If you’re new around here, one thing you should know about Kate and me is that we don’t do very many fancy things, but we love to find un-fancy ways to make it look like we do fancy things. Fake it till you make it? Perhaps. Take tiny molded edible objects, for example. I am 98% certain you will never, ever find us making fondant and crafting tiny caricatures to adorn a cake people are going to tear apart. But what I can do? Roll a starburst between my hands and stick some licorice in it. Boom. Fancy. People will instantly think you have mad skillz when you craft things like tiny carrots. One of our favorite short-cut tricks for things like this is candy. And I’m not talking bust-out-the-candy-thermometer candy. I’m talking like, grab-a-pack-of-something-in-the-check-out-lane-at-Walmart candy.
I first made little orange candy carrots years and years ago, but back then I put little parsley sprigs in the ends for the greens. They look adorable, but people are always a little iffy about whether they’re supposed to eat them considering it’s candy with herbs sticking out of them. Then last year when I was making these cute St. Patrick’s Day favors Kate posted, I realized the green Twizzlers would be perfect in place of my parsley.
You can use any orange colored pliable candy, and if you walk the candy aisle you might find more options than you knew of. I’m using Starburst here, I’ve also used the orange tootsie rolls (my WinCo grocery store usually sells them in bulk), and orange airheads. Starbursts are a good size because all you need to do is cut one in half and it’s the perfect size for 2 carrots.
Depending on how fresh your candy is, sometimes they can be a little hard. If that’s the case, I’ve found that popping them in the microwave for just a few seconds (5 seconds in mine) softens them perfectly. Use your hands to mold them into little carrot shapes.
Then use a skewer to poke down the top of the carrot and make an opening to insert the greens. I stick the skewer pretty far down there and wiggle it around a bit.
The green Twizzlers are already in little line shapes, so just cut them into small pieces, and take 3 and press them together at one end, and then nestle them in the opening in your carrot. I think it works best to cut all of the greens first, then make each carrot to completion before starting the next one.
You can gently press with a sharp knife to make little lines down the front of the carrots.
They look super cute adorning a carrot cake (try Kate’s Carrot Cake Supreme), or my favorite- on cupcakes that have been topped with cookie crumbs (I saw Disney posted these same carrots and they topped their cupcakes with cinnamon sugar- also cute) for the little garden patch. I’ve also topped cupcakes with toasted green coconut for a little springy grass scene.
Any way you do it, tiny edible candy carrots make just about everything extra cute!
Now stay tuned Wednesday to see what I’m going to do with these next….
Questions & Reviews
i don’t know what to do so that the cookie crumbs won’t fall off…
Where can I find the recipe for the Carrot Patch Cupcakes? Thanks!
You can use any cake and frosting recipe you like, Sarah. This is just a cute idea to top them!
Can I just say I wish I was your neighbor so I could get all your cast-offs. These are so cute.
Making these for the cake walk at our church’s Easter picnic on Saturday!!
So cute I think I just peed my pants (see yesterday’s Facebook post from Sara). Really, I might do this!
Great Idea! Perfect for Easter! Thanks!
The Dollar Tree near me (Vancouver, WA) has packages of Jelly Belly ‘Peas and Carrots’ candy. Now I know what I will be making with the carrots in the two bags I picked up. Cute!
I love these!!
Seriously, these are SO cute!
How cute!! My kids will LOVE doing this!
That is just too stinking cute!
Adorable and so easy, this is my kind of fancy. These will be perfect for Easter.
I cannot find the rainbow twizzlers anywhere. Where have you found them? I have looked at Smiths, Winco, Target, and Walmart. All I can find is the yellow and red filled ones.
I got mine at Fred Meyer, and that’s the only place I checked for them!
What a cute idea, I love it. Perfect for Easter time baking 🙂
This is totally unrelated to your cute cupcakes… I have been looking at all of your chocolate cookie recipes wondering which would be best for the pizookies party I am hosting tomorrow night. My plan is to make a chocoalte chip cookie base without the chips, and a chocolate base, without anything in it, an then let guests add their own candy, chips, etc. suggestions on which recipe would be great!
Thanks
This is my go-to chocolate base, just leave out the candy in the dough:
https://ourbestbites.com/2009/04/cadbury-egg-cookies/
PS- am I invited to your party?! 😉
Thanks! Absolutely. Gilbert AZ is a little far from Boise, however… Too bad-it’s going to be a good time!
I am sooo going to make these. Thank you!!
Okay these are SERIOUSLY genius! They would be perfect for carrot cake and carrot cupcakes! Once, I used a vanilla tootsie roll to make a diploma and red fruit roll up to “tie” it–not my idea but it’s amazing what you could do with soft candy!
That sounds so cute- love it!
OMG ADORABLE!!! I’m totally making these for Easter. My kids are going to love them. Thanks for sharing!!!
Those are so cute! What a fun idea!
How clever! These are adorable!
Love it….I see myself making a lot of these for Easter baskets 🙂
These are right up my alley. So SOOO adorable!!
I made Starburst carrots for my cupcakes last year, and the carrots actually melted into the frosting. 🙁 Anyone else have that problem?
I had the same problem, I made some with starburst and some with orange tootsie rolls. The cupcakes weren’t warm or anything when I stuck the carrots in them. I made the cupcakes the night before and put the candies on in the morning. By the time we were ready to eat them in the afternoon, all the carrots were melty and leaning over like limp noodles. They were still cute and tasted good though.
This is absolutely ADORABLE!!!
Green Twizzlers ~ genius!
Awww so fun!!
Wow! These might not be “fancy,” but they are so clever! Can’t wait to use this little trick…
That’s actually a super cute idea! Thanks for sharing!