Playing with Your Food: Funnel Cake Love Letters for Valentine’s Day

When I was growing up, I loved theme parks. LOVED them. Still do, actually, but not to the extent that I did when I was little. My aunt worked at Disney and she could get us in to any of the Disney parks for free, pretty much anytime (thanks Aunt Kim). And not to brag, BUT we had season passes to Wet-n-Wild water park. Try not to get jealous folks. 🙂

So, on these little theme park excursions there would (naturally) be a few snacks involved. Right? Maybe a hot dog here, a little cotton candy there. But the treat I always looked forward to most, aside from a Coke ICEE, was none other than funnel cake!

I’m not sure if that’s because I was fulling embracing my inner (and slightly outer) fat kid in those fleeting childhood moments or if it was because it was something you could much only get at a theme park or a county fair. But either way, I was into it. Maybe even loved it. Oh, who am I kidding? I definitely loved it.

Which brings me to today’s food idea… message (and heart shaped) funnel cakes for Valentine’s Day. Yep! We’cipe putting the FUN in funnel cakes today with a little somethin’ somethin’ that is equal parts playful and delicious.

Ready to give this childhood favorite a try? Click through for all the fun.

Ingredients for Funnel Cake Love Letters (makes approx. 10 “Love” and 10 hearts)

• 1 box of funnel cake mix
• 2 cups of powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons of half and half

Directions:
1) Create the funnel cake mixture as described by the box. Then, add the batter into a squeeze bottle (like the plastic ones you use for ketchup).
2) Next, using a medium size skillet, add roughly 1 cup of vegetable oil and heat to 350 degrees.
3) Then write out the word love in cursive so that all the letters connect (in the oil). It doesn’t take long for the words to cook… about 1-2 minuets per side. To make open hearts, you would use the same method.

To make a closed heart follow steps one and two, but afterwards then place a heat safe cookie cutter into the oil and use a zig-zag motion to fill in the cookie cutter (again you want to make sure that it is all connected). cimove the cookie cutter and continue to cook 1-2 minutes on both sides.

Food production by Anissa Saxton
Photography and styling by Brittni Mehlhoff

Think you’ll give this funnel cake DIY idea a try? What was your favorite theme park / fair snack when you were growing up?