Ooooooo an easy and adorable way to make your next cup of cocoa out of this world starring the Toy Story aliens! I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to turn some of my favorite Disney characters into food as a Disney Family Contributor. These little green men are super simple as you can make them with store bought marshmallow (they are colored just like an Easter egg!).  You can check out more of my work for Disney Family here

Ingredients: (makes 12 martian-mallows)

Ingredients:

1 cup cold water

12 large marshmallows

Marshmallow coating powder

1/4 cup white candy melts

36 mini sprinkle googly eyes

2 small round piping tips that can be attached to the decorating icing tubes

Leaf green icing coloring

12 lollipop sticks or wooden skewers

Kitchen scissors

Toothpicks

Black decorating icing

Kelly green decorating icing

Edible gold star sprinkles*

Small star cookie cutter*

 

*optional to decorate your hot cocoa

Marshmallow Coating Powder:

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup powdered sugar

Directions:

• Fill the measuring cup with 1 cup of cold water, and stir in the leaf green icing gel (you will want to add enough so that the water becomes dark green).
• The marshmallows will float, so to keep them submerged in the water place each marshmallow on a lollipop stick or skewer being careful to only place the stick halfway through the marshmallows. Hold them in the water for about 10-15 min, checking the color after 10 minutes until you reach your desired shade (I find watching a few of the Toy Story shorts helps to make the time go by faster).

 

• Once the marshmallows are evenly colored, carefully remove them from the sticks and allow them to dry overnight on wax or parchment paper.
• Before you begin turning them into those adorable aliens, make the marshmallow coating powder by adding the cornstarch and powdered sugar to a small container with a lid. Then cover and shake to combine. You will want to keep the coating powder on hand for any sticky parts of the marshmallow as well as a small bowl filled with warm water.
• Cut each marshmallow in half with kitchen scissors. You want to use the half that doesn’t have the skewer hole for the alien’s faces (the other half will be used to cut the ears and antennas). If your scissors become sticky you can dip them into the marshmallow coating powder.
• Lightly coat the cut part of each marshmallow with coating powder and place them on your wax or parchment paper with the green side facing up.
• Use your kitchen scissors to cut 2 teardrop shapes, and 2 thin strips of marshmallow from each extra half. Dip the scissors in the coating powder anytime they become sticky. I find it also helps to occasionally clean them in the bowl of warm water as well (just make sure you dry them off before doing any more cutting). Make the circle that goes on top of the antenna by rolling one of the strips into a ball with your fingers. The ears will stick to the sides of the marshmallows on their own, but you will want to use melts for the antennas.
• Melt the white candy melts in 30-second intervals at 50% power, stirring in between each interval, until the melts are smooth.
• Use a toothpick to add a little of the melts to the base of the straight piece and attach to the top of the marshmallow. Once it is set, add a little of the melts to the back of the ball and place it on top. You can use coating powder as necessary if any pieces are too sticky to handle (I find it helpful to dip my clean fingers in the coating powder before handling the pieces).
• Use a little more of the melts to attach 3 sprinkle eyes to each, placing the middle eye slightly higher than the other 2. You can either use the eyes as they come, or try my favorite trick of attaching them white side up (the backs are blank). Then you can use the black decorating icing to pipe the eyes looking in different directions, which gives them a bit more personality I think.

• After you have completed the eyes, pipe the mouths on using the Kelly green decorating icing.
• Allow the marshmallows to set for about 15 minutes, and then place them into a cup full of your favorite hot cocoa. To make your cocoa even more magical you can cut stars out of the extra marshmallows and sprinkle the top of your cocoa with edible gold stars.