fun foods for olympics

Fun Foods for the Olympics

Vegetable Olympic Rings

These can simply be placed on a white plate as an olympic decoration for the table, or garnish a salad pizza, or pasta. A doughnut cutter is going to be the easiest way to get a ring shape, though you may need to trim them with a sharp paring knife. Cut up the left over bits of the vegetables, saute them in some olive oil, toss in some cooked pasta with some pesto sauce or spaghetti sauce, top the dish with the vegetable rings, and you have yourself an olympic meal!

Red, green, and yellow rings: slice the side off of a large red, green and yellow pepper and use a doughnut cuter to cut rings.

Black: Slice the sides off of a large eggplant then cut rings with a doughnut cutter. Raw eggplant is not very tasty as is, so if you want it to taste good, too, marinate it in italian dressing, then fry it.

Blue: I don’t know how to get a blue ring without using food coloring! Cut a thick slice from a large onion and take out the middle sections to form a ring about the same size as the other vegetables. Rub blue food coloring onto the onion ring.

Salad or Taco Fixings Olympic Rings

Whether you are serving a salad or tacos, serve all the chopped vegetable “fixings” in rings to look like the olympic rings:

Red: tomato chunks or salsa

Yellow: grated cheese or chopped yellow pepper

Green: chopped cucumber, green pepper, avocado, or guacamole

Black: black olives or sauted eggplant

Blue: blue berries or blue corn chips or chopped onions colored with blue food coloring

Year of the Olympics Cookies

Use number cookie cutters to cut cookie dough. Put the number cookies right next to each other on the cookie sheet rather than leaving an inch between them as you usually do, so that as they bake, they stick together. You can also use various sizes of bottle caps or glasses to make the olympic rings. You can add color without adding sugar by making an egg wash to brush on the cookies before you bake them. Simply mix a few drops of food coloring with either the egg yolk or egg white and brush it onto the cookies with a pastry brush. Bake as usual.

Year of the Olympics Rice Krispies Cookies

Make Rice Krispies cookies, and while they are warm enough to handle, but not too hot to burn, shape them into the number for the year the olympics are being held.

view recipe for Rice Krispies Cookies

Olympic Cake: 3 Different Designs

Bake and ice a sheet cake.

1. Make ring cookies as described above, but lay them over 2 or 3 skewers on the cookie sheet before you bake them so they bake onto the cookies. Once they have cooled, push the skewers into the middle of the cake. Put tiny flags around the edge of the cake.

2.Use colored icing or M&M’s to write the year of the olympics. Just remember that M&M’s tend to bleed in the icing, so put them on at the last minute.
3. Use colored icing or M&M’s to draw olympic rings, or combine them with the year as described in #2 above. Lining up the circles can be pretty tricky, so it might be a good idea to press the top of a glass into the icing to “draw” the circles on first, to use as a guide to line up the M&M’s. Make sure rings on the bottom row over lap the rings on the top row. (see photo of M&M’s on a plate above)

Track and Field Teddy Graham Cake

This is probably the funnest idea, but also the most work! If you don’t care what it looks like, the kids will have a great time decorating the cake...but it will probably end up pretty ugly. If the whole point is to be fun for the kids, what does it matter if it looks awful?

The cake: bake a sheet cake. Ice it green to look like grass, or chocolate to look like dirt, or just leave it un-iced (why add more sugar if you don’t have to?)

The race track: Draw the lanes of the track on with icing. Make them wide enough for the Teddy Grahams to fit. I was surprised that just 3 lanes almost took up the whole cake! Place Teddy Grahams around the track--a relay race will allow for the most contestants.

Long jump: make a sand pit out of light brown sugar, and put a Teddy Graham in it for the long jump. Use 2 graham cracker squares to stand up tent fashion to write the score.

Pole Vault: poke 2 pretzel sticks or Pocky sticks into the cake for the side bars. Fasten the cross bar on with icing, or tie it on with thread or dental floss. “Glue” a teddy graham onto another stick with icing or melted chocolate for the pole vaulter. Once it has hardened, poke the stick into the cake next to the poles as if the Teddy Graham is sailing over the bar. Add half of a marshmallow for the landing pad. Note: Pocky sticks are sweet pretzel sticks that have been dipped in chocolate. They are sold in the asian food section of Walmart. If you can’t find straight pretzels or Pocky sticks, you can substitute skewers--you just can’t eat them!

Blue Jello Olympic Pool

Make blue jello in a clear or white glass pan. Once it is congealed, use icing, Twizzlers, or gummy spaghetti candy to mark the lanes. Use icing to make the foam that the swimmers splash. Press teddy grahams into each white “splash.” If you depict the back stroke, you can use the teddy grahams face up. If you want to go crazy, put icing swimsuits, swim caps and goggles on the teddy grahams!!

