Making Candy Christmas Trees

Before the Holiday House opened, we had a craft day and several of us got together and made these candy trees.  I wish I had taken my camera that day and gotten all the “in process” pics for you, but I totally forgot it.

But, I know that many of you might like to try these at home, since I’ve had several asking for the recipe. They turned out SO pretty and we sold quite a few of them. The base is a foam cone and we did several different sizes.  I found this tutorial on another site and this version doesn’t use egg whites, so this might work great too.  And if you don’t want to use powdered eggwhites, I’m sure the real thing will work great too and is probably cheaper.

Recipe for the icing for Candy Trees:

1 lb confectioners sugar (4 cups)

3 TB Powdered egg whites

6 TB Warm water

Beat 6 min. until peaks.  The most important part of icing is consistency. If it starts to get too stiff and dry out, add 1 TB of water at a time until smooth and easy to spread.  Be careful not to get too thin also, as candy will slide.  A little practice and you’ll get it!

Also, don’t cover the whole cone all at once.  Sit your cone on a cakeplate or pedestal and start covering with icing at the bottom, about 1/2 way up, place your candies and then keep working up to the top.  The icing starts to dry out pretty fast!

You will need to have all your candy ready to use so that you don’t waste time opening wrappers.  You can use just a few colors or a bunch of colors, whatever you want to create.  Sheron did say that some of the candy held up better than others, like the peppermints, I think melted some after they were attached.  I love the little Scottie dogs that they found.  And the gumdrops worked perfectly.

We had a lot of fun doing these, so I hope some of you will try them and let me know if you do!  I think these could be sprayed with a clear shellac and kept in a cool, dry place to be used again and again.

Part III of the Christmas House will be up soon!  I know many of you start decorating right after Thanksgiving or if you’re like me, you get an early start.  I’ve got most of mine up already, but I had an excuse this year, since a lot of my things were already down from the attic.  Had to do something with it!  And I wanted to be sure I have everything up and ready for my Christmas blog party on December 10th.  Please join me!

Also had some other excitement this week!  The Birmingham News contacted me about doing a tree topper tutorial for next weekend’s Spaces section. They came out on Thursday and my friend and contact at the paper, Mary, did the interview and the photographer took pics of this towering and glitzy tree topper that I put together. I sure hope it translates well on film and doesn’t look crazy!  All of you in the area, please be sure to pick up a paper next weekend, the 28th and check out the Spaces section.

Big congrats to Marla, who won the B’s Purses giveaway!  Weren’t those purses beautiful?  If anyone would like to order a purse, feel free to contact Beth for all the information.