Sweet Surprises for Summer

As we are now officially in the summer season I thought you'd like an idea to enhance whatever entertaining plans you might have, without breaking the bank and with very little time and effort and no time at all in the kitchen.

At the moment there's heaps of “outside” stuff to choose from in all the stores and on-line. I sourced clear plastic wine/champagne bottle coolers. The coolers I found are shaped and have an easy “hand hold”. I wanted something new and fun for my daughter-in-law's birthday party, hence the ribbon and then chose giant marshmallows, mixed wrapped sweets of various shapes and sizes, wrapped Italian hazelnut and chocolate cookies and flying saucers (aka fizzing whizbees). The contents of the coolers not wrapped were decanted at the last minute and here are photographs of the finished prototype.

The surprise (this was an al fresco occasion) was the outside wood burning stove (or chiminea, firepit etc) that came into its own to toast the marshmallows – obviously supervised and with appropriate skewers for toasting. A huge hit, with children and adults alike. Some may say why use old fashioned sweets – it's my experience that the adults enjoyed this idea probably more than the children. A dessert (or part of) with a difference and the coolers can be customised to suit whatever the occasion and can be used afterwards for your fizz.