Kate and I both attended Brigham Young University and the boys of our Alma mater beat Gonzaga last week, securing a spot in the Sweet 16. They take on the University of Florida this week- and guess where? The Big Easy. So of course we have to throw out a little Cougar-love on OBB! And if you’re not a BYU fan, no worries- I thought this was the perfect opportunity to show some things that can be customized for any school colors (High School Graduations are coming up!) and sports teams because it’s something we get asked about a lot.
But for us, it’s all about the Blue today. See that kid over there? (Oh my gosh, I just referred to a college student as a “kid”, I’m officially old.) That’s the Jimmer. I don’t know how anyone in the US right now doesn’t know who Jimmer Fredette is, but apparently they exist. A phenomenon known as “Jimmer Mania” is sweeping the country. Even President Obama loves the Jimmer! He’s the MWC’s all-time leading scorer, MWC player of the year, and in my husband’s humble opinion, the 2011 NCAA Basketball player of the year. All of that is just fancy talk for A-maz-ing. Grown men squeal like girls when they watch him play, and girls actually watch him play. But what I think is almost cooler than all of that is the fact that his name has become a part of the daily vocabulary of millions of Americans. As they just said on ESPN the other day, “Jimmer is a noun, a verb, and an adverb.” Want proof? His name has its own glossary. I’m pretty sure that’s a good sign that you’ve made something of yourself. Seriously. That’s so Jimmer.
Since we’re celebrating the Sweet 16, I thought a collection of sugary delights was in order. Have pizza for dinner and save room for the treats! (Okay, and hello- blue and white? Not too many options when it comes to savory foods. If your team is red or green you’re set. Us, not so much.)
You know how much we love our Sugar Cookies with Glace Icing. You can make just about anything your cookie-loving heart desires. But we also know that sugar cookies can be time-consuming and annoying sometimes too. So I will tell you a little secret.
Sometimes I cheat.
Not on important things like driver’s tests and board games, but on cookies? Yes. Sometimes. For a quickie thing like this I’ll just buy plain, un-frosted sugar cookies from the bakery at the grocery store. These cute basketball cookies took me 20 minutes start to finish. No joke people! And by finished, I mean dishes in the dishwasher and everything. Boo ya.
You could easily use your team colors and put player’s numbers on them too. There was a full-on battle at our house regarding who got to eat the Jimmer cookie. The kid who screamed the loudest won. Pretty sure it shouldn’t work like that, but at our house, sometimes it does.
Colorburst Cupcakes– also a great one to customize with team colors. You could get fancy and use our Striped Icing Tutorial , or just place 2 colors of frosting in your piping bag like I did here.
You’ll have to forgive the Carolina Blue (even though it IS my favorite color!) There’s only so much you can do with navy – shades of blue are okay in my book!
And if the rainbow version of these cupcakes seems labor intensive to you, a two-color scheme is easy breezy! You don’t even have to layer- I just spooned blobs of batter in the cups, alternating as they filled up.
For whatever reason, Dipped Pretzel Rods are always one of the first things to go when I do spreads like this. Kids especially love them, and they’re SO easy to make, and to customize. I used almond bark and blue candy melts, plus blue and white sprinkles to decorate these bad boys. Quick and easy.
Plus you can run around with them pretending they’re magic wands and cast imaginary spells on people. Not that I’ve ever done that, but it’s sounding really fun.
And hey- if you’re dippin’ anyway, toss some marshmallows in there too! You can never have enough dipped finger foods rolled in sprinkles. Seriously. The world needs more of that. Just like it needs more Jimmer.
Marshmallow Pops make me smile. They’re happy. They look cute all wrapped up if you want to give them out as favors too.
Here’s another trick- whenever I’m serving things on sticks, I like to use candies to hold them up in the container. I find that regular glass drinking cups are a great size for the pops, and colored jelly beans or M&M’s make the perfect base. Then people can eat those too! (If you don’t have anything fun and colorful for your cups, dry rice works great)
My last sweet is Fruity Candy Popcorn. One of my faves. There’s just one problem- the only flavor of Jello that doesn’t work (at least of all the ones I’ve tried) is blue. It actually looks okay when you first mix it up, but if you bake it, it’s turns green! Plus they usually only sell blue jello in the summer around the 4th of July. So to get around that, I cheated again. Man, I’m such a cheater. I made my favorite Caramel Corn recipe, but I used white sugar instead of brown. Then right before pouring the hot caramel on the popcorn, I added some blue food coloring. Worked great- just don’t bake it! The white will turn brown and the blue will turn green and suddenly you will be supporting the wrong team.
My other favorite table filler is M&M’s. You can usually find custom colors at good party supply stores, but if not (and you have a school with normal colors) you can always buy a few bags of regular M&M’s and pick out the colors you need!
And really, if you have some great food, you don’t need a ton of decorations. At the same time, a few things will really perk up the look of the food! So you definitely want a bit of both. My quickest and cheapest additions for parties are plain ol’ curling ribbon (makes anything look festive!) and computer print-outs.
I just printed those Y’s on regular paper, cut them out and scattered them. I’ve done hearts, flowers, stars, etc for other types of table spreads. Super easy and looks great!
So there you have it. Super easy, not too time consuming, and awesomely fun. Bust out your school spirit (whatever school it may be) and show some pride! It’s what The Jimmer would do.
Now I especially expect to hear from all my Cougar fans out there! Show some spirit by clicking the links below to share this post on Facebook and Twitter, or give it a stumble. And of course we’d love to hear a holla’ in a comment!
If you don’t bleed blue- give your own team a shout-out. Let’s see who’s got the loudest fans!
GO COUGS!
