Craft #4 - Candy Sushi

Before April even started I had a plan for this month's craft. I spotted Candy Sushi online earlier this week and considered making it for April Fools Day but decided instead to make it for our family Spring Celebration earlier today. Candy sushi looks like regular sushi but is made with rice crispies, gummy worms, licorice, fruit roll-ups and other candy options.

I started by making a batch of rice crispy bars following my usual recipe, the one on the bag of marshmallows. I added an extra handful of mini marshmallows to make sure the bars were pliable enough, but next time I would add quite a few more to the mix (maybe close to doubling the amount). I poured the rice crispy mixture into a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Press the mixture (damp hands help curb the stickiness) into a thin layer (~1/2" thick). [The recipe I used made 1 full cookie sheet and a 9x9 pan.]

Once cooled, I trimmed the bars into rectangles the width of a fruit roll-up and added candy.

I rolled the Rice Crispy around the candy, but only one time around (otherwise the "rice" layer will be too thick).

I trimmed the excess with a sharp knife, wrapped the log with a fruit roll-up and squeezed. [Green roll-ups would have been ideal, but fruit roll-ups are surprisingly hard to find!! So instead I settled on Tropical Tie-Dye and Crazy Orange Wildfire.]

I removed the cellophane wrapper and...

...cut the log, again using a sharp knife, into 1" rounds. [I liked to leave the candy sticking out the log ends, similar to sushi rolls at restaurants.]

My one batch of rice crispies made 12+ rolls of candy sushi. Each roll provided 5-6 sushi pieces.

I also had extra rice crispy trimmings that I turned into nigiri. Gummy octopi [plural for octopus] and Swedish fish served as my nigiri fish pieces and I placed them on a 1"x2" block of rice crispy.

I cut a fruit roll-up into ~1/2" strips and wrapped each gummy/rice crispy block.

Ta-da! I had created my own all-you-can-eat version of candy sushi!! The sushi sparked a lot of fun comments and conversation at the party; hopefully everyone thought it was tasty too! [As far as taste goes, I "tested" several pieces during the creation process for quality purposes ;) and I thought they were good. ]

[It's not pictured here, but I also created mock-wasabi and ginger. I took green food coloring and coated mini-marshmallows for wasabi and piled sliced strawberry fruit roll-up for ginger. I found another SUPER cute idea, but discovered it post-party: chocolate sauce for soy sauce. So cute!!]