Twinkle's Kitchen | Dressed-Up Candy

So, it’s almost the big holiday and you still need desserts to share?  There’s no time to bake, no time to test out a recipe and you need a quick solution.

Get out the sprinkles, the white chocolate chips, marshmallows, cookies and pretzel sticks. It’s time to fancy up some boring old cookies and candy!

This is quite possibly one of the easiest ways to create a simply adorable edible gift or holiday party offering – great for teacher gifts or office mate presents. It’s a little messy, but an easy cleanup. And anyone – and I mean anyone – can do this.

What you’ll need:

• Pretzels – any shape, size will do
• Large marshmallows
• Cookies – Crème sandwich cookies are the best, or gingerbread, etc.
• Multi-colored sprinkles
• Colored decorating sugars
• Candy melts – if you want lots of color
• White and dark chocolate chips for melting
• Parchment paper
• Holiday cookie tins OR see-thru cellophane cookie/candy bags
• Ribbon
• Trays for displaying

Begin by separating out all your individual sweet and salty foods onto parchment paper.

Lay them out where each piece is not touching any of the others.

Melt your candy melts and chocolate per package instructions.

Set up all your sprinkles and sugars to easily access.

Dip cookies, marshmallows or candy into candy melts or chocolate and set back down on parchment.

You can add extra color by taking a fork or other utensil (I used a chopstick) to dip into your melted chocolate or melts and gently drizzle over your cookies, etc.

Make sure you add your chosen colored sugar or sprinkles before the chocolate or melts harden.

Once these have hardened, flip over and repeat on the other side.

For marshmallows, place a lollipop stick or Popsicle stick in one end and dip in melted chocolate or melts. Dip into colored sugars or sprinkles.
 

----------------------------------------------

Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked 300 apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic entertainment content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

Follow Twinkle on Foodspotting, Tumblr and Twitter.