Valentine Treats!

Valentine Ideas!

Valentines Day Popcorn Recipe

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Valentines Day Popcorn Recipe

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

5 mins

Easy Valentines Day Popcorn recipe that features Pink Chocolate Covered Popcorn with white chocolate drizzle, sprinkles and M&Ms.

Course: Snack

Cuisine: American

Servings: 8

Author: Robin Gagnon

Ingredients

• 1 bag of microwave popcorn light or regular butter (full sized, not snack)
• 3/4 cup pink chocolate candy melts
• 1/2 cup white chocolate candy melts
• Valentines sprinkles
• Valentines Peanut M&Ms

Instructions

1. Pop the popcorn and remove the unpopped kernels.
2. Place the candy melts in small bowls or glass measuring cups, one for each color.
3. Microwave the pink candy for 40 seconds then stir, repeat in 20 second intervals until melted and smooth. (takes 1-1 1/2 minutes dependent on melt brand and your microwave).
4. Drizzle half over of the bowl of popcorn and toss to coat, Add the remaining pink chocolate candy melt (use a silicone spatula to ensure you get it all out.) Toss the popcorn with your hands until nicely coated. Then spread out onto a large serving platter (or baking sheet, if you are going to bag the popcorn up after).
5. Melt the white candy melts and drizzle over the platter of popcorn, immediately top generously with candy sprinkles. They will adhere to the melted white chocolate candy.
6. Finally, toss on the M&Ms. Allow the Valentines Popcorn to cool a few minutes before serving.

Easy Valentine Cakes

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Easy Valentine’s Day Mini Cakes
yield: 8 small cakes

Ingredients

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• 3 cups cold heavy cream
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1 9 oz package (about 48 cookies) chocolate wafers
• Valentine’s Day candy! You can use whatever you like. I used:
• Pink & white dark chocolate nonpareils
• Valentine Sixlets
• Mellocreme candy hearts
• Red mini hearts
• Sour lips
• Valentine’s gumballs
•  Red and white M&Ms
• Combine the cream and powdered sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment.
• Whip the cream on medium-high speed until firm peaks form.
• You can use a knife to spread the whipped cream between each layer of cookie, but if you have a piping bag, I recommend putting the cream in a piping bag fitted with a round tip–it’s faster and neater. Either way, spread a thin layer of cream on the bottom of a cookie, and place the cookie onto a plate, cardboard round, or other serving surface. After the cakes are assembled the cookies will soften into a cakey texture, so it’s difficult to transfer them later. I put mine on doily-covered cardboard rounds, so they were easy to serve individually.
• Pipe or spread a thin, even layer of whipped cream on top of the cookie.
• Top the first cookie with a second, and continue to layer cream and cookies until you have a stack of six cookies. (You can play with the height–I found that six cookies made a nice, tall cake that seemed substantial but wasn’t too overwhelming. You can find what height works for you!)
• Pipe or spread more whipped cream along the top and outside of the cake.
• Use an offset spatula or a knife to spread it into a smooth layer. The cake might shift around while you’re working on it, since whipped cream is delicate, so be gentle! Don’t worry about having a perfect finish, because you can always cover up any trouble spots with candy later on.
  After all of the cakes are assembled, refrigerate the cakes for at least 3 hours, to give the cookies time to soften. The cakes can be made several days in advance and kept, refrigerated, until you’re ready to decorate them.
• Now for the fun part! Decorate the cakes with an assortment of Valentine’s Day candy, and additional whipped cream, if desired. Depending on the candy you choose, the coloring might start to seep into the whipped cream as it sits, so that’s why it’s best to decorate these shortly before you plan on serving them.
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Best Valentine

MARASCHINO CHERRY CUPCAKES

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PREP TIME

20 mins

COOK TIME

20 mins

These delicious cherry cupcakes have undertones of almond flavoring, and who doesn't love a cupcake with a cherry on top? Recipe source: Adapted slightly from Your Cup of Cake

Serves: 24 cupcakes

INGREDIENTS

cupcakes:

• 1 box white cake mix
• 3 eggs
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil
• ¾ cup milk (or buttermilk)
• ½ cup sour cream
• ¼ cup cherry juice (from Maraschino cherries)
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• 1 cup Maraschino cherries, roughly chopped

frosting:

• 1 and ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 6 cups powdered/confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons almond extract
• ¼ cup heavy whipping cream
• 24 cherries with stems, for garnish

INSTRUCTIONS

Cucpakes:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees (F). Prepare a two 12-cup cupcake pans with papers, and set aside.
2. Rough-chop cherries, and set aside.
3. Combine remaining ingredients (cake mix, eggs, sour cream, oil, milk, cherry juice, almond) in a large bowl, and beat on medium speed with a hand mixer for two minutes.
4. Fold in chopped cherries.
5. Fill cupcake papers ⅔ full, with batter.
6. Bake 17-20 minutes or until a cake-tester comes out clean.
7. Allow to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Frosting:

1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter until creamy.
2. Add powdered sugar and whipping cream, and beat until just combined.
3. Add almond extract, and beat until light and fluffy, about 4-5 minutes.
4. Frost as desired, and top with a cherry.
5. Enjoy

Gluten Free Valentine Cupcake Recipe

For those of you who are Gluten-Free (like Me) here's a recipe:

{BEST} Gluten-free Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

by Brianna Hobbs

Cook Time: about 20 minutes

Ingredients (48 Mini Cupcakes, or 24 cupcakes)

For the Cupcakes

• .75 oz (about 3 Tbs) cocoa powder
• 9.5 oz ( 1 1/4 c minus 1 Tbs) white sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 8.25 oz (1 1/2 c) GF Rice Flour Blend *See below
• 1/2 c milk
• 1/2 c. vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1/2 – 1 tsp red food coloring

For the Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 oz cream cheese, softened
• 2 oz (1/4 c.) butter, softened
• 16 oz (4 c.) powdered sugar
• 2 Tbs cream (or milk)
• 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

For the Cupcakes+

Preheat oven to 350F. Line mini muffin pan with mini paper liners.

