Leprechaun Hat Treats

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day is a very special day in our home.  My husband treat it more as an anniversary than we do our wedding, considering it is the same day that we met.  Quite surprisingly, considering we lived on opposite sides of North America at the time.

So as I was finishing up an Easter project I'll be sharing with you soon, 

THIS idea popped into my head...

A super fun and simple treat to help celebrate St. Patrick's Day!

I will apologize now sharing this at the last possible minute in preparation for the big day...

it really was an after-thought!

I'll also apologize for the lack of photos.  But, it was so simple to make, I hope you don't mind reading the instructions if you even feel they are necessary to create your own.

Leprechaun Hat Treats

Supplies Needed

- SOLO Clear Plastic Cups

- Sugar Cookies

- M&M's, green & brown

- Icing Glue (see recipe below)

- Paper, yellow or gold

- Glue

- Gold Glitter optional

Directions

1. Prepare Sugar Cookies

I use THIS recipe, but any recipe will do.  Add enough green food coloring to get the shade you like. I roll mine between 1/4" and 1/2", then cut circles with a small bowl or large cup.  You want a circle that will be slightly larger than the open mouth of the SOLO cup.

Let cookies cool completely!

2.  Prepare Icing Glue

I use the same recipe as I would for gluing together my gingerbread houses.

Icing Glue

- 2 cups Powdered Sugar

- 1 Egg White

- 1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar

- Green Food Coloring

Combine the powdered sugar, egg white, and cream of tartar in a bowl and mix well (I use my hand blender).  Add a little bit of green food coloring to get the color you want.  If the mixture is too dry, add a little bit of hot water until you get the right consistency.  If the mixture is too wet, add more powdered sugar.

You want the icing to be thick enough that it will hold it's shape, but not so thick that it is impossible to squeeze from a piping bag!

Transfer your icing to a bag (a ziplock bag will do).

3. Fill Your Hat

Fill your cup with green M&M's.  I chose to add brown M&M's at the top of the cup to create the band of the hat.  Fill the cup full, so that the M&M's won't have much wiggle room once the hat is put together.

4. Glue it Together

Snip a small bit off of the corner of your icing glue piping bag.  Run a line of icing glue around the rim of the cup, as in the photo below:

 

Yes.. I know.. work with me here!

This photo is for the next project I will be sharing with you... but same idea applies.

Pretend this cup is full of M&M's and has green icing glue, not white.

With the cup sitting upright on a flat surface (so your M&M's don't fall out) place your cookie on top of the iced cup rim and gently press into place.  You may want to leave your hats upside down like this for several hours, until the icing completely dries... gluing the cup to the cookie.

You will then have this....

5. Add a Buckle

I cut a rectangle out of yellow card stock, cut a smaller rectangle out of the middle, covered it in glue, and poured gold glitter over top.  However, you could even pipe yellow icing directly onto the cup to create your buckle!  When my buckle was dry, I used some of my extra icing glue to attach it to my hat.

And here it is... 

A simple, sweet treat for this St. Patty's Day!

Don't forget your green!