Recap of Football Treats Made

We have been very busy at work and then after work between the tutor for Cole and the YMCA activities I'm running around crazy.  BUT loving it!  I'm getting exercise, so are the boys and the tutor is helping Cole keep on track with his homework. 

So with little time to write up something whitty and clever I'm going to recap the football treats I've made so far :).  I did find out that there is one more game but yet again practices where cancelled this week (pointless).  And the coach that is never at games that has a teen step in and coach never puts Cole in just uses the top 5 kids every game over and over again.  YUP I'm done and I think so is Cole.  So we're going with no last game, just be done with it.  PLUS Saturday I have the boys signed up at the YMCA for swim and a tumbling class.

Football Cookies (Funny Faces)

Football Whoopie Pies

Almond Football Cupcakes

Football Brownies

Football Helmet Men

Football Cream Puffs


Hope you enjoyed our fun Football Treats!
And maybe try one or two :)

Ready for a Touch Down ... Football Mini Cream Pies

And we finish our Football themed treats with a yummy one.  I found the idea for Football Mini Cream Pies on Bubbly Nature Creations.  Now I've made cream puff's before when I made the Cream Puff Bunnies, but this was another game scheduled for 11am and I work until 9am on Saturdays.  Knowing my time would be stretched, plus poor Caden had been throwing up the previous days I went with the Semi-Homemade way thank you Sandra Lee for letting us know that is an ok way to go sometimes!

So I started with a simple Mini Cream Puff recipe on Kraft's Website. 

For Cream Puff:

What you need

1

pkg.  (2-layer size) yellow cake mix

1

pkg.  (3.4 oz.) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding

1

cup  cold milk

1-1/2

cups  thawed COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, divided

1

pkg.  (4 oz.) BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate

make it

HEAT oven to 350ºF.

PREPARE cake batter and bake as directed on package for 24 cupcakes. Cool completely.

BEAT pudding mix and milk with whisk 2 min. Let stand 5 min. Meanwhile, use serrated knife to cut cupcakes horizontally in half. Whisk 1/2 cup COOL WHIP into pudding; spoon onto bottom halves of cupcakes, using about 1 Tbsp. for each. Cover with cupcake tops.

MICROWAVE remaining COOL WHIP and chocolate in small microwaveable bowl on HIGH 1-1/2 min. or until chocolate is almost melted, stirring after 1 min. Stir until blended. Let stand 15 min.; spread onto cupcakes. Refrigerate 15 min.

For Football Themed Cream Puff:

With a piping tip or a ziplock bag cut at the end pipe lines on the top to look like a football.

ALEXIS Notes: I used Wilton White Frosting, added a tip and decorated.

Another simple one to make!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Ready for a Touch Down .... Football Helmet Men (or to be PC I should say People right?? LOL)

Next on our list is some super cute Football Helmet men/people (LOL I'm so not a good PC person).  These Cute little Helmet Men I found on Spoonful (one of my favorite places to go for ideas).  For their men they used pre-made cookies, Most of you know me and know I rather just make my own.  So I found a yummy recipe for Knockoff Swig Sugar Cookies (aka literally the best cookie known to man) on Vintage Revivals site.   Those where their words but I did take a taste and they are pretty darn good.  Since I'm at a standstill with my diet I've decided I'm going to eat right with some little pleasures and keep on exercising and see what happens (1 1/2 years on this diet and I need a break ... ok enough about me). 

Here are the men I made 

(I ran out of red Wilton Icing Color used Maroon so it was a little on pink side):

For Cookies:

Ingredients:

1 C Butter (room temperature)
3/4 C Vegetable Oil
1 1/4 C Sugar
3/4 C Powdered Sugar
2 T Water
2 Eggs
1/2 t Baking Soda
1/2 t Cream of Tarter
1 t Salt
5 1/2 C Flour

Cream together Butter, Vegetable Oil, Sugars, Water, and Eggs. Combine dry ingredients and slowly add to butter mixture. Mix until everything is combined.  Your dough should be a little crumbly and not sticky at all.  Roll a golf ball sized ball of dough and place it on your cookie sheet.  Put 1/4 c of sugar and a pinch of salt in a dish (this is in addition to the sugar and salt listed above.)  Stick the bottom of a glass in it.  This is going to be your cookie press. Firmly press it into the center of your dough ball.  You want your dough to spill out over the sides of the glass.  If there is a lip its even better.  Bake at 350 for 8 minutes.  They should just barely be browning on the bottom.    Move cookies to a cooling rack.  Once they are cool put them in the fridge.

Alexis Notes: Instead of rolling into balls.  I rolled my dough out and then used my circle cutter to make sure all the men where the same size and shape.  For the top part the helmet I took a knife and cut out a square where the face would show through (see picture below to see shape, this was the only part that wasn't uniformed in shape, since I free handed each one). 

 For Men:

What you'll need

• Large, soft cookies (we used Archway oatmeal cookies)
• Frosting
• Food coloring
• M&M's Minis
• Black decorator gel
• Black licorice

How to make it

To make each one, first spread a thin layer of frosting on a large, soft cookie. Cut a square from a second cookie to create a helmet shape and set it atop the first.

