Food: Monsters Love Cookies

I had to go out of town this weekend on a visit to my stepsister and her husband in Minneapolis. They have a little boy who just turned 3 and a little girl who turned 1 the day before her brother! They decided to throw a combined birthday party and Erik and I made the trip up for the occasion.

I wanted to make something cute and special as a treat for the party, so I made this cookie bouquet.

It was really easy to make because I didn't actually have to bake any cookies! I just bought some Chips Ahoy! cookies from the grocery store. The blue cookie-eating "monsters" are always recognizable to anyone of any age! I actually got the idea from a book my mom gave me for Christmas, called 'Delicious Designs', which shows you how to make your own cookie bouquets as well as candy arrangements and fruit bouquets.

I bought this lid-less candy jar at Goodwill for $1.99 and then cut a foam block to fit inside, leaving enough room to stuff some cookies down in the jar.

The foam is wrapped in aluminum foil and placed inside the jar. Then the cookies are placed on edge all around the foam base.

My other supplies included cookie sticks, ready-made blue cookie icing, blue sprinkles and candy melts in both chocolate and vanilla. I usually have several flavors of candy melts in my baking cupboard; I have several candy molds that I use frequently. I like to make them as decorations for cupcakes and cakes.

I also have a bag of mini Chips Ahoy! cookies.

The idea book said to use black and white decorating frosting for the eyes, but then I found these candy eyes, also made by Wilton.

First I melted some vanilla candy melts in the microwave and made five cookie pops with vanilla centers, sandwiching the cookie stick in between two regular size Chips Ahoy! cookies. Then I melted the chocolate candy melts and made four cookie pops with chocolate centers. The idea book used six of each kind, but my jar has a narrower opening than the one in the book and I didn't think I'd be able to fit 12 cookies in my bouquet. I set them aside on some waxed paper and let them cool so the candy would turn hard again.

After they had cooled and set, I selected half of the cookie pops to make faces. The rest of them I just dipped halfway into the leftover candy melts and decorated with sprinkles. The idea book used blue jimmies, but I couldn't find any jimmies in blue, so I just used sugar. I frosted the faces with the blue icing, sprinkled them with blue sugar, added the eyes and then broke a mini Chips Ahoy! in half to make each "mouth" and pressed them into the icing. The cookie icing took awhile to set firm so I left them sitting on a tray until they were ready.

When all the icing was set, I pushed the cookie sticks into the foam base. This was somewhat more difficult than I expected. In the idea book they suggested using craft sticks ( like popsicle sticks, I suppose) which might be easier to push into the foam. I alternated the cookies with faces with the dipped cookies in the bouquet and tried to make them varying heights, but the jar opening was so narrow that I had trouble getting them in the way I wanted. I think next time I'll look for a jar that has a really wide opening! I also "fancied" mine up with some paper and ribbon trims. Then I crumbled some cookies to sprinkle over the top of the base.  My cookie bouquet survived the 5 hour drive to Minnesota really well and was a big hit at the party with kids and adults alike!

Thanks for stopping by!