Valentine's Day DIY Treats + Gifts
Happy almost Valentine's Day! Whether you are celebrating with a significant other, friends, or family, Valentine's Day is the perfect excuse to indulge and treat yourself. Over the past week, my
roommates and I have gotten creative with all things pink, festive and delicious. We made dairy-free strawberry cheesecake, marbled sugar cookies, chocolate pretzel bites, and festive hot chocolate. I also feature a clever Valentine card inspiration at the end."Read more" for the recipes and full details.
roommates and I have gotten creative with all things pink, festive and delicious. We made dairy-free strawberry cheesecake, marbled sugar cookies, chocolate pretzel bites, and festive hot chocolate. I also feature a clever Valentine card inspiration at the end."Read more" for the recipes and full details.
Recipes +Delectable Details
(Read More Link
)Dairy-free Strawberry Cheesecake
Original recipe credit + detailed instructions here.
*Note* The original recipe was dairy-free and egg-free, but we are lazy and decided to use real eggs. There was also no crust in this recipe, so we made our own! The recipe makes 8 mini cheesecakes, we split the measurements below in half and only made 4.
Ingredients: (measurements for 8)
- 2 eggs or 3 tbs egg substitute
- 1/4 cup hot water
- 8 oz fresh strawberries - chopped (save larger pieces for garnish)
- 1 cup white granulated sugar
- 1 tbs cornstarch dissolved in 1 tbs cold water
- 3 oz-tubs of dairy-free cream cheese
(Crust)
(Crust)
- 1 ts vanilla extract
- 5-8 crushed graham crackers
- 1 tbs melted butter
- Brown sugar, add to your liking
1) Preheat oven to 400° and lightly grease cooking ramekins. Separate the ingredients
2) Melt butter and brown sugar together, add graham crackers and mix until the consistency firms.
3) Add to the bottom of ramekins.
4) Mix cream cheese and 3/4 cup of sugar until fluffy. Add eggs or egg replacer and mix until it has a frosting like consistency.
5) Combine strawberries with 1/4 cup sugar in a small saucepan, stirring well until sugar dissolves. Cook while stirring often for 5 minutes or until the strawberries form a syrup. Add corn starch and continue stirring until consistency resembles a strawberry preserve or compote.
6) Add strawberry syrup to the cream cheese mixture. Mix for another minute, then pour into ramekins.
7) Bake at 400° for 5 mins, then reduce oven temp to 300° by leaving oven door for heat to escape. Continue baking at 300° for 20 minutes - or until they are firm but still slightly jello-y.
8) Add strawberry garnish (bonus points for heart shape) and enjoy!
Marble Frosted Sugar Cookies
We followed a simple sugar cookie recipe, I was much more involved with decorating than baking!
Marbled frosting technique:
This was harder to accomplish than the recipe/instructions we found online. Our decorations became pretty random after a while, but I found this to be the easiest way to achieve a marbled look:
This was harder to accomplish than the recipe/instructions we found online. Our decorations became pretty random after a while, but I found this to be the easiest way to achieve a marbled look:
1) Spread a layer of base icing on cookie.
2) While base icing is still wet, pipe horizontal lines across cookie.
2) While base icing is still wet, pipe horizontal lines across cookie.
3) Using a toothpick, draw intersecting vertical lines across the cookie to blend the colors, and create a swirly marbled pattern.
Chocolate Pretzel Bites
Festive Hot Chocolate: Pink Steamed Milk
These pretzel bites are a classic favorite in my household. They are super easy and quick to make and only require three ingredients: pretzels, M&M's and Hershey Kisses!
Preheat oven to 300° and spread pretzels on baking sheet.
Place Hershey Kisses on top of pretzels and let bake for 2-4 mins until shiny, watch carefully. The Kisses shouldn't be melted, just shiny.
Once shiny and out of the oven, press a M&M down in the center of each Kiss. Let sit at room temperature for 20 mins. Then enjoy!
Festive Hot Chocolate: Pink Steamed Milk
This is a very simple way to jazz up hot chocolate or coffee. I simply added two drops of red food-coloring to milk and put it in my milk steamer. Alternatives to this could be adding a small amount of food-coloring to whip cream if you don't have a steamer. Then I added a few marshmallows, they never hurt anybody.
Card/Gift Inspiration
Throwback to cheesy elementary school Valentine's Day cards! Creating personalized cards is an equally adorable and affordable gift idea. Clever phrases = bonus points.
Wishing you a happy Valentine's Day full of love, happiness and lots of dessert!
Comment post requests below.❁ Cheers friends! ❁
No comments:
Post a Comment