Coat the helmet with frosting tinted the color of your family's favorite team, then add eyes (M&M's Minis with black decorators' gel dots), a black string licorice face mask, and 2 more M&M's Minis for the helmet's ear holes.

1. 
   

Alexis Notes: As mentioned above I made the cookies instead of pre-made ones. I used Wilton Icing Color tried my red didn't have enough so I used my maroon and got pink oh well! I used black icing gel for eyes and cut strips of Wilton licorice for the face mask.  I skipped the helmet ear holes.

Another simple one to make!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE.

Touch Down!!! Football Cupcakes (Almond Footballs)

For Cole's 3rd Flag Football game I decided cupcakes would be fun to do.  WELL fun was what I thought and felt when I made the cupcakes.  THE overcast day turned into an 80 degree day leaving my cupcakes looking like pools of blue frosting.  GRRRR ... Well at least they were cute when we first got there, and a few of the kids even said thank you.  One of the mom's even came over "To SEE what Super Mom made".  Have you ever had a person say something about you and you could just feel the sarcasm?  YUP that comment and little smile was so touching ... NOT.

Now onto the cupcakes!  I wanted to do something new with a cupcake!  His team is the NY Giants (yes no clue we live in Washington but hey go with it).  The colors are blue and red.  So I made cupcakes in a red cupcake liner and then I made a pop of color with blue frosting!

I used my favorite white cake mix for the cupcakes and my sturdy buttercream frosting.  Click the names for the recipes.  I've posted the recipes so many times for the sake of my regular readers I've stopped posted the same recipes over and over again :).

I took wilton blue icing color to tint the frosting to the right color.  I pipped it on and then went on to making the little footballs to top the cupcakes.  

Football Toppers

What you need:

Chocolate Covered Almonds

White Decorating Icing

Take a chocolate covered almond using your white decorating icing make a line across the long way then add 3 lines across that line to resemble laces on a football.  I started with a fun sparkle Wilton decorating icing but it wouldn't set up and started to run.  I switched to the normal Wilton White Icing that was sturdy and stayed put.

After all the cupcakes were frosted and the almonds were decorated and added to the top of the cupcakes I did my normal trick and put them in a clear cup, added a clear bag and tied it with a red ribbon to stay with the color theme.  Mind you I buy all this at the Dollar Tree.  10 plastic cups $1 (used 2 1/2 packages), 25 plastic bags $1 and roll of ribbon $1.

Another simple one to make!

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

Touch Down!!! Bring on the Football Cookies (Funny Faces)

Cole has started flag football and for his games we didn't have a real plan for treats, so of course I decide I would just take that over and do that!  I wanted my treats not to be something boring I wanted something fun!!!  I went to Pinterest and did some searching!  I found a cute picture (of course not linked to anything) of Football cookies made with funny faces.  I started with a ginger cookie for my footballs and went to town decorating.  They turned out GREAT I must say my favorite one in this theme so far!

For the ginger cookies I used a recipe found on food.com.  This was an easy recipe and I happened to have a football cookie cutter that I used when I rolled the dough out.

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 3/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves until well blended.  In a large bowl (KitchenAid's great for this) beat butter, brown sugar, and egg on medium speed until well blended.  Add molasses, vanilla, and lemon zest and continue to mix until well blended.  Gradually stir in dry ingredients until blended and smooth.

Divide dough in half and wrap each half in plastic and let stand at room temperature for at least 2 hours or up to 8 hours.  Preheat oven to 375°.  Grease or line cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Place 1 portion of the dough on a lightly floured surface.  Sprinkle flour over dough and rolling pin.  Roll dough to a scant 1/4-inch thick.  Use additional flour to avoid sticking. Cut out cookies with football cutter. Space cookies 1 1/2-inches apart.  Bake 1 sheet at a time for 7-10 minutes (the lower time will give you softer cookies).  Remove cookie sheet from oven and allow the cookies to stand until the cookies are firm enough to move to a wire rack.

After the cookies cooled I went to town decorating.  I made a few different faces.  The boys loved it.

What you need:

White Gel (I recommend Wilton)

Black Gel (I recommend Wilton)

Wilton Candy Eyes

Baked cookies

Bottom shows a few different faces.

I found a football dish at the Dollar Tree Store

These were pretty darn simple the hardest part was making the dough a cutting out the cookies.  WELL of course also not eating them all, this is my favorite type of cookie.

Don't forget to see the parties I link up to HERE. 

It's official I'm a football mom now ....

Cole is so excited he started flag football this week!  He wants to be just like his dad, who played for San Diego State until a helmet to the knee killed his career.  Thankfully I talked Cole into starting with Flag and then we could move up to Tackle.  I signed him up for $90 which is seeming high now.  They had no coach and a very sweet dad stepped in on Saturday and we had our first practice on Sunday.  We practiced again on Tuesday and Wednesday night which was a juggling act with Rick's work, my women's group and Zumba.  Thankfully my dad stepped in on Wednesday to pick up Cole.

Wish us luck our first Game in Saturday, I'm not sure we know anything more then throwing the ball but we'll do our best!  I think I may make football cookies on top of a cupcake for a special treat!

Have a GREAT weekend!