Mix together all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. In a large liquid measuring cup mix together all the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Fill the muffin pan cups about 3/4 way full (about 1 Tbs of batter for mini muffins) and bake until the cupcake springs back when you touch it, about 20 minutes. (30-35 minutes for a layer cake.)

Cool, frost, and eat.

For the Frosting

Using a stand mixer or electric hand beaters beat the butter and cream cheese until light and fluffy (5 minutes) add the cream, powdered sugar and vanilla and beat until smooth (additional 3 minutes.)

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Notes:

• I only used 1/2 tsp of food coloring in my cake batter, for a more vibrant color use 1 tsp.
• I’ve always enjoyed red velvet with cream cheese frosting, but if you want to try a traditional roux based frosting. Normally not gluten-free, use this recipe from gluten-free on a shoestring which is.
• Bake half into cupcakes and only make half a batch of frosting and then bake the other half of the batter in a greased 9×9 pan.

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MY RICE FLOUR BLEND:

• 2 parts rice flour (I use 1 part each white rice flour and brown rice flour as a personal preference)
• 1 part tapioca starch
• 1 part potato starch (NOT flour)

The reason I use parts for my rice flour blend instead of exact measurements it that then you can easily make as much or as little of my rice flour blend as you want. For example: If you only wanted 2 cups of blend for a recipe then each part would be 1/2 cup. If you are like me and want to keep a huge canister in the pantry you can make a much larger batch.

Sprucing Up

Friday night we had our first company in since my illness-and we had some

sprucing up to do!

Dear friends sent me this arrangement while i was recovering...and I couldn't bear to

toss it out because it had held up so well!

So, I added a few Valentine's hearts to it :)

I found these adorable red foil heart cutouts, and hung them

from my snow white valance

Found a really cute table cloth and napkins to match at a great discount

We had so much fun fellowshiping--we forgot to take pics!

But, our guests brought me these gorgeous roses--I love them!

They smell so good too!

I'm thankful for friends!

A Celebration Of Marriage!

National Marriage Week

There’s a lot of attention being given in the media this week to National Marriage Week. That gets our attention.

At Franklin Springs Family Media, we’re pleased that people around the world are giving heightened consideration to what constitutes a strong, healthy marriage – and to the resulting benefits when a marriage functions well.

We have the privilege of meeting families across the country where there’s a strong resolve to build marriages to the glory of God. It’s a beautiful picture. While we’ve yet to meet a family that is not facing their own array of challenges, we see what happens within a home when a husband and wife love and serve each other well.

While we all know that the institution of marriage is under attack, we are encouraged on many fronts. We’re grateful for the work of our friends Alex and Stephen Kendrick and their 2009 landmark film Fireproof. We watched it again just the other night, and were so thankful for the unabashed stance the film takes in defense of marriage.

We’ve been pleased over the last few years to produce several films that include portrayals of well-functioning marriages. If you haven’t seen them, we hope you’ll consider adding these films to your DVD library this week. We’re offering them at a discounted price throughout National Marriage Week:

We hope we’ll all take time this week to consider anew the incredible importance of marriage. And our prayer is that throughout the week people across the land will be driven into the fifth chapter of Ephesians...

- The Team at Franklin Springs
Please order by using my Franklin Springs Affiliate button on the right? Thanks!

Playing Catch UP

Well, we've been a little under the weather here in our house...so I'm playing catch up!

The Friday before Valentine's Day, my honey bought me these lovely flowers (and they still look this pretty today!)

That same evening, our children were babysitting for some sweet friends...so my dear and I had a nice little cozy dinner for two! Valentine's Dinner early! I made some yummy fettucini alfredo with shrimp and asparagus. Plus, I steamed some extra shrimp for peel and eat.
Also, waaaaayyyy back on Valentine's Day, our lovely daughter blessed us by making us some goodies!

One of the things she baked was a cake in her new Pampered Chef Heart shaped Bread tube. We found this new in the box at Goodwill for $1. So, she tried it for the first time...
It turned out great as you can see!

With the rest of the cake batter, she made delicious cupcakes.
We certainly are blessed!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Don't forget to give your honey an extra smooch or two today! :)

Make them feel appreciated!

Just Stuff

Bri and I did a little decorating for Valentine's Day...she's got some special things she's going to make for our family to eat too. :) It was fun to spruce things up and make them different.

What do you think about this picture I snapped? I thought it was cute! Two "lovey dovey's" in the bird bath...and the heart is actually a decal on the window. :)

A lovely winter sunset...

Me and my Valentine