Today we’re having a little reindeer fun! This was not the tutorial that I had planned for today. That little experiment didn’t go as expected ;0) . So, a few more ideas & a ridiculously messy kitchen later, we wound up sticking candy bars onto lollipop sticks. Sometimes the cutest ideas are the simplest.
We’re breaking away from cake today…but this idea could definitely be incorporated into your cake and cupcake designs. Everybody knows how I love a good cupcake topper ;0)
Here’s our idea for what to do when you just want a little bite of cuteness:
First, we rounded up some reindeer parts. Mini candy bars for heads, red candies for noses, pretzel antlers, and a food coloring pen for eyes. We also needed melted chocolate candy coating (or candy melts) for our “glue”, and lollipop sticks.
We attached the heads to the lollipop sticks first. To do this, you’ll need to make a hole in your candy bar & then push in a chocolate-dipped lollipop stick. This makes everything secure. Some candy bars are nice and soft on the inside…but with others (like the Twix in this photo), you’ll need to make a hole with a toothpick first before inserting the lollipop stick.
The rectangular candy bars that I used are Mini Twix. The smaller squares are bite sized Snickers and Three Musketeers.
You can see below that the rectangular candy bars have sticks in the back…and the square candy bites have sticks inserted into the corners.
Antler time! I broke my pretzels into antler shapes and placed them together on waxed paper. Then, I piped a little melted chocolate onto the ends for glue.
Next, I laid the reindeer “heads” onto the melted chocolate and let them rest for a while. Probably 10-15 minutes should do it. They’ll firm up as you are working on the other reindeer.
Now, time to make these reindeer look like reindeer! I attached noses with a little melted chocolate (buttercream would be fine too) and then drew on eyes with my food coloring pen.
That’s all there is to it! Here are all of our reindeer friends—
Our display is made from a styrofoam circle, covered in tissue paper and decorated with tinsel and candy. We added polka dotted ribbon just because everything looks better with polka dotted ribbon :0)
If you’d like, you can leave off the lollipop sticks altogether and serve these little reindeer all on their own. They also make great cupcake toppers—AND…ice cream toppers too!
That’s all for now, I hope you enjoyed our reindeer! I think that you definitely need to make some of your own this winter. Such a festive party food for kids and adults too! Have a great weekend :0)
These are simple, fun & Creative. Kids would love to help make these. Your photos and tutorial are excellent.
Dee
thanks so much for the great idea. I used Mars bars and also used the Wilton Holiday sprinkle collection for the eyes (the white ones) before colouring them with food colour pen. I used red MnMs for the noses.
Thanks Ladies! Karen-so excited to hear that you’ve already tried these ;0)
Sooo unbelievably cute! I’ll be trying these for sure! Thanks Melissa!
These are so cute, and so simple! Why can’t I ever think of stuff like this. lol Gonna try them soon. Thanx so much for all you do!
These are so cute! I definitely will have to make some. You are so clever!
Adorable! I’ll be making some of these!
I made these with my junior high students today. They turned out adorable!!! I will post a video of them once I download it. Soooo fun and easy for the kids to do.
Thanks for your comments!! ;0) — Stacy, I was so excited to read that you made them! Hooray!
I love it! Will share with my coworkers at the middle school where I work. thank you very much;)
What food pen did you use? I used some betty crocker ones I picked up at the grocery store and they must be water based as they are beading up on the chocolate. I can’t do lines or much of anything and they dont really set on it. I havn’t been able to find any that say they are oil based.
Hi Erika–I use Americolor pens most of the time—and I didn’t have any trouble writing on the candy bars—however, it seems to be hit and miss depending on the chocolate. Sometimes the pens do better than others. I need to sit down and experiment sometime to see what chocolate/candy coating seems to be most accepting of the pens. I don’t have beading….but sometimes the pen doesn’t show up/write as well on chocolate as others. I don’t know of any oil based coloring pens…I think that it is more of an issue of the waxiness of certain chocolates/candy coatings.
These are so cute!!! Can’t wait to make these next year. My kids will love them.