St Patricks Day: Homemade Candy Buttons

While I was brainstorming ideas for St Patrick's Day goodies, I decided to try to make green candy buttons in the shape of little shamrocks. Apparently I am not good at fine details with "frosting". I also have arthritis and my hands were shaking like crazy today. So, the idea was a fail, but it was a tasty one and I went ahead and just made regular candy buttons in green, because it still goes with St Patrick's.

The recipe for homemade candy buttons is super easy. With an electric mixer, beat together 3 cups of powdered sugar, 2 egg whites, 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice, and food coloring.

Put the mix into an icing bag, or a ziplock bag with the corner cut a snip. Either way, be sure to use the trick in the photo: put the bag in a cup and fold it outward over the edges of the cup. This way you won't get the mix all over the bag.

When you buy candy buttons, they come on plain paper and so when you peel them off and eat them, you inevitably wind up eating some paper. Yuck. Don't really like the idea of feeding my kideos paper, so instead I cut strips of wax paper to pipe the buttons on.

Of course when you pipe the dots, sometimes it leaves a tip sticking up as you lift the bag of mix away. If you keep a little bowl of water next to you and dip your finger in it, you can push the tips right back down.

Shamrocks would have been neat, but look how cute! Yay!