We’re a week out from the holiday – a WEEK people! That means we have to finish shopping, get those cards in the mail, presents to wrap, and let’s not even talk about the meal we’re making and hosting. But there are a lot of easy ways you can speed up the process while you’re prepping food for next week. You can easily transform one recipe into several different fun ideas just with the right tools.
I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen with the holiday coming up, yet it doesn’t seem like everything I need to get done will be done in time. Oriental Trading Company sent me a few tools to help me save
time and my sanity this holiday season. The first bundle of items they sent were some adorable Penguin suckers and some curly canes. While they’re actually pretty yummy on their own, the first idea I had was to use them as cupcake toppers. The fun shapes and colors will take a regular and still yummy cupcake and change it into an adorable display. All you have to do is unwrap and stick it on top of the frosting. Fro the penguins, you do have to cut their stick down a little bit or they’re not sitting in the frosting.
So while I was making my Gingerbread cupcake recipe – I was able to change some regular cupcakes into kid friendly and adorable options just by putting the candy decorations on top. It was a couple minutes to decorate them all and no rush to make the toppers myself. I did leave a couple without decorations, but the others had adorable toppers that were an extra sweet after the cupcake as well.
I really loved working with the penguins, you could even clip the stick off completely and use them as decoration around the base of a cake. I love how cute they are and with a white(ish) frosting they are easily sitting in a pile of snow while they wait for someone to pick their cupcake.
The second item Oriental Trading sent was their three tier food display. It comes with three porcelain food trays and everything you need to assemble it – except directions. It took us a little bit to figure it out, but the cross bars go in an X between the middle and back poles giving the whole unit stability. Once assembled, you can put treats on their own plates and take advantage of a vertical display and save some space. We loved using it when we hosted Thanksgiving, we could keep the rum cakes up a bit higher and out of small hands!
The best part about the display? It collapses and doesn’t take up a lot of space when you’re not using it. You can also use the food plates on their own if you don’t need the whole display. You can use it for desserts, appetizers or whatever you want during your meal.
Yes, it’s almost time to host the meal and open presents, but don’t stress. Just remember with the right tools you’ll be done in no time!
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