Let’s get festive for the 4th of July!
Alright, so you know how we all love to pin a bunch of fun ideas that we think one day we might try?! Well, when it comes to festive food for the 4th, I tried a few fun ideas over the weekend and I have to tell you the truth…some straight up flopped!
This post should be titled “Festive Food for the 4th: the good the bad and the ugly”, because when you get to the bottom you’ll see why. (haha)
Alright, first up – The Good: Watermelon Stars. You really can’t go wrong with watermelon on the 4th of July, it’s a light and refreshing thing to add to your BBQ party, and good for you too. Add a few blueberries to your big platter and everyone will be healthy and happy.
Here’s a tip for cutting the watermelon: after you cut the watermelon in half, cut round discs off from each half, it makes it easy to use the star shaped cookie cutter. This little tip saved me!
Next up: The Bad. Okay, so sure you’ve seen these darling red, white and blue strawberries, but have you made them yet? If not then you’ve come to the right place, because I can tell you what worked and what didn’t work, and why they are labeled “the bad” here on this post.
Okay…what worked: The drizzle, and not the dip. The first few strawberries I made I dipped them into the white chocolate stuff and you really don’t need that much of the white chocolate stuff on each one. This stuff is full of partially hydrogenated oil, which is so bad for you, so try to use as little as possible.
For the blue sugar, I was in a hurry and I grabbed a few packets of fun dip. I had plans to bring them to a BBQ on Monday night, and I had made them the day before. Welp…it turns out one night in the fridge will change the blue sugar to green. Say what?! Too bad we’re not celebrating Mexico or Cinco De Mayo or Christmas. Dangit!
So learn from my mistake…if you plan to make these, and you use the blue fun dip, make sure you make them the same day you serve them and don’t put them in the fridge or you’ll have red, white and green berries. 😉
Overall, I do have to say they’re pretty cute…and we all liked them a lot.
Last up, The UGLY: I attempted this darling ice box cake with hidden stars via BHG. Isn’t it cute?! I was so excited to try it. I had plans to make it my own, I was going to do red and white stripes and blue stars in the middle…and everything! It was going to be adorable!
So I hunted all over for blue and red ice cream, apparently they’re not that easy to come by. I ended up buying “play dough” ice cream for the blue (which is pretty gross) and a trio of sherbets for the red. I even had the silicone star ice cube trays ready to go and everything. …are you ready to laugh?
Here it is…my festive ice cream creation! Isn’t it pretty?! 😉 (LOL)
So there you have it! The Festive Food and flops for the 4th. Okay, your turn please share your best flop story with me…it will make my day.
MORE festive treats for the 4th of July:
–Sugar Cookie Fruit Flag Pizza
–Meringue Cookie stands
–Patriotic Ice Cream Sandwich
–Fresh Berry Mini Pavlovas
–Festive Food for the 4th of July (you are here)
–Red, White and Blue Banana Splits
–Patriotic Ice Cream Pops
–Easy Red, White and Blue Candy Buffet
Well A+ for the effort! I bet (minus the play dough ice cream, yikes!) that they still all tasted delicious!!
The Fun Dip is supposed to color change I believe. It’s actually green apple flavored. Once it gets wet it changes to green. See on the wrapper how it says magic dip on only the blue flavor? 🙂 My kids eat these so I know. I would have used the blue sugar you decorate cookies with maybe? And the BHG recipe is frozen yogurt, not ice cream. I have noticed that frozen yogurt is a lot harder than ice cream when frozen. They also used food coloring along with pomegranate and blueberry juice to color the yogurt those vibrant hues. Is this the recipe you followed? http://www.bhg.com/recipe/frozen-yogurt-icebox-cake/ I think sometimes some of these nailed it/fails are due to human error. I can’t tell step by step where you went wrong, but maybe try again next year 😉 and try it exactly the way the recipe instructs. Maybe it would turn out better? Maybe not lol. I give you an A for effort. But to make you feel better I once tried to make a cheesecake in a glass pie plate and it never firmed up. It was more like white chocolate raspberry pudding. It tasted great, but it was a far cry from a cheesecake. And I have the absolute worst luck with divinity.
Thanks for the tips. Wish I had you in the kitchen with me! Oh well…haha!
Well I just think the strawberries are so pretty and festive. The blue sugar for cookies, (that someone else commented about) is a great idea, but we don’t always have all these good thoughts while rushing through the grocery store, huh. Anyway like everyone else, I commend you for the effort. Oh and some of those “ugly” desserts still taste great and we get to eat them up at home alone!!!! 🙂
Um-my best flop is the infamous Barbie cake that we named bachelor party Barbie!!
Just now seeing this. HAHAHA!!