You know those teeny candy canes that you never seem to know what to do with? I always seem to have hundreds lying around. If you don’t trim your tree with them, or eat a few every day for the month of December, they just end up in the trash.
I decided to put them to good use one year, and I am only getting around to posting a blog about it now.
If you’re like me and want to contribute to the holiday-time potlucks but feel pressed for time, this is a neat trick.
Here’s how you do it:
- Preheat the oven to 300F.
- Line waxed paper or parchment paper on a couple of cookie sheets.
- Arrange the mini candy canes in the shape of hearts.
- Place the hearts in the oven for 3 minutes. Depending on your oven you may need to do a couple minutes more or less. It’s worth doing one batch just to figure out the optimal time. Keep it a few seconds too long and the hearts flatten out. Keep them a few seconds too short and the candy canes won’t stick together.
- Pull them out and let them cool down so they will set. I like mine to still keep their shape and don’t like them to get too flat, but that’s my personal preference.
I used these toppers to decorate my spiced chocolate cupcakes with eggnog buttercream, which you can read about here.
Would I make these again? Sure will, only a few minutes and you’ve got some lovely Christmas decorations for your cupcakes. Also they will keep forever so you can pop them in an airtight container and have them ready for when you need them.
Substitutions: Not applicable!
Grade: Three stars out of five. While the instructions are straightforward enough, you can’t be tending to other things because you might miss the optimal time to take them out of the oven. And it’s easy enough to make too many duds.
Leave a Reply