Make diving boards or diving blocks at the end of each lane with marshmallows and graham crackers. Cut the marshmallows with kitchen sheers. dip the sheers in cornstarch if they get sticky.

Soccer Cake

If you can find tiny plastic figures in the cake decorating section of a craft store, this is a super simple cake to make. Bake a sheet cake, and ice it with green icing. Let your kids put the plastic goals and soccer players on the field.

Dessert Topping Olympic Rings

Whether you pile these onto ice cream, slices of cake, or silly dessert “nachos,” if you put the ingredients in ring shapes it will make it feel like an Olympic celebration in a way that just piling them into bowls won’t.

strawberries for the red ring

peach or mango chunks for yellow

kiwi chunks for green

chocolate chips for black ring

blueberries for the blue ring

Cupcake Olympic Rings

Color icing in the 5 colors of the olympic rings and ice 5 cupcakes. Only put the icing in a ring rather than covering the whole top of each cupcake. The easiest way to do this is to put the icing in a zip-lock FREEZER bag, cut off one corner and squeeze the icing out of that hole around the edge of the cupcake--continue spiraling the icing around the cupcake until your ring is the width that you want. Freezer bags are stronger than storage bags, so they are less likely to spring a leak!

Then group the cupcakes together to look like the olympic rings. For a family, 5 cupcakes may be plenty. If you are feeding a crowd, you can either put these 5 “rings” on top of a sheet cake, or group all the cupcakes in groups of 5 rings around different places on a buffet table to add olympic flair.

Bagel Olympic Rings

Bagels make the perfect olympic food, since they already come in a ring! Try to come up with toppings that your family loves, then group them into olympic rings for presentation. How about toasting them and top with jam for breakfast?

Red: cream cheese and strawberry jam or sliced tomatoes

yellow: apricot jam or melted cheese

Green: kiwi jam or green vegetables

Black: Nutella or cinnamon sugar (O.K., so it’s brown, not black, but is your family going to eat it if it is eggplant or black olives? Brown is close enough!!) You could use blackberry jam, which is dark purple, but looks pretty close to black.

Blue: Blue berry jam or fresh blueberries--spread on cream cheese to keep them from rolling off. If you are a perfectionist, you can leave off the blueberries and mix blue food coloring into the cream cheese.

Cookie Olympic Rings

Cut cookie dough with a doughnut cutter. If you don’t have a doughnut cutter, you can use two sizes of bottle caps or glasses to make the olympic rings.

Ice the cookies with icing in the colors to match the olympic ring’s colors. You can add color without adding sugar by making an egg wash to brush on the cookies before you bake them. Simply mix a few drops of food coloring with either the egg yolk or egg white and brush it onto the cookies with a pastry brush. Bake as usual.

M&M Olympic Rings

Sort M&M’s or other multicolored candy, then form them into rings on a white plate. You can also put these on top of a sheet cake, but remember that the colors bleed, so put them on at the last minute. They tend to roll around if you move the plate, so be sure to put the plate where you want it before you form the rings, or use icing to “glue” them to the plate.

Doughnut Olympic Rings

You can buy doughnuts iced in the colors of the olympic rings, or buy plain ones and ice them yourself. If you baulk at putting that much food coloring into your food, you can put a row of M&M’s around the top, or buy Fruit by the foot or other fruit leather to top the doughnuts.

Dessert “Nachos” using Toppings

For “Taco” chips, rub flour tortillas with salad oil, cut into wedges, sprinkle with sugar, and bake until crisp. Top with all the yummy toppings, and see who’s dessert looks most like nachos!

Chop strawberries small to look like salsa. Mango chunks, mango sauce, pudding or yogurt or melted white chocolate mixed with yellow food coloring can all look like cheese sauce for dessert “nachos.”

Kiwi chunks or pistachio pudding look like guacamole for dessert “nachos.”

Chocolate chips can look like “black olives” for dessert “nachos.” If you want it to look even more realistic, melt chocolate and put the melted chocolate into a zip-lock freezer bag. Cut off one corner, and squeeze black olive rings onto a sheet of tinfoil or wax paper. Put in frig to harden. ) Ice cream, marscapone, or cream cheese whipped with a little sugar and vanilla all make good stand-ins for the sour cream.

Basketball Cake 2 Ways

1.If you can find tiny plastic figures in the cake decorating section of a craft store or toy store, this is a super simple cake to make. Bake a sheet cake, and ice it with chocolate icing. Let your kids put the plastic figures on the cake.
2.Buy a cake pan that makes a sphere cake, and decorate it as directed. If you don’t want to spend that kind of money, bake the top and bottom of the basketball cake in two stainless steel bowls. Put them together with icing. Ice it to look like a basketball.

Family Fun > Fun Foods to Celebrate the Olympics