All the things you can do with Mike and Ike's

You should all know that Hallie is an enabler. I believe it has been mentioned that I had/have a slight problem with Mike N Ike's. And by slight I mean a box a day. I said "had/have" because I had kicked the habit. I went cold turkey ( obviously, substituting with jelly beans). I didn't even have that secret back up box hidden. There were NONE in the house. And then Hallie emails and says I should come up with things I could use Mike N Ike's for other than eating. She acted soooo innocent. I brainstormed and then headed out to make my purchase. I should have known I was heading into a problem when I bought 7 boxes instead of the two I would need for my projects. I tried to put them back...but couldn't. They had ahold of me again.

Turns out there are other things you can do with them. We flavored yogurt and club soda, and made candy bracelets and sun catchers.

To flavor the yogurt and club soda I decided to try to boil the flavors out of the candy and then turn into a syrup. I started with a small amount of no sugar added apple juice in the bottom of a sauce pan to prevent the candy from sticking and burning.

The color came off pretty quickly and left clear gummy capsules bobbing around in pinkish syrup.

The fact that they wouldn't melt sent a warning to my brain that maybe Mike N Ike's aren't really a wholesome snack, but the smell of sweet candy blocked it out pretty well. After I exhausted the possibility of the capsules melting I strained the liquid into a glass and let it cool.

I stirred some syrup into a container of yogurt and then put it into ice cube trays to freeze. For the remaining syrup I added club soda that I had left over from a spring cleaning post we have coming up soon. The Princess ate the frozen yogurt for a treat after dinner and my husband braved the drink.

My daughter thought the yogurt was yummy but I couldn't really taste much of a candy flavor and my husband said he couldn't tell if he was getting the flavor of candy or the juice. Both were definitely sweeter, but didn't taste like a Mike N Ike.

The attempt to make sun catchers was really just an experiment to see what would happen if I put them into the microwave. I figured they would melt, but I didn't know what I could do with them after that. I decided that the goal would be a sun catcher. I put them on a paper plate and then started microwaving at 30 second intervals.

The candy in the middle of the plate started to burn before those on the outside had completely melted. I tried several times, but couldn't quite keep the centers from browning. I did get one that wasn't totally ruined...but it stuck to the plate. Oh well. It wasn't pretty, but I guess you could say it caught the sun...

Also, they shatter when they fall on the floor. Not that I allowed that to happen. I'm not clumsy at all.

The candy bracelets were by far the best use of the candy.

The Princess looked at me like I was magic. I decided that bracelets were a much better option than necklaces, as 4 yr olds aren't known for their cleanliness, and Mike N Ike's are pretty heavily hued. There was a fair amount of sticky messiness on my daughters wrist from trying to chew the candy while on her arm and not making a clean bite. Very happy it wasn't around her neck and on her clothes. I threaded a needle and then strung the candy. Easy. I made one for myself too and then we giggled and acted like lunatics eating our wrists.

Bryn