Coloring Frosting with Kool-Aid

When you decorate your Candy Cottage this fall, one easy way to jazz it up is to use colored frosting. Halloween is a great time to experiment with a yellow roof or a purple cottage.  Rather than use traditional food coloring, I decided to try Kool-Aid packets.

Believe it or not, Kool-Aid works great.  The colors turned out bright, and as an added bonus, the frosting smelled pretty wonderful (and might taste pretty yummy, too!) The best part is that the whole process is so easy. Simply dump a packet of Kool-Aid into your frosting container and stir.  If you would like, you could always put the frosting in a bowl first, but that is not necessary.  My only tip is to make sure to read to the packets, as a green packet is actually red Kiwi Strawberry.  Get mixing!

A Cabin in the Woods

While shopping for pretzels to make my pumpkins, I discovered that pretzels of all kinds were on sale, buy one get one free.  Not to pass up a good deal, I bought 4 different kinds (believe it or not, that barely scrapes the surface on pretzel variety...who knew there were so many types!).  Now what to do with hundreds of pretzels...make a Log Cabin of course! A log cabin is actually a relatively easy project for your entire family, including the littles. We ended up using rods, sticks, and butter snaps to decorate our cottage.  We kept it simple, but had fun decorating.  You most certainly could add snow, white cotton candy "smoke" from the chimney, and spruce trees.  Actually, your imagination and creativity are the limits really.  Have fun decorating a fall cottage this weekend, and share a picture with us!

Pumpkin Pretzels

While summer has its fun, fall has always been my favorite season. The cool, crisp air, changing leaves, hot apple cider, and bonfires are some of my favorite things.  The start of school signals the end of summer, and my mind has turned to all things autumn.  Log cabins and pumpkins are just two of my inspirations this week.  I ran across a cute pretzel pumpkin on Butter With a Side of Bread and decided to give it a try myself with several tweaks. You only need a few ingredients: mini pretzels, candy bark, coconut oil, food coloring, and green M & M's.

Pumpkin Pretzels:

-One bag of mini pretzels
-One package of white candy bark
-One package of M&M's with the green ones sorted out
-Red and Yellow food coloring
-1 Tablespoon of coconut oil (you can also use shortening)

I began by melting the candy bark.  You could use white chocolate chips, but chocolate can be so much harder to work with.  Since I have three young children, I only have time for easy.  The bark comes in cubes, just pop the cubes into a microwave safe container, and heat for 1 minute in your microwave.

Remove from microwave, stir in the coconut oil, and return to the microwave for 30 second intervals until the bark looks like this:

Now you are ready to add the food coloring.  I went with 14 drops yellow to 1 drop red, but it was too pale.  I continued to add a few red drops at a time until my candy coating reached the orange color I liked.  At this point, the real fun begins.  You simply dunk your pretzel in the orange coating, covering it well, and lay it on a sheet of parchment or wax paper to set. Don't forget to set the green M&M sideways in the little pretzel dip on top while the candy is still soft.

I will confess that your hands will most likely get quite messy.  There is no delicate way to dunk pretzels.  However, the end result is more than worth it.  My pretzel pumpkins set in 30 minutes, and are completely adorable.  Aside from the cuteness factor, they are a scrumptious mix of salty and sweet all wrapped up in one. They would be a cute addition to any fall Candy Cottage. Happy Pretzel Dipping!

Gingerbred Houses, Halloween and The Candy Cottage!

We invited some friends to have some Halloween fun decorating The Candy Cottage! The children started out making their memories by using a can of store bought frosting and added some orange food coloring. They were excited about the color that they created and they spread it on The Candy Cottage.

The candies looked so cute in the muffin tin and made it easy for the children to pick and choose what they wanted to use. Lots of candy corn, pumpkins, and gumballs made this gingerbread house their own unique creation! The Candy Cottage will be such a cute centerpiece to be used throughout the fall season. And the children were so proud of their work. My guess is there might end up being some ghosts and goblins hanging out in this adorable gingerbread house before the Halloween season is over!

...and the best part...The Candy Cottage can be rinsed off and reused for Christmas! Nothing says fun family gingerbread traditions like The Candy Cottage!

Say "Yes" to Summertime Gingerbread Memories!

 

Hooray for summer! If your family is like ours the onset of the much anticipated and celebrated summer vacation quickly comes to a screeching halt with those two words..."I'm bored." Why not make a great summer memory and decorate a gingerbread house! Not just any gingerbread house but The Candy Cottage! The one that requires no baking from you, no hot ovens, no hot glue, no complicated assembly.

 

On those days that the rain just keeps coming down and inside activities are scarce. On the days when the heat outside just can't be beat. The Candy Cottage gingerbread house is your answer!

 

So grab The Candy Cottage, clean out your pantry and let the kids use their imagination to create a one of a kind gingerbread house! And just look we found at our local Dollar Tree! We were so excited to stumble upon these colorful tree frog and turtle gummies the other day! They are so much fun and just scream "Summer"! This could be a great birthday party theme! The possibilities are endless so get that Candy Cottage out and get the kids decorating!

 

Here's a close up of those cute little tree frogs! Who wouldn't be excited about these cuties? And they taste good too!



And the turtles? Now those are some precious gummies!

Barbecues, Sunshine and Family Time!

Here at The Candy Cottage we are always finding fun holidays and occasions to make a memory by decorating our reusable gingerbread houses. With the excitement of summer just around the corner, Memorial Day is the great time to get The Candy Cottage out and make a memory as friends and families are getting together.

Here's a perfect example of how we used simple white frosting purchased from the grocery store. We added red candies that are easy to find anywhere. Some of the fun candies we used were red hots, red licorice, red lifesavers, fun stripe gum, red m&m's, and red chiclets. We even threw in a few triscuit crackers.

Just another example of how any day can be a Candy Cottage day! Fun with gingerbread all year long!

 

Gingerbread & The Kentucky Derby

Post The Candy Cottage gingerbread house for a decoration like no other for the 140th Kentucky Derby this Saturday.  Don't let Churchill Downs be the only place to celebrate the "Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports."  Use inexpensive, plastic horses to adorn your Candy Cottage and turn it into a race day stable.

Another fun idea - let the children transform the gingerbread house form into a fancy barn while the adults sip Mint Juleps and place their bets!