Last Minute 4th of July Planning

Ever hear the saying "We plan. God laughs"? Well let me tell ya, Big Man Upstairs is rolling with laughter right now.

I had such big plans for this week's post. I was so excited about everything I was going to share with you. See, we have this balcony. It's a fabulous outdoor space for NYC and we really haven't been using it to it's full potential.

Over the past few weeks Brit and I had been putting together plans for updating the space, adding more seating, greenery, lighting, just making the space a more colorful and welcoming place to be. But then we got a notice from our building management that work is being done to the outside of the building...

Oh. So "no" on the welcoming outdoor space. Scratch the balcony update and post.

I had really put all my creative energy into the balcony so I was pretty disappointed and useless when trying to come up with another post. Then Brit suggested putting together a little Last Minute 4th of July post {such a brilliant man}. I thought, how fabulous? I can share some quick and easy recipes and ideas for the 4th for people who just don't really have the time to make those elaborate American Flag cakes, but still like to celebrate the 4th with a teensy bit of style.

Via

Turns out, that wasn't the best plan either. 

I'm not going to say it was a failure, but it was far from successful. However, I have nothing else to share with you this week and I'm not a fan of radio silence, so lucky you! Here's a post for some "quick and easy" last minute 4th of July party planning.

Red, White, and Blue Puppy Chow 

{or pink, white, and weird chocolate sugars blobs}

I love Puppy Chow and love any excuse to make it. It's such a simple and fast recipe, I thought it would be perfect for this post. And in order to make it festive for the 4th, I thought I'll just use almond bark or white melts for the mixture, and add some red/blue food coloring. I won't tell you how long or how many tries it took me to get to this mess.

It looks like a horrible baby shower snack that a 3 year old put together. Not quite the Red, White, & Blue look I was going for. Of course this may have had to do with the fact that almond bark and white chocolate melts are not sold in ANY grocery store around me. White chocolate chips {although I new the risks} was my substitute. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. 

To get three different colors within the batch of puppy chow, I divided the recipe in to three parts and when melting the chocolate added the desired food coloring. Then, in order to keep it this gorgeous blue/green madness, I did not add the powdered sugar to the mix for the "red" and "blue" batch. Although it clearly was not successful here, I'm sure someone more skilled, patient, and savvy than I am could accomplish my vision.

Good news is, it still tastes amazing! But let's just say I should stick to the basic milk chocolate and peanut butter recipe and stop fooling around in the kitchen.

If you've never made Puppy Chow before, here's the real recipe. And it is one of the greatest things you will ever enjoy.

Firecracker Sugar Cookies

This one wasn't such a failure, but things did not quite go according to plan {can you hear Him cracking up?} Due to the debacle with the Puppy Chow, I decided I was going to follow the recipe exactly as it was written. Ugh. Another poor decision in the kitchen.

Betty makes all my sugar cookies for me. She's way more talented than I am and rarely fails {every now and then she burns the cookies, but really that's the oven's fault.} So I picked up some Betty Crocker Sugar cookie mix and icing, as well as some Pop Rocks, and used a star shaped cookie cutter.

To make these cookies "Pop", the recipe called for Pop Rocks {check}, and to make your own blue sugar {because what every sugar cookie needs is an extra topping of more sugar, obviously.} To make the blue sugar, I was told to add sugar and blue gel into a blender and blend for 30 seconds. Blender? What? Ok. Since I'm following every recipe from now on exactly as it's written, I did as I was told.

At first glance, it looks like this definitely won't work. How on earth will the sugar and gel blend when they are both resting below the blade? Oh well, I gave it a whirl.

Fail. Dirtied the blender for nothing. Because I'm not willing to have two epic fails, I decided to go against the recipe and ditch the blender. Instead, I poured some sugar into a tupperware, added three drops of food coloring, shook, and voila! Blue Sugar!!

Finally, a success! I iced the cookies, added the Cherry Pop Rocks and blue sugar. Deliciousness! Note: the Pop Rocks will go flying off the cookies if you don't serve them immediately. Some of them will still pop once they touch the icing, but the sooner you eat them the better. 

Find the original recipe here


Washi American Flag Plate

Finally, a small success. While the cookies were baking/cooling, I realized I didn't have any festive 4th of July dishware to display my creations on {this is when I still thought they were going to be beautiful and worthy of showing off}. Instead of going out to purchase a platter I would only used once, maybe twice, a year. I grabbed some Washi tape and got to work.

The result was a very simple American Flag that is decorative {and removable}.

Unfortunately, I had another minor fail. It had gotten pretty late by the time I was finished with the cookies, so I decided I'd wait until the morning to take pictures of them as a finished product on the flag dish...

Sugar dissolves. Ugh. Oh well, they still taste delicious and still pop in your mouth {yes, I ate a Pop Rocks sugar cookie at 6am this morning, no I don't want to talk about it}.

My sincerest apologies for the somewhat waste of a post. Hopefully you were inspired in some way to tackle these recipes on your own {successfully}. If so, let me know how it goes! I will live vicariously through your success.

What are your go to recipes for the 4th of July? Did you tackle any creative and festive projects this year? I hope you all have an amazing 4th of July weekend! Until next time...

Thanks for visiting!