Berries, Milk & Otis Spunkmeyer treats for a Valentine's Day Dessert Table

A simple and easy way to make lover's day festive and sweet

As you may know by now, I never turn down an opportunity to celebrate holidays and festive events! So when I received a shipment of Valentine's day-inspired Otis Spunkmeyer treats, I smiled and felt relieved all at once! The smiles were due to the cuteness and deliciousness of the treats. The relief was because instead of spending hours baking, I realized these small cakes and cookies were all I needed to put together a fun dessert table to celebrate the occasion.

For decorations, I used colorful tissue paper and blue hearts (can you tell I'm a boy mom?)

I had the Chocolate Créme Cakes, the Double Chocolate Cookies and the Chocolate Mini Cupcakes to work with. By the way, one of the reasons I love Otis Spunkmeyer is because their products have "no funky stuff" -- no artificial ingredients, no high fructose corn syrup, no hydrogenated oils and the company has pledged to use cage-free eggs beginning next year! 

So I brought out raspberries to decorate the mini cupcakes, I also used a heart-shaped cookie cutter to essentially cut out hearts from the chocolate cookies and I shaped the créme cakes into hearts.

In order to give the créme cakes a heart shape, all you have to do is cut the cake diagonally and reverse one of the pieces. Once you join them, you'll have a heart!

Here's a bird's-eye view of the créme cakes shaped as hearts

 And here's my fun & festive Valentine's Day dessert table:

 

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

Giant Valentine's Day Box of Chocolate Cakes!

A fun way of delivering Valentine's Day cake treats!

Every year I try to recreate something that is representative and iconic of Valentine's Day. I do it because it's fun and my boys love it when I surprise them with treats.
Last year, for example, I made Conversation Heart Cheesecakes!
This year, I created a giant construction paper heart box to look like the ever-so popular heart-shaped chocolate boxes that we've all received.
I think it's a fun way of presenting cupcakes on Valentine's Day to relatives, co-workers or  classmates.
For this project, I used one box of chocolate cake mix and baked the batter using an assortment of cake and cupcake pans. It yielded about 20 individual cakes.
Here's how I made the giant chocolate box:

MATERIALS: 2 Large white cardboard project sheets (cut into large hearts) | Scissors | Gold Foil Gift Wrap/Tissue Paper | Clear pink or red cellophane wrap | Glue | Gold Ribbon | Red Glitter Paper

I started by covering one of the hearts with red foam glitter sheets. The sheets have adhesive on the back which made it easy to stick and cut around the edges. | I covered another large cardboard heart with the gold foil (which will serve as the base for the chocolate cakes)

Next I wrapped the heart covered in red glitter foam with the pink cellophane wrap. Once this step was complete, I wrapped a gold bow around this piece.

When the cakes were ready, I decorated some of them with chocolate frosting and others with white vanilla frosting. I also used chopped peanuts and all the different designs gave it a "chocolate variety" look.

As you can see, I cut part of the cake into squares, hearts and rectangles

I placed the cakes over the gold foil covered heart and arranged them neatly. Then I glued a strip of white construction paper on the edge of the heart to give it the appearance of a real box of chocolates.

Moments before the big reveal!

I must say, having kids brings a whole new meaning to Valentine's Day for me. I'm not sure if my hubby and I will have a date night on Valentine's Day. What I do know is that I already had my dose of chocolate for the month!
I hope you enjoyed and I look forward to seeing your Valentine's Day Projects and ideas!

Take a "Pizza" My Heart Valentine's Day Sweet Treats

A Valentine's Day Inspired Sweet Treat Idea

 

 Who doesn't love Pizza?
With all the craziness going on this year, I think February is the perfect month to focus on love and fun and things we love to have fun with-- like making desserts.
Personally, I'm not a great cook. I mean, I can whip up a dinner meal and grill, bake, cook, saute and smother meat and veggies any day, but nothing that tastes particularly ground-breaking.
I can, however, come up with sweet treats to make everybody smile. And I think that's what these candy pizzas can do, especially if you want to let someone know their love takes a "Pizza" your heart!

These may look a bit time-consuming but they're not!
They are home-made Rice Krispy treats cut into circles, which is probably the step that takes longest to complete. And I don't mean cutting the Rice Krispy treats, since that's easily done with a cookie cutter, I mean actually making them from scratch although in reality, that only takes about 15 minutes. Find an easy recipe here.

The rice cereal treats are topped with a layer of Fruit Roll-Up (cut into a smaller circle). Tip: Since Fruit Roll-Ups can get really soft, take them out of their packaging, extend them on a plate and refrigerate for a few minutes. This will help avoid a mess and cut out the circles much faster with a pair of scissors.

Top the Fruit Roll-Up or, ahem, marinara sauce, with shaved coconut and/or shaved white candy melts which you can make with a grater to look like cheese and top off with M&Ms, sprinkles and gummy bear bits.

Aren't they cute? Best of all, they're super-duper yummy.
Personal recommendation: limit one per child...hehe.
I hope everyone enjoys a Fabulous February!