Octopus Pops and Sweet Candy Sushi

The other day I wrote a bit about my daughter's birthday party, but I didn't get a chance to give many details.  These octopus pops I saw several places on pinterest.com.  I thought they were really cute little novelty.  Easy - a bag of marshmallows, a bag of melting chocolate (color of your choice), pop sticks, and candy eyes.  Of course, you can buy those googly eyes in the baking supply aisle OR you can be an overachiever and make them like me :).  All you need to do is melt the chocolate either in the microwave or over a double boiler.  Place a bit of the melted chocolate into a small plastic baggie or disposable piping bag.  Cut a small hole in the plastic and pipe 8 "tentacles" onto wax paper sheet.  With the remaining chocolate, dip the marshmallows on a pop stick and place the pop on the "tentacles" and add the eyes.  I used plain white candy dots and added the details for eyes with food coloring pen.  I have to admit, doing the white candy dots was much easier than trying to make a batch of black royal icing and keep it from bleeding in to the white.  I finished them with a sprinkle of colored sugar, but certainly not a necessary step.  In the end, I think I rushed though the project a bit so the chocolate coating looked a little bumpy. While they were really cute and looked nice on the food table, but I don't think anybody actually ate them entirely.  Clearly a novelty item, but still worth the effort.  

Sweet candy sushi (from the Hello Kitty party a couple of years ago)

The sweet candy sushi, on the other hand was truly a hit.  I made it a couple of years ago for my daughter's  Hello Kitty birthday party.  She asked for it again this year when we were planning a mermaid swim party. I found this recipe in Family Fun magazine as well as the inspiration for the Sand Castle cake.  Another very easy recipe and pretty tasty too.  This year I also made "real" veggie sushi  to help balance out the sweets a bit.  This recipe, besides the cake, was definitely the hit.

This year's leftovers