of the ingredients on hand but did have to run out and get some red food coloring gel and colored sanding sugar. I followed the recipe on the website and here is how my cookies turned out!
Just add Sprinkles
I’ve found that adding sprinkles is an easy way to turn food into something fun and festive! Roll ice cream sandwiches in pink and red sprinkles and you have a great after-school Valentine’s Day treat. Let your kids ice their own cinnamon rolls and add their own sprinkles for some breakfast time fun. Add some food coloring to the icing to make it pink- easy and fun! Tint vanilla pudding pink with food coloring and yes, you guessed it, add some sprinkles on top to make another holiday treat. I’m pretty sure my kids are convinced anything tastes better with sprinkles on it.
Kelly is a mom to three wild and wonderful children and a freelance writer for a weekly newspaper. She has lived in the “suburbs” of C-U for more than two decades, but is always finding something new and interesting to do in the area.