4th of July: Food

As July 4th is rapidly approaching us Five Times the Funners decided to give y'all a little taste of everything! We will show you some great foods to serve at your 4th of July party, red white and blue themed clothing for the festivities, and some awesome crafts to make all this come together perfectly! So lets goooooo:

Food

Here are some super easy quick ways to give your 4th of July BBQ or party the little red, white and blue spirit it needs!

This first treat is an adaption of our previous post "Pretzel Buttons". For those of you who haven't seen that post we attached a link to it and we will also show you quickly{and very briefly} what to do :)

When you are at the store shopping for ingredients be sure to pick up 4th of July themed M&Ms and Hershey Hugs! The more themed the betterrrrrrr :) Do the recipe just like normal. Preheat the oven 200F. Line a cookie sheet with pretzels. Place the Hershey Hugs onto the pretzels. Bake 4-5 mins then remove from the oven. Take your M&Ms and smush them down onto the pretzels. Place the Pretzel Buttons into the freezer to cool. Tada yummy little treats!

The second treat is chocolate covered strawberries. Who doesn't love some sweet strawberries with chocolately goodness? Take your strawberries and wash and clean them. Melt your chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and use the "chocolate" setting on your microwave {if you don't have that setting just watch the chocolate so it doesn't burn} Hold the strawberries by their stems and dip them into the chocolate. Now here is where you can get creative. Either dip your still warm chocolate strawberries in blue sprinkles or you can let the chocolate cool and then apply zigzags and stripes to it with red or blue chocolate/icing.

And of course, you can't celebrate a totally American holiday without Apple Pie! We made a post called "Mini Apple Pies" which explain exactly what you would need for this yummy American treat! 

If you are looking for an even easier way to get the red white and blue theme, serve licorice, yogurt covered pretzels and blueberries. Or any other colored treats! Those were just some quick and easy ways to make your BBQ or 4th party a little more 4th themed :) Hope this helped you get in the spirit!

Mini Apple Pies

This recipe makes 12 deliciously adorable apple pies in about 40 minutes!

In a bowl, mix together the cinnamon, flour, sugar, lemon & salt

Peel, core, and cut the apples. Make sure when you cut that the apples are in small pieces {because the pies are mini!}

Now add the cut apples with the mixed dry ingredients and mix. Make sure to mix well so that all the apples are covered evenly.

Cut circles out of your pastry and line your cupcake tins with the dough. Make sure the bottom layer of pastry is larger than the top so you can squish the edges together.

Next, pile the apple filling onto the dough. Make piles in the middle of the dough so that when the pies cook, the apple filling doesn't sink and cause depressions.

Cut out more circles of pastry for the top of your pies and paint on a small amount of whipped egg to the perimeter of the circle {this will make the top and bottom stick together}

Use a fork to create the edge detail {this assures that the pie is closed}. Then cut two small holes into the top of the pies so they can breath while cooking.

Dust the top of the pies with brown sugar and the whipped egg. The egg provides a glossy look and the brown sugar glazes the pies.

Cover the pies with aluminum foil for 15 mins and then cook uncovered for the last 5. This will allows the apples to cook through while not burning the pastry. Our house smelled DELICIOUS while they were cooking!

If you like your pies EXTRA full of apples we suggest preparing 9 apples {instead of 6} and warming the diced apples on the stove. After preparing the apples we put them into a pot to cook on low heat for about 15 minutes. We wanted them to get softer {but not completely soft} so when we put them into the pastry we could fit more into the pies. Remember not to cook the apples to much because they will still bake once in the over. Once you have cooked your apples {and tasted to see how soft they are} strain the water from them and combine them with the dry ingredients as usual!

Thanks for reading & happy baking

xo