Homemade fruit snacks

When I was a kid, there were two fruity snacks that used to fight for space in my lunch bag.  Actually, I would've gladly taken them both to school for dessert, but my mother probably wouldn't have allowed that...so the battle ensued.  It was the fruit roll-up versus the now-extinct fun fruits.  Do you remember those?  They were these half jelly bean shaped fruit chews that came in a foil-lined pouch.  Not sure why either of them was allowed to be part of my childhood school lunches, but we loved them!

While I was searching Pinterest the other day - have you used Pinterest yet?  It's my newest form of procrastination/recipe searching - I came across a recipe for homemade fruit snacks.  They sounded fun and cute, so I put them onto my "Things I Want To Bake" board (even though they don't involve baking....I know, I need another board for non-baked treats) and thought to myself that eventually I'd get to making them, once I got a mold for them.

Well today was an exciting day for me.  And by exciting, I'm being totally sarcastic...I worked, ran errands, got a snack, came home, cleaned, did school work, had dinner, and ran more errands.  I ended up at Bed, Bath, & Beyond and was roaming the aisles picking up tons of random useless things that I didn't need (two samplers of new Keurig coffee flavors, pouring spoons for cupcakes, bathroom cleaner...ok, so I needed the bathroom cleaner), and came across little ice cube trays for "cubettes" and had an epiphany -- "these will be perfect for those fruit snacks!"  On my way home I bought a box of jello to make them.  The store was closing in 4 minutes and I grabbed a box....of new Mango Jello.

The "cubette" tray makes 90 mini ice cubes.  I got 62 mini fruit snacks from this recipe - not including some partially filled cavities of the tray.  When I made these again, I'd definitel double or triple the recipe in order to get enough fruit snacks.  Although they are easy enough to just make another batch, although cleaning the pot is the hardest part of the whole process.  That and removing the fruit snacks from the tray.  A toothpick seemed to aid in the process.

The amazing thing about these fruit snacks is that they're actually good!  I can't wait to try them in different flavors.  And the size of the fruit snacks that this tray makes is perfect for, well, snacking!

Homemade Jello Fruit Snacks

Ingredients:

1 3 oz box Jello, any flavor
2 x 0.25 oz boxes unflavored gelatin
1/3 cup water

Directions:

Sprinkle the gelatins over the water in a small saucepan.
Heat over medium heat and stir until gelatin is completely dissolved.
Pour into molds and allow to set at least 20 minutes.

Voila!  Homemade fruit snacks!

I succumbed...

The cake pops - and balls - that I've always made are delicious, but they are time consuming to make.  I usually spread the work out over a few days.  Day 1: bake cake and let it cool.  Day 2: crumble and mix with icing, let chill overnight in the fridge.  Day 3: roll cake-icing mixture into balls, allow to chill overnight.  Days 4&5: dip cake balls into chocolate, again allow to chill overnight.  Delicious?  Yes!  Pain in the ass to make?  Well, yeah, kinda.  But they are always so well received, so I continue to make them.  Plus, have I mentioned that they're delicious?

Then came all these new cake ball making contraptions.  Now I'll be honest with you (which I know is exactly what you want), and tell you that I think all of these cake pop baking things are just making baked donut holes, since there is no icing mixed in, but there is some appeal to their ease of use.

There's one that looks like a small George Forman-type grill with cavities for cake batter, and then there's this thing, which I impulsively purchased today at Bed, Bath, & Beyond when they didn't have the gift I went there looking for.

I'm planning on testing this out with boxed cake mix, but I'm also excited to try it with homemade cake batter, since I don't need to worry about the ratio of cake to icing when I use this.  Stay tuned!

A prelude to Thanksgiving

I have a confession.  I don't love Thanksgiving.  I honestly have nothing against it, it's just not one of my favorite holidays.  It might be compounded by the fact that for the past 6 years I have worked on Thanksgiving (and the Friday afterwards), left the office frantically running to try and catch my train, made it late to Thanksgiving dinner, and then had to turn around and come back to the city so I could get up early Friday morning to go back to work (not to go Black Friday shopping, which I dream about experiencing, just once, but I digress).

Another confession?  I don't like pumpkin pie.  Or pecan pie, either.  But I'm pretty sure it's the pumpkin pie spice that I don't like.  Which brings me to my third confession...

I bought pumpkin pie spice yesterday.  Even though I don't like it.  I just saw it in Trader Joe's and I thought to myself, "I should buy pumpkin pie spice."

Yet, when I saw this adorable pan on Williams Sonoma's website, I just had to get it.  I figured it would be great when filled with a spiced pumpkin cake.  I ordered it and, according to the email I got from them today, it should be here in 3 days!

(Picture from Williams Sonoma's website)

The last time I made this recipe, I made it into cupcakes, and the time before that, I made a bundt cake.

Stay tuned!