I have a really cute idea for your Easter Baskets today! 2-Ingredient
Candy Buttons! With just 2 ingredients you can make these adorable
(and easy) Candy Buttons that your kids will love you for!!
All you need is some Vanilla Candy Coating (which is what I used)
or Candy Melts and some pretty Springtime nonpareils and you’re ready
to start! (I really liked the candy coating – Kroger brand of Candiquik –
because it tasted great and it came in a handy dandy microwaveable pan.)
The idea for these pretty candies came from one of my favorite blogs –
Passion 4 Baking. Manuela used a silicone baking mat to make her
candy buttons. You can make the buttons without the mat, but
having a guide just makes it easier! If you wanted to make your
own guide you could use a small round cookie cutter and draw
circles onto a sheet of parchment paper. Then place another
sheet of parchment over that and pipe your circles.
So all you do is melt the candy coating in the microwave – or use a
double boiler. Then spoon the coating into circles onto a baking sheet
lined with parchment paper, or do what I did and put the melted candy
coating into a piping bag fitted with a medium round tip and pipe the
mixture onto your silicone mat or baking sheet.
If you’re going to pipe the mixture, let it cool for 5 minutes before
putting it into the piping bag. The mixture will be runny at first,
which will make it difficult to pipe. Gently squeeze the mixture
onto the center of each circle on the silicone mat. It will then spread
further toward the outer edge of the circle. If it doesn’t spread to the
outer edge you can just use your finger or the back of a spoon to finish.
Immediately sprinkle the candy circles with pretty nonpareils.
The candies harden pretty quickly. When they’re set, just pop them
out of the mat or peel off of the parchment.
I love these pastel colored nonpareils by Wilton. They’re
difficult to find right now – I order mine from here.
Wrap them up in little clear bags tied with pretty ribbon ….
or put them in a pretty container in your kitchen.
But make sure that they don’t disappear before you
make your cookies!
Now, onto the cookies! I found this recipe for Malted
Milk Flowers in a cookbook called The Australian Women’s
Weekly Macaroons & Biscuits. Their cookies were decorated
with chocolate freckles and looked really cute. I was going
to use ready made freckles with my cookies, but after ordering
several bags of different colors I ended up disappointed because
they just weren’t pretty! So I made my own!
The cookies are soft and gently flavored with Malt in the cookie
dough and in the icing. If you love Malted Milk Balls like I do,
you’ll love these!
The cookie dough was really easy to work with and I had
no trouble cutting out the cookies or moving them to the
baking sheet.
MALTED MILK FLOWERS
Ingredients:
125g (4 ounces) butter, softened
1/2 cup (110g) caster (superfine) sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons golden syrup or treacle
1/3 cup (40g) malted milk powder
2 1/2 cups (375g) plain (all purpose) flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar
Sprinkle Buttons or ready made chocolate Freckles
Malt Icing:
1 1/2 cups (240g) icing (confectioners’) sugar
2 tablespoons malted milk powder
2 tablespoons milk, approximately
Beat butter, sugar and egg in a small bowl with
electric mixer until combined, transfer to large bowl;
stir in golden syrup and sifted dry ingredients, in two
batches. Knead dough lightly on floured surface until
smooth. Cover, refrigerate 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 150C/300F. Line oven trays with
parchment.
Roll dough between sheets of parchment paper until
1/4 inch thick. Cut 3 inch flowers from dough; place
flowers about 1 inch apart on trays. Bake about 18
minutes. Cool on trays.
Meanwhile, make malt icing:
Sift icing sugar and malted milk powder into small
heatproof bowl; stir in enough milk to make a thick
paste. Stir over small saucepan of simmering water
until icing is spreadable. Add a bit of pink food
coloring if desired.
Spread cookies with icing; top cookies with a
sprinkle button. Makes 36. Store cookies in an
airtight container for up to a week.
What a pretty and delicious way to use your Sprinkle Buttons!
Hope you enjoy these recipes and visit again soon!! xo!
Welcome! I’m Jina, the Baker, Photographer and Afternoon Tea Caterer behind Pink Piccadilly Pastries! I’m here to share sweet, simple & Tried & True Recipes & Tips for Afternoon Teas.
These look so sweet! Thank you for sharing.
They look so pretty ~ perfect for Easter!
Carolyn
I just love your recipes! As Kelli Davidson, I have been following you for a very long time! My daughter and I just purchased http://www.Yumgoggle.com where bloggers post their photos with direct links back to their blog. We promote them on Social Media and thereby we both get more traffic. I would LOVE for you to submit your blog posts to YG. We are not spammy nor do we cost anything. We are reputable and love giving bloggers traffic. Please consider posting to Yum Goggle as soon as possible – I'm going to be making these cookies as soon as possible! Kelli