Strawberry Valentine Treat

Last week I put together our “Be My GF Valentine” Pinterest board.  In the process of doing so, I stumbled across this “Strawberry Roses” idea and decided to make them for a dinner party dessert last weekend.

The hostess went out of her way to make sure the menu was gluten-free.  She even served up Glutino pretzels on the bar with a savory dip as part of the pre-dinner appetizers!  Just to help out, I had volunteered to bring dessert.

   

I had visions of a showstopper dessert, an array of “Strawberry Roses.”   These are easy to make.  Wash strawberries early and lay them out to dry.  Put the strawberries on cake pop sticks right by the stem.  Melt candy in microwave and dip in the strawberries, using the stem leaves as rose bud leaves.

The hard part comes when you have to do the swirl with the red candy to make it look like a rose.  I tried really hard, with my youngest son watching, and we both were a puddle of giggles at how ugly my rose swirls were looking.  Finally, I just gave up and went hog wild with red splatter lines instead.

The other dessert volunteer, the hostess and I had a quick email exchange and I indicated that I was bringing candy dipped strawberries that were supposed to look like roses but instead looked like Jackson Pollock rejects on a stick.

However, it was still fun arranging the dessert!  I had a nice basket with a Styrofoam base and I put the strawberries into the Styrofoam and then used green cellophane to make grass in the base of the basket. 

 

But, the best news of all is that they were delicious and so much fun to pass around the table!  Everyone insisted they looked like roses; my friends are very sweet liars.  My youngest son was invited to come along to hang out with the hostess’ children and they wandered by the table during dessert.  He spotted the last strawberry in the basket, came over and plucked it!  I got the sly thumbs up as he quickly devoured it.  On the car ride home he asked if I would make them again.

For dessert tonight my kids are getting mom’s strawberry roses.  They may be ugly, but they are made with love!

Kendall Egan