Memorial Day is the unofficial official beginning of summer. With warmer days comes outdoor living in the form of picnics, backyard entertaining, block parties and camping. This shift to outdoors also means we shift the way we eat. The cake or pie perfect for dessert at home is a melting mess under the noonday sun at a Memorial Day picnic. Chocolate bars melt, food spills, drinks get knocked over, and children, adults, pets, and ants do not sit still.
Do not despair! With just few handy tips up your sleeve, you will have the fun summer picnic or backyard party you envisioned.
The first tenet of a fun, chocolaty picnic is to stick to the basics, keep your plans simple, and organize ahead of time. If you plan on serving chilled desserts, make sure the cooler works and will hold what is necessary. Use a second cooler or plastic tub or other leak proof carrier to cart whatever doesn’t need to be in the cooler.
You already know there will be a mess and hands will be everywhere else before they go into your family’s mouths, so bring hand sanitizer and paper towels or kitchen towels for wiping up.
The second tenet is to decide how many people will be attending, as well as how much time you have versus how much money you have to spend. This will determine if you want to purchase your treats or make most of them.
The list of simple includes, of course, grapes, baby carrots, fresh mushrooms, celery and peanut butter, slices of watermelon, cantaloupe, oranges, and apples, as well as other fruits and vegetables. But you also want to be fun, without worrying about whether the Baked Alaska you brought is staying cool enough. What follows is a list of fun chocolaty treats that are least likely to be a gooey mess.
Store Bought Picnic Treats
If you are short on time and have a good cooler, then Dreyer’s Dibs (here) are fun to pass out after lunch or dinner. They’re bite sized pieces of ice cream coated in chocolate, making them not only delicious, but user friendly.
Another easy fun dessert is packing individual sized containers of milk in your cooler and pick up some Oreos Fun Stix (here). Then everyone can use their Fun Stix as straws for their milk. Of course, while you’re picking up that milk, you can always make it chocolate milk or even chocolate soy milk, such as Silk (here).
If your family is really clambering for an icy cold chocolate treat then pick up some Haagen Daz (here) snack size containers to toss in your cooler. Or, if you’re afraid the ice cream will be soupy before you get to it, then try Yoplait’s Chocolate Mousse yogurt (here).
The trick is to be creative. Think bite size, fun, and containable.
Homemade Picnic Treats
Sometimes, you have more time than money, or maybe you want the family involved in making picnic treats together. Never fear, it can still be simple and not too much more work. For help with tracking down easy picnic treats I contacted a long-time Tupperware Consultant (http://my2.tupperware.com/tup-html/B/barbkehl-welcome.html ). Since she’s been helping busy moms provide tasty treats for over 40 years, I thought she might have some tips. I wasn’t disappointed.
One easy chocolate recipe for kids to make and eat is Chocolate Rice Krispie Treats. You only need three ingredients: ¼ cup of butter or margarine, 10 ounces of marshmallows, and six cups of Cocoa Krispies (clever, huh?). Put the marshmallows and margarine in a three-quart casserole dish, and put in the microwave on high for 1½ minutes. Pull out of the microwave and stir with a wooden spoon. Add Cocoa Krispies. Mix well. Pat into a 9 x 13 container. Let it cool before cutting. And remember when cutting up the pieces to think small, bite-size pieces.
If it’s not too hot to bake, you can bake cookies or cupcakes for your picnic. Here are some tips to help keep you to your goals of simple and easy to serve.
First, consider purchasing mini-tart pans to use rather than regular cupcake pans. It means bake times are shorter for the cupcakes, but, you will keep your cupcakes bite-sized then. In addition, if you decide to do cookies instead, again, consider using a smaller spoon (for spoon cookies) or a smaller cookie cutter (for a chocolate cut-out cookie recipe go here. You want the end result treat to be small enough to fit in a child’s hand easily (which translates to easier clean up).
While there are many noteworthy recipes out there for making cookies and cupcakes from scratch, this is about easy and simple. One way to do that is to use a cake mix to make your cupcakes. But you can also use cake mixes to make you cookies.. For the following recipes use yellow cake and a package of chocolate chips for chocolate chip cookies, or use chocolate cake mix for chocolate cookies. Another variation is to use carrot-spice cake mix and add two cups of raisins.
Mix two packages of cake mix with ¼ cup water, 2 eggs, and 2/3 cup melted butter or margarine. Drop rounded spoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet and back at 375 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Cool two minutes on the cookie sheet before removing.
You can have a fun Memorial Day picnic this year without worry about chocolate melting on the car seats and covering everyone’s faces. It just takes a little planning and preparation.
