Valentine Pinwheels Recipe

Last week I signed up to bring a treat to my toddler’s day care Valentine’s Day party. The only other thing listed on the sign-up sheet was cupcakes, so I thought I’d bring something savory. But what to bring. I was browsing pinterest and saw a cute craft where you shape a toilet paper roll into a heart and use it as a stamp. This sparked an idea. I made cream cheese pinwheels for the KLAW’s first birthday… I wondered if I could shape them in to hearts. Turns out, I could – they looked super cute and were quite tasty! I modified the original recipe to make it a little more red and valentines-ish. Here is the recipe. It wasn't a hit with all the toddlers, but you could modify the mix-ins to suit your audience’s taste. It takes less than 30 minutes to prepare the night before your event, then another 15 minutes or less to slice them up the day-of. This recipe makes 40 pinwheels.

INGREDIENTS

2 eight ounce packages of cream cheese (softened)

1 package ranch dressing mix

½ cup diced red pepper

¼ of a red onion, diced

2 ounce can of chopped olives

½ cup shredded cheese

4 large sun-dried tomato tortilla wraps

Mix the ranch dressing mix into the cream cheese, then fold in the pepper, onion, olives and cheese. 

Try not to eat the mixture

Spread the mixture on the tortillas. You can go easy on spreading the mixture on the two sides that become the open ends of the roll because you will slice them off. 

Roll the tortillas tightly.

Once they are rolled, form the hearts. Pinch one side to form a point, along the roll, to form the bottom of the heart. Opposite the point, use the dull end of a butter knife to press in a divot along the roll to form the top part of the heart. 

Wrap each tube Tootsie Roll style in waxed paper. Refrigerate overnight to allow the ranch flavors to fully come out. 

heart

tootsie roll

In the morning, using a serrated knife to gently saw the roll so as not to smoosh it, cut the ends off the rolls, and then slice each tube into approximately 10 slices (about ¾”-1" each). You can pinch the slices to make them a little more heart-shaped if they look wonky. Arrange on a plate and serve!

slice into 3/4" slices

arrange artfully

Valentine's Day Photo Prop - Cupid's Arrows

I am going to take pictures of my five month old son for Valentine's day, and was thinking of dressing him up like Cupid. I wanted to craft some little arrows for him to hold but needed them to be super simple. Here is my solution.

First I traced hearts on some red cardstock using a cookie cutter as a template - the smallest one from a set I found at the Target One Spot (dollar bins). Click through for the Cartwheel offer to save more at The One Spot! It is about 3" tall. The hearts will be the spear part of Cupid's arrow

 Next I cut rectangles about 1.5" x 3" and folded in half. I cut the top and bottom on a diagonal to make a diamond shape, and snipped out little strips and tore off the skinny pieces. This made the feathers (when unfolded it became a V shape)

I had on hand some red straws from a pack I found at Ikea. You can use any old drinking straw. Snip a 1" long slit in both ends of the straw and slide the heart in one end and the feather in the other

Voila! Cupid's arrows for your Valentine's Day photo shoot! I didn't add any glue or anything since the paper stayed wedged in there pretty well. But I suppose you could!

Photos from the Valentine's Day photo session to follow...