both of these ideas are for graduation mortarboards that are edible and tons of fun! the first is for the one on the right.
027a: mini reece's peanut butter cup and hershey's chocolate mortarboard
equipment:
knife
ingredients:
mini reece's peanut butter cups (i used the 40 oz bag, which had approximately 60 cups in it)
hershey's milk chocolate bars (i bought 2 of the 8 pack bars, and used 15/16 bars)
mini m&ms (my school colors are blue and white, so i used just blue ones)
school colored frosting to make tassel
peanut butter (optional)
steps:
1.) unwrap your peanut butter cups and chocolate bars.
2.) flip peanut butter cups upside-down and put a small bit of either frosting or peanut butter on the now top of the peanut butter cups (i used peanut butter).
3.) break the chocolate bars into double-wide squares. given that each column is 3 squares, you will have extra single squares left. you can either use these singles together to make a double (as seen in the front of the picture above) or eat them :o)
4.) put a line of frosting on the top of your now mortarboard-shaped treats beginning at the center and working out to an edge or corner. place a mini m&m on the top in the middle.
time: about half an hour for all 60 or so
difficulty: 1 (1 being easiest, 5 being hardest)
rating: ♦♦♦♦♦ (5 out of 5 stars)
the second recipe is a 3-4 biter instead of a 1 biter like the above, and is more chewy. in the very first picture, it is shown on the left.
027b: brownie cupcake mortarboards
supplies:
mixing bowl
measuring equipment
knife
ingredients:
mini brownie cupcake mix (i used this mix and made 2 boxes, or 4 total packages, to make a total of 24 cupcakes. an advantage of these is that they come with their own tiny cupcake pans).
chocolate covered graham crackers (i used these)
frosting (given that everything else was chocolate fudge, i used chocolate fudge frosting) (optional)
school colored frosting to make tassel
m&ms, reece's pieces, york pieces or other circular coated candy in school color (i used york pieces, given that they're blue and white and so are my school colors)
steps:
1.) bake mini brownie cupcakes according to package instructions.
2.) while your brownies are baking, cut some of your chocolate covered grahams in half. the ones i got were rectangles and looked awkward, so to make them square, i used a sharp knife and cut some of them in half and later fused the two together on top of the brownie. but i'm getting ahead of myself. since i made 24 brownies, i used 36 total cookies, and cut 12 of them in half.
3.) after they're done, let the brownies cool completely, and flip them over. put flavored frosting (or colored frosting) on the now top of the brownies.
4.) put the flavored frosting on the "raw" edge of one of the cut graham pieces and use the frosting to "glue" it to one of the whole ones. then, put this whole square on top of the frosting on top of the brownie cupcake.
5.) to finish, put a line of colored frosting on the top of the mortarboard-shaped dessert, starting at the middle and working toward and outside edge. to disguise the seam, perhaps draw it along part of the seam, as pictured above. end by putting the york pieces (or whatever candy suits your school's colors) in the middle.
time: 5 minuets prep, about 20 minutes to bake, an hour for cooling, and half an hour for assembly and decoration, for a grand total of about 2 hours.
difficulty: 2 (1 being easiest, 5 being hardest)
rating: ♦♦♦♦1/2◊ (4.5 out of 5 stars)
these treats really were the hit of the grad party. hope you enjoy them, too!
-kl
congrats to all the grads of 2010!!!
