Go ahead, give your Valentine a kiss—one made out of colorful candy. A surprising, sweet take on candycuterie, this lip-shaped Valentine Candy Graze Board is decor and dessert in one. Grab a food-safe tray with sides and make a large one the centerpiece of your Galentine’s party table. (A centerpiece you can eat as soon as everyone gets there!) Or, set up a small one on a quarter-sheet sheet pan and put it at your Valentine’s place at the breakfast table.
A candy kiss isn’t your only option. You can create a candy mosaic in any simple shape you like; a heart or Cupid’s arrow for Valentine’s Day. A Jack-O-Lantern for Halloween. A green Christmas tree on a red background for Christmas. A flag for the 4th of July. Initials for a shower, engagement party, anniversary or birthday. Pick a simple shape that will be easy to make, and let that dictate the color palette of your candy. Choose candy that isn’t mushy, fragile, or covered in powder that will get the rest of the candy messy.
For this lip-smacking tray, we chose to create red lips in a sea of pink candy. (To browse what we used, link to our Amazon shop here.) To make the design, first we used sour strips, on their side, to shape the outline of the lips, overlapping the strips as needed for length. Once the outline was ready, we shored it up by placing large pieces of candy in key spots, and smaller candy around the outline to reinforce it. Then, we filled the candy in carefully as needed, completing the red lips first, then filling in the rest of the tray with the pink candy.
To make any candy mosaic, you’ll want a mix of both large and small candy. Big pieces, like the gummy lips or hearts, take up a lot of space, but you also need small pieces to fill in the awkwardly shaped or narrow spaces, like the divot between the peaks of the top lip here.
This isn’t something you can throw together in ten minutes before your Valentine walks through the door—it’s a labor of love. But with a steady hand and a little trial and error, you’re guaranteed to create a sweet surprise that will fill their hearts. It might even earn you a kiss!
What You Need
- Candy! We used:
- Sour Power Strawberry Sour Candy Belts
- Sweetsome Cherry Sours
- Albanese Berri Red Gummi Raspberries
- Kervan Candy Watermelon Rings
- Cherry Jube Jel Hearts Candy
- SweetGlob Licorice Wheels
- Cherry Hearts Jelly Delicious Gummy Candy
- Cotton Candy Jelly Belly
- Sparkling Rose Jelly Belly
- Pink Gummy Bears
- Red Gummy lips
- Sugar Lips
How To:
Step 1: Collect the candy. Order from the links above, or pick up your favorite sweets at the drugstore.
Step 2: Create the outline of your shape with sour belts, reinforcing the outline with candy as you shape it.
Step 3: Fill in the interior shape with large and small candy.
Step 4: Fill in the rest of the tray with large and small candy. Step back and admire your work—you’ve earned a kiss!