LOVE this!! Filled out my bracket and I’m taking BYU to the final 4. Hope it becomes a reality!
Hee hee I am so on the Jimmer bandwagon. Totally made me forget (almost) how bad the Jazz suck this year because I’m cheering for him and the Y. I’m afraid to jinx them though and they’ll lose (I’m pretty superstitious about stuff like that). I love this idea!! Love the cookies! Just sugar cookies with your glace frosting?? Love the cupcakes too. Gotta try this!! Great ideas, as always!
Got me some Jimma Feva here too!! I love your party ideas! Everything looks awesome. Pretty sure we’re gonna score another victory on Thursday! All because of the major love coming from OBB!!! You gals rock!
That’s funny, Ty was all excited for March Madness yesterday and was talking up all the treats you were making. Who wouldn’t be excited with all those cute sweets hanging out at their house?
Thanks for the great ideas for a Carolina or Duke get-together! BYU would be third at my house…nothing could be finer than to be in Carolina!
Rise and Shout! Love the spread. Hoping our Cougs pull off the win to make it into the Elite 8. That would definitely be worth a party! 🙂
Love this….going home after work to get started on my Jimmer party!!!!
Go Cougs! We got spirit, yes we do!
Sara! I just found out your famous and found your blog!
We knew each other way back in VP at BYU…
and now look at you… way to conquer the world!
We lived in #4… you may or may not remember me but that is okay.
I’m famous in my own way, as we all are, right? Actually
I’m really a little person very excited to gather more recipes
from a friend.
Glad to see you’re blessing the world with foodie fabs.
Take care and keep that jimmer shimmer shining!
LOVE THIS! You just taught us how to Jimmer!
DUUUUUKE!
GO COUGS!!!
Love your ideas and table, they look so yummy. And I love the “cheats” that’s my kind of decorating/entertaining 🙂
Love it! My daughter is a basketball player, 6th grade, and plays almost year round. Going to use these ideas for her end of the season party this summer! Thanks for sharing!!
Go Cougars! Love all of the ideas. Can’t wait for the game.
The Gators are about to be Jimmered!! GO COUGARS!!
We’re going to get our Jimmer on around here for the big game tomorrow! Thanks for the awesome ideas! GO COUGARS!!!
I’m totally making those basketball cookies for my husband’s birthday on Friday! So cute!
GO COUGS!!!! I’m one of those girls who doesn’t care about basketball at all but is now at least sort of keeping track of things… And The Jimmer. Sigh lol.
And I want to eat those cupcakes sooo bad!! Yummmmm 🙂 everything looks so great!
WOW- this all looks so awesome and fun! now if only my husband would let me invite people over for the game. . . he is a VERY serious watcher and doesn’t want the hoopla going on. GO BYU though!
Those basketball cookies will definitely be making an appearance for the BYU-Florida game tomorrow. Go Cougars!
I LOVE this post! Of course we’re huge BYU fans here. 🙂 Can’t say anything bad when they are what gives you your living, lol. 🙂 I totally want to have a BYU party tomorrow now! Too bad Dale will be at an EQ party for it instead. Boo! They better win tomorrow so we can throw a party for the next game, lol.
We made my mom a blue birthday cake many years ago and none of us could eat it. 🙂 But hey, GO COUGARS!!!
Duke baby!! (BYU too). 🙂
I seriuosly am in the party mood right now! NOw, I am not a Y or U fan, but SUU fan and so I might have to do a party with that theme or do hearts for my dads heart surgery! OHHHH, have you ever thought about doing one for Conference? How fun would it be to do a party themed around Pres. Monson or something?! I might have to try it! Check my blog later to see if I did! AHAHAHA!
Huge BYU and Jimmer fan here– as in I have a life-sized poster in the high school classroom where I teach, and “Jimmer” taped on the floor in the back, where students get five points during review games if they make the shot from there.
I love your ideas. I’m a big fan of throwing BYU parties. I bought a “Y” cookie cutter from the Creamery, which I used to cut out rice crispy treats, and dipped them in white chocolate. I dyed some chocolate blue (with an oil based dye, water based is a disaster), and drizzled it on the front. I’ll definitely be adding your ideas to my party tomorrow! Go Cougs!
I’ll definitely be using some of your cute ideas this Thursday. Go Cougars! Beat the Gators!
GO COUGARS!!! We’ll definitely have to use some of these awesome ideas for our big party tomorrow!! Love it!
Oh so much fun….love it all.
GOOOOO MIGHTY COUGARS! I am so so excited for the game tomorrow! We are going to PARTY! We definitely bleed BLUE around here! Thanks for all the fun ideas!
Did you see that cute #12 guarding the basket so Jimmer could take his crazy shot? Yep, that handsome devil is my little brother! I couldn’t be more proud! I had to stay home with the munchkins while the fam all flew out to New Orleans for the games (boo). I’m going to have to make some of these treats for my little Cougar fans. We are in need of a cheer up since we aren’t at the real game! How fun! What an awesome spread! Can’t wait to tell Logan that he must be famous now…not only did his cute mug end up on the cover of SI, but now it’s on Our Best Bites!! Go Cougars!!
I LOVE this post! I too am a BYU alumnist(is that even a word?). Anyway, you are so creative! Can I be invited to your BYU basketball party? JK I bought your new cookbook at Costco a couple weeks ago. I love it because you and Kate cook with fresh but simple ingredients that are easy to find. Go COUGS!
You’ve got some great ideas there! I have to admit, though, I am one of those strange people that have never even heard of the “Jimmer”. If it’s any consolation, my husband probably has – he sort of follows college ball at this time of year. I also have lots of Jim’s, Jimmy’s, and James’s in my life… does that help?