Homemade Valentine" s Candy Gift Ideas: Chocolate Covered Heart Rice Crispy Treats
How many Valentine's gift ideas have you come up with? How about homemade candy gifts? What could be more romantic? And I have a unique gift that will bring him or her a smile to their face and make their taste buds sizzle. Heart rice crispy treats not only look cute and romantic, but extremely tasty. What makes them unique is I've included some ingredients that most homemade treats don't have. For starters they are covered in white chocolate, candies mixed in and one special ingredient too. Heart rice crispy treats make great candy gifts not only for your sweetheart, but for teachers and tasty party favors for kids school parties.
So how do you make these treats?
First start with a regular rice crispy treats recipe. Then there are a few supplies and ingredients you will need. You should already have most of them in your kitchen. The most important piece of equipment you will need is a heart-shaped cookie cutter and some plastic sauce bottles for decorating. For extra ingredients have some fun. Choose between several candies to mix into the rice crispy treat batter for extra flavor and texture such as hard cinnamon candies, gummies, M&Ms or Skittles. You can add toppings instead of mixing in the candies, so choose between mini chocolate chips or even those famous Valentine heart candies. But of course the most important ingredient is the chocolate. My treats have multi-colored white chocolate wafers, pink, red and white. And there's one ingredient that adds an extra kick of flavor throughout each treat: candy flavoring. Candy flavoring is an oil that comes in small vials that you could buy at your local baking supplies store, at Michael's or online, Amazon offers many different flavors. These vials come in many different flavors from cinnamon, cherry or pineapple to cotton candy, mango or peppermint. For Valentine's Day I like cinnamon or strawberry. The trick to adding candy flavoring to rice crispy treats is to melt the marshmallows down to a liquid before mixing in the cereal. While the marshmallow is in this liquid state add one to three drops and stir well.
There is a certain technique to decorate heart rice crispy treats that does require a certain order, but for the most part you decorate them much like you would sugar cookies. The sauce bottles are for the chocolate. You first melt the chocolate in the microwave or double boiler then pour it into the bottles. To keep the chocolate warm and liquid drop them into coffee mugs filled halfway with warm, NOT hot water. When the water cools fill it back up with warm water. And if you would like to add a few special touches to your treats use red and pink colored sugar crystals and sugar pearls. These treats are getting out of control. I'm getting hungry just thinking about them. I promise you've never seen anything like them, nor eaten for that matter.
How about packaging?
Keep it simple. Use cellophane bags and tie them off with ribbons. Michael's always has clearance ribbons. Slap on Valentine stickers or even pluck them with lollipop sticks to make rice crispy treat lollipops. Make three treats and drop them into a Valentine's coffee cup. If you don't wish to use cellophane bags then find some small pink or red paper gift bags. Add a gift tag with a romantic or cute gift message and you've just made a delicious and unique candy gift!
Copyright (c) 2012 Deluxe Sweets and Candy Gifts
So how do you make these treats?
First start with a regular rice crispy treats recipe. Then there are a few supplies and ingredients you will need. You should already have most of them in your kitchen. The most important piece of equipment you will need is a heart-shaped cookie cutter and some plastic sauce bottles for decorating. For extra ingredients have some fun. Choose between several candies to mix into the rice crispy treat batter for extra flavor and texture such as hard cinnamon candies, gummies, M&Ms or Skittles. You can add toppings instead of mixing in the candies, so choose between mini chocolate chips or even those famous Valentine heart candies. But of course the most important ingredient is the chocolate. My treats have multi-colored white chocolate wafers, pink, red and white. And there's one ingredient that adds an extra kick of flavor throughout each treat: candy flavoring. Candy flavoring is an oil that comes in small vials that you could buy at your local baking supplies store, at Michael's or online, Amazon offers many different flavors. These vials come in many different flavors from cinnamon, cherry or pineapple to cotton candy, mango or peppermint. For Valentine's Day I like cinnamon or strawberry. The trick to adding candy flavoring to rice crispy treats is to melt the marshmallows down to a liquid before mixing in the cereal. While the marshmallow is in this liquid state add one to three drops and stir well.
There is a certain technique to decorate heart rice crispy treats that does require a certain order, but for the most part you decorate them much like you would sugar cookies. The sauce bottles are for the chocolate. You first melt the chocolate in the microwave or double boiler then pour it into the bottles. To keep the chocolate warm and liquid drop them into coffee mugs filled halfway with warm, NOT hot water. When the water cools fill it back up with warm water. And if you would like to add a few special touches to your treats use red and pink colored sugar crystals and sugar pearls. These treats are getting out of control. I'm getting hungry just thinking about them. I promise you've never seen anything like them, nor eaten for that matter.
How about packaging?
Keep it simple. Use cellophane bags and tie them off with ribbons. Michael's always has clearance ribbons. Slap on Valentine stickers or even pluck them with lollipop sticks to make rice crispy treat lollipops. Make three treats and drop them into a Valentine's coffee cup. If you don't wish to use cellophane bags then find some small pink or red paper gift bags. Add a gift tag with a romantic or cute gift message and you've just made a delicious and unique candy gift!
Copyright (c) 2012 Deluxe Sweets and Candy Gifts
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