I have been so excited to share with you this recipe. I’m telling you, as these googly eyes were setting for the past 24 hours, I kept walking past them and giggling with pure delight. I kept asking them, “Are you looking at me? Are YOU looking at ME?” It never gets old…
The great thing about making your own homemade vegan googly eyes is that not only do you now have something to decorate your upcoming Halloween treats with but mainly because the goggly eyes sold in stores are actually made with gelatin. And if you are someone who is trying to avoid animal products, how on earth are you supposed to eye-ball your cupcakes and cookies this holiday season??? See the predicament! Eye got you covered (snickering…)
Now let me answer your question as you review the recipe ingredients. Corn syrup? Really?! Yes really. It helps with the texture and firmness of the eyes. Don’t want to use it? Omit it but don’t yell at me if they aren’t as cute as mine. Don’t want to use cornstarch either? Omit and sub in arrowroot powder. Again, you were warned.
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Vegan Googly Eyes
- Prep Time: 30 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: 124 1x
Ingredients
- 1 c. powdered sugar
- 1 tsp. cornstarch
- 1 Tbsp. corn syrup
- 2 tsp. nondairy milk
- 1/4 tsp. almond extract (or vanilla extract)
- mini nondairy chocolate chips (like Enjoy Life)
Instructions
- Whisk together the powdered sugar and cornstarch. Add the remainder ingredients except for the chocolate chips and mix until combined. It should be a thick paste at this point.
- Place into either a piping bag or Ziploc baggie and pipe dots into one row onto a baking sheet lined with wax paper. Gently top each dot with the mini chocolate chip–you don’t want to wait too long to place the chocolate chip in the middle or it will set.
- Repeat until all the paste is gone.
- Allow the googly eyes to set for at least 24 hours on your counter.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 Googly Eyes
- Calories: 30
- Sugar: 4g
- Sodium: 2mg
- Fat: 1g
- Saturated Fat: 1g
- Unsaturated Fat: 1g
- Trans Fat: 0g
- Carbohydrates: 5g
- Fiber: 0g
- Protein: 0.2g
Okay now you have every reason to make your baked goods scream, “I’m watching you!” I cannot wait to see what you eye-ball.
This post is a part of the month-long of vegan food blogger event known as Vegan MoFo.
Interested in seeing other fabulous posts? Click here.
These eyes look so cute. I am sure my 7 year old daughter would like it. Its ingredients are readily available so I will try it in 1-2 days.
So cute and fun to make! I used honey instead of corn syrup and had to use close to 2 TBSP of milk to get the pasty consistency needed to shape them (added in small bits). They firmed up very quickly as I tried to get the chocolate chips in. They are really delicious and I’m excited to add them to some upcoming Halloween treats, Thanks for this recipe!!
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Thanks for this my baby love this 🙂 <3
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Vegan googly eyes? Gluten free pretzels? Jeez, give me a break. I’ll try and figure out how to hand them to my kids through their “bubbles”.
Oh Bill, imagine how much more good in this world there could be if you used the time to write this to do something kind to someone. Much love to you.
Bill I hope you never have to worry about a food allergy…recipes like this help moms like me give my kids and myself some normality in our life. For us, it is not a choice that we got to choose. I feel sad for you to be so unkind.
I have less than 24 hours to have them ready and it’s 35+ degrees Celsius at the moment. Can you put them in the fridge to harden quicker?
You’ll be fine! As long as you have 12 hours, that will be enough. Chilling should be last minute if need be really.
Amazing, thank you so much!
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Thank you so so much for sharing this. Thumbs up!
If you want these to be truly vegan, you must use vegan sugar. Most refined white sugar has bone char in it. Why, I don’t know. Maybe someone else out there knows why animal bone is put into sugar.
Bone char isn’t actually “in it” as you say…. the sugar is filtered through bone char. Yuck. Definitely use organic sugar to avoid this.
It makes it white.
Cara, you know that I love your creative genius! Just made these gorgeous googly eyes! I used honey, so hoping that they’ll be set by tomorrow.
Have a Happy (creative, scary, fun) Halloween!
Hello, I would like to make these googly eyes with my sons, but since I’m from Italy I should ask if anybody can explain how much is 1 c. powdered sugar, it is a Cup mesure? I saw you used honey instead of cornsyrup I guess, I’m interested if this worked or if I might use GlucoseSyrup since we cannot find any cornsyrup here.
thanks in advance for your reply.
Glucose Syrup should work just fine, yes! And for the powdered sugar, it is a cup’s worth. You might have to google what the equivalent is in metric weight as I don’t know. Hope this helps, Federica!
