Are you as excited as I am about all the Spring and Summer sweets on the horizon? As the strawberry plants in my garden come to life, I can’t help but start to ponder what fruity treats will appear on my favorite blogs and Pinterest in the coming months.
Having edible decorations ready at my fingertips makes planning my own creative sweets easy and fun. When Halloween came around I made sure to have plenty of candy eyeballs and candy spiders on hand, and now that fruit-themed treats are popular I am making lots of strawberry and cherry candy decorations.
How To Make Sparkly Cherry Candy Decorations
To make cherry candy decorations you will need:
- Red Starburst Fruit Chews candies
- Green shoe string candy
- Red disco dust***
- Red decorating icing
- Meringue powder
- Toothpicks
Begin by shaping your red Starbursts into balls for your cherry candy decorations. To make the candy pliable, slightly heat it up in the microwave. If you overheat the candy, it will be too hot and liquidy to work with. I suggest heating each piece of candy for just 5 to 10 seconds on 50% power. After removing the candy from the microwave (and making sure it’s not too hot to touch), rip each piece in half and use your hands to roll them into balls. Let the candy completely cool before moving on to the next step.
Prepare two bowls: one with a small mixture of half water and half meringue powder completely blended and one with a small amount red disco dust. Roll each Starburst ball into the meringue powder and then into the disco dust until it is coated. Set your sparkly cherries aside to completely dry.
Prepare your green shoe string candy by using a sharp knife to slice it into thin stem-shaped pieces.
Use a toothpick to poke a hole in the top of each cherry candy. Fill the hole with red decorating icing, either by putting a blob of icing on a toothpick or by attaching a small decorating tip to the end of the icing tube. While the icing is still wet, insert a cherry stem into the hole. Set your sparkly cherry candy decorations aside to dry completely. The hardened icing will hold the stem in place.
With just a touch of icing, you can now temporarily “glue” your sparkly cherry candy decorations to any decorated cookies, cake pops, cupcakes, or other sweet treats you create. Using just a small amount of icing, allows for the sparkly decoration to be removed before consumption of your sweet treat.
***UPDATE: Please note that since this blog post was written, I have discovered that there is some debate over the use of disco dust on food products. It is marketed for cake decorating, but it is not FDA approved and is labeled only as “non-toxic”. My understanding is that it is not digested by the body and will pass through harmlessly in small amounts. For an edible alternative to disco dust, try Wilton Cake Sparkles
How To Make Strawberry Candy Decorations
To make strawberry candy decorations, you will need:
- Strawberry Runts candies
- Green flower sprinkles
- Red decorating icing
- White gel food coloring
- A small food safe paint brush
Turn your green flower sprinkles into strawberry stems by using a knife to cut off two petals from each sprinkle. Then, use a dab of red decorating icing to attach each stem to the top of a strawberry Runt candy. Paint seeds onto each strawberry using white gel food coloring and a small food safe paint brush.
Set your strawberry candy decorations aside to dry completely before adding them to any of your baked goodies.
If the photos of the completed cake pops are making your mouth water, be sure to check out my tutorials for making Strawberry Banana Cake Pops and Banana Split Cake Pops.
For fruity inspiration year round, follow my Strawberry Sweets and Banana Sweets boards on Pinterest!
Adorable! Both of them are so cute and perfect toppers for all kinds of treats!
Thank you!
OMG! You know how I much theses! AMAZING! Pinned this! Thanks for sharing these on Two Cup Tuesday at Pint Sized Baker I hope to see ya again on Monday night!
Karyn – Pint Sized Baker recently posted..Strawberry Lemon Cereal Bars
I’ll be there, Karyn. Thanks for sharing my fruit candy decorations!
Janine, BOTH of these are adorable!
Sue {munchkin munchies} recently posted..Strawberry Jam Jar Cookies
Thanks, Sue!
Love the cherries! I want to make the cake pops shown with the pink drizzled frosting for my daughters 2nd birthday. Where can I find that recipe? Thanks
Thanks, Ashley. I’ll try to have the tutorial for the banana split cake pops up soon!
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These are really cute but I have read that disco dust, while non toxic, is non edible, am I wrong about this? I would love to know because these are cute if they are all edible and certainly very sparkly. Just discovered your site and am loving all the advice and tutorials, thank you for such a helpful site
will be busy in the kitchen for weeks 
Everyone seems to have a different opinion on the topic, Clair. Personally, I like to just use a light sprinkling when I can. Definitely don’t eat it by the spoonful. If you Google the topic, you can read some different opinions and research the different brand options.
Ok, thank you for your reply, I have yet to read of anyone who has been hurt from eating this, I just think the non-edible label just concerns me but the clarification seems to be that non-edible just means it cannot be digested, and so will just pass through! Doesnt sound like too much of a concern! Good to know your opinion. What is your opinion on the texture of this on food? Some said it is horrid and gritty, others say it isnt really noticable.
Thanks again for this site, I could lose hours looking through your recipes and tutorials!
Clair, I don’t really notice a change in texture from disco dust, but I typically like to use just a light dusting. When I am adding it to icing, I dip a food safe paint brush into the disco dust, hold it a few inches over the wet icing, and then tap it so it falls on the surface. This gives the surface an even light dusting instead of heavily coating it. Decorations like these fruit candies are easy to remove for anyone that doesn’t want to eat them.
Thank you for your sweet compliment about my site! I love hearing from my readers so I appreciate the time you take to comment and ask questions!
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Disco dust is PLASTIC CRAFT GLITTER!!! It is NOT for use on any food–ever. Doesn’t matter that it’s non toxic–it’s PLASTIC and we don’t feed plastic to people.
Edible glitter is made from gum arabic, sanding sugar, or gelatin.
Rae, after doing some research on disco dust, I did discover that there was some debate over whether or not it should be consumed. The great thing about the cherry toppers is that they can be used to decorate cake pops, cupcakes, or desserts and they can easily be removed before eating. I discovered the disco dust controversy after writing this post. Thank you for bringing this to my attention, I need to add an update with this information.
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