If you’re like us, you still have un-eaten candy canes all over your kitchen. They’re too pretty to throw away and you can’t really give them to anyone, as they have their own piles at home too! So here’s a few things you can do to give candy canes new life without throwing them out.
- Crush Them: Crushed candy canes make for great toppings on almost any dessert. Pies, ice cream, brownies, cookies, cakes, the list goes on. They can be the topping or mixed right into the recipe. If you’re going to mix in your crushed candy canes, I highly suggest blending or pureeing them. It will make for a much finer taste as it’s baked or mixed into another dessert.
Peppermint Whipped Cream for your Hot Chocolate
- Dip Them: We like to dip our candy canes in chocolate too. Then it’s ready for milk, chocolate milk, hot chocolate, coffee, again, the list goes on. Or if you don’t want to dip them, they’re great just as a stir stick with your hot drink.
Chocolate Dipped Candy Canes Ready for Stirring
- Bake Them: You can even bake your candy canes. Once they’re baked you can move them into fun shapes. We’ve baked 2 candy canes together to make a heart. Or even broken off pieces and shaped them into letters.
I just had to add this funny video I found with ideas for your candy canes. The lady on the video is a hoot! — What have you done with your leftover candy canes?
Written by Marie LeBaron
Marie LeBaron is the founder and managing editor of Make and Takes. Always having a love of crafts, she enjoys getting messy with glue and glitter. There’s always some sort of project going on, her kitchen counter is often cluttered with crafts. When she’s not crafting and creating with her kids, she loves to run, read, and blog! Read other posts by Marie
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Similar to crushing, if you pulse those pieces in the food processor, you get peppermint powdered sugar. Really fun for cookie decorating or for tossing with homemade marshmallows.
What great tips. I especially like the idea of adding it to hot chocolate. I’ll have to give that a try.
They also make great heart lollipops and cupcake toppers– perfect for Valentines Day!
http://www.skiptomylou.org/2009/01/21/candy-cane-hearts/
That video is awesome! Love her cocktail idea. . .
I want to use them in meringues or maybe crush them up into brownies to make minty brownies.
what great ideas! I am totaly going to use all of mine doing everything on your list! Thanks
crush, store in freezer tightly wrapped (so as not to absorb other flavors), stir into summer’s vanilla ice cream. Great for after the pool on a blistering day!
Cindy – Love those candy cane heart suckers! Perfect!
Deb – FREEZING!! Great idea. I hadn’t thought of that.
always good ideas over here….thanks marie and good luck with your run! that’s sounds like a lot of fun. i maybe want to make a team. we’ll see if i am up to the task.
Great video! and love the chocolate dippings!
LOVE the idea of melting … never knew you could do that!!! Thanks for sharing!
The “love” word is so adorable. I’m going to have to bake my leftover candy canes now! So cute!
Crush them and mix with melted white almond bark to make peppermint bark candy. YUM!
Wacky video! I still had candy canes from 2008 on my top cupboard shelf (out of sight, out of mind) a week before Christmas. Santa only brought one pack this year and they weren’t peppermint. All of these ideas are great if I ever do have peppermint ones though!
Come to think of it, if peppermint candy canes melt the same as starlight mints you could design candy cane ornaments. It would take some creativity! Here’s my post on Peppermint Candy Ornaments:
http://fantasticfind.blogspot.com/2009/12/peppermint-candy-ornaments.html
Great idea!
I’ve got Christmas all put away except this mound of candy canes on my kitchen counter. I never considered doing something else with them. Thanks for the inspiration. I’ll be linking on Facebook.
Hilarious movie lady!
Great ideas. I was just thinking I needed to come up with something for all the left over candy canes. I think I still even have some pink mini princess ones that would make super cute hearts.
Cindy – I also love the lolly pop idea.
This is so funny, we must be thinking alike! I hadn’t been by this week. I made Chocolate Covered Candy Cane Hearts. I was inspired by your post last year where you made the hearts out of candy canes and thought I would dip them in candiquick. I love all things dipped in chocolate/candy!
http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/2010/01/chocolate-covered-candy-cane-hearts.html
I crushed some and added the bits to cream cheese icing, then used it to frost chocolate cupcakes. YUM!