“Mommy, will you be my Valentine?” What mother doesn’t love to hear those words from her darling child?
This year enjoy some Valentine’s fun in the kitchen with your sweet children. It shouldn’t be too difficult to come up with some ideas: anything red, white, pink or heart shaped will do. Below you will find lots of ideas to get you started.
Heart shaped sandwiches – whether you’re making your famous peanut butter and jelly or turkey sandwiches use a heart shaped cookie cutter to stamp out a fun lunch! Cut both the bread and the turkey into this sweet shape.
Heart shaped pancakes – there are two ways to do this. Either place cookie cutters inside your griddle. Make sure your batter isn’t too thin, and then just pour into the cookie cutters. Or you can simply drizzle the batter into the shape of a heart.
Cakes – bake a cake in a heart shaped cake pan; use cherry, strawberry or red velvet cake mix. For a twist on this cake, use vanilla batter. Once the cake is cooled, poke lots of holes into the top of the baked cake with a fork. Then pour unhardened (liquid) red Jell-o over the top. It will drizzle inside for a tasty cool looking cake.
Cupcakes – you could always decorate cupcakes. Nothing original about that idea but supply your kids lots of colored sugars, sprinkles and decorating icing for hours of fun.
Cupcake cakes – these are pretty popular lately and are also fun to make. You’ll need a large cookie sheet, cake board, or aluminum foil covered flattened box to set them on. Bake two dozen cupcakes. Next arrange the cupcakes into the shape of a large heart. Before frosting the cupcakes, put a dollop of frosting on the bottom of each cupcake liner to hold it in place on the cookie sheet or box.
Next frost all of the cupcakes in pink or white. Be sure to use lots of frosting to fill in the gaps between each cupcake. From the top view your masterpiece will look like an actual cake versus twenty four cupcakes all frosted together. Finish it off by adding icing piping around the entire cake. Decorate as desired.
Brownies – your trusty heart shaped cookie cutter can serve multiple treats. Prepare brownies or chocolate chip sheet cookies, and then cut them in heart shapes using the cookie cutter.
Chocolate, Chocolate and Chocolate – Valentine’s Day would not be complete without yummy chocolates – dipped chocolates to be exact. Start with bags of chocolate chips. For fun get a couple different varieties – milk chocolate, semi-sweet, white chocolate and swirl.
All that’s left is to decide what you want to dip into the chocolate. Some suggestions: pretzels, rippled potato chips, tortilla chips, cereal, strawberries, blueberries, cherries, vanilla wafers, peanuts, almonds, walnuts, raisins, dried cherries or apricots, banana chips or just about anything else that tickles your fancy.
Make sure you have lots of waxed paper and aprons (or an old shirt) as the dipping part is so much fun that the chocolate could be flying everywhere or your children could end up wearing it.
Mom can either microwave the chocolate for approximately two minutes per bag or use a double boiler. You can use forks or tongs or even chopsticks to dip the treats into the yummy chocolate.
There should be enough ideas above to get your started. Remember you can’t go wrong with anything red, white, pink, heart shaped or chocolate! Whatever fun you decide to make with your kids, proudly display their masterpieces with pretty paper lace doilies under the serving tray.
You’re such a great mom! No wonder your child asked, “Mommy, will you be my Valentine?”
-Written by Laurie Ayers.
To learn more, check out the Mom’s Talk Guide to Raising Happy & Healthy Kids – Tips and resources address nutrition, exercise, sleep, routines, and much more.