1 cup = 128 grams dry and 237 ml liquid, in case you were unable to locate the conversions.
To find any conversion for baking or cooking, just google whatever measurement you need to convert. For example, type in C = ML on google and a conversion chart will come up.
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Can you please tell me – did they work out w/ HONEY??? I can’t get Corn Syrup in Macao (China).
Yes, they will work with honey.
Love this! As my husband and I were drooling over your Silly Apples Bites post, he makes the comment “You should look up ways to make candy eyes”. Then I see your link to this post! Awesome!
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Yay! Hope you love making them Vanity, xo,
Ha ha ha . These eyes are looking very cute. I’m sure my 7 year daughter will love it. Its ingredients are easily available so I will try it in 1-2 days.
You HAVE to try it! So easy and way too much fun…xo
These are adorable and I want to make them. Any suggestions on how to make the eyes with something other than sugar or corn syrup?
Thank you 🙂
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Wanted to say thanks again for this recipe now that I’ve used it! I made these for my son’s school Halloween Party, and they were AMAZING. The recipe was easy and turned out exactly as pictured. I originally used a plastic bag with the corner cut to pipe little dots, but actually found I could take a small amount in my fingers, shape it lightly, and squish it down with the chocolate chip and that was easier than using the ziplock bag. (I am sure that a real piping bag would have been the best.)
The paste IS thick, which is why they hardened so well into great little googly eyes.
We put them on strawberries and chains of grapes to make worms, and even decorated a few random things in the house with them. (An apple in the fruit basket, the pitcher of water…)
My husband discovered that if you wet your finger lightly and rub it gently on the back of the set googly eyes, you’ll feel them get sticky after a few seconds of rubbing. They then will actually stick to fruit and dry relatively attached.
Don’t do this too far in advance if you have moist fruit, though -trying to do it the night before we had them melt because the strawberries sweat too much. When we did it the same day they were going to be eaten, with strawberries that were dried off after washing, they lasted for hours.
These were a huge hit, and the kids absolutely loved them!
I used rice milk because of the particular allergies in the group of kids we had attending the party, with no issues. I suspect water would be fine, too.
Will be making these again next year!
I posted photos on my blog if anyone wants to see them in action on the strawberries and grapes:
http://www.iamrunningthis.com/halloween-party-success-tips-for-planning-a-large-childrens-gathering/
Many thanks, Cara!
I can’t wait to make these!! I did have a question…is there anything that can be substituted for the non-dairy milk, to still keep it non-dairy? Could you just use water for that small amount?
Haha…love these googly eyes…will be making them with my kids soon!
What a fun project to do with the kiddos! Have fun 🙂
LOVE! Wondering how far in advance of a Halloween party you think these could be made? Do you store them at room temperature? Any pointers from anyone who’s made them in advance would be lovely 🙂
Hey Kelly! The great thing about this recipe is that they firm up the longer you make it ahead of time, which is never a bad thing with these eyes. I made these over a week ago, have them stored in a baggie and keep in my cabinet in my kitchen and they are perfectly a-okay. I’m still slapping them on baked goods to make spooky creatures out of them ☺
Amazing – thank you so much! I can’t wait to use them, I’m going to use them to turn fruits and veggies into Halloween delights for my son’s preschool Halloween Party! They’re perfect since we’re vegan, and some of his classmates have dairy allergies. Cruelty free AND safe… win/win!
Great Idea to use them on fruit.
Love that!
These are so great! I just wanted to let you know that I had an issue with my subscription disappering, I don’t know if I did it when I unsubscribed to a comment, but just thought I’d throw it out there in case someone else had the problem. I almost missed the candy bracelets!
http://youtu.be/wjFJCZCHzNY
Okay jokester, this was fun. Thanks for the smile!
These are brilliant! Eye was just at Michael’s lamenting the fact that “candy eyeballs” are most assuredly not vegan and then eye saw these!!! Eye have so many eye-deas for these little gems!
No more lamenting! These eyes are just for you…xo
Always a creative genius! Have you tried it without corn starch? and with making your own powdered sugar?
I have not done either Christie. I have however made homemade sprinkles without corn syrup and it worked so you probably stand a good chance of omitting it and adding homemade sugar and it still working out fine.
Homemade sprinkles!!!!! Please share 🙂 That is so amazing.
I love your eyes, Cara, Have a powerful evening!!!
*blinking a lot* I’ve been told they are rather sweet eyes as of late… 😉
CARA! This is so AWESOME. I once ordered some googly eyes online, and when they arrived and weren’t vegan I was soooo sad. Just the other day, I was at the craft store, looking longingly at the non-vegan googly eyes. This is so fun and so great.
Yay! So happy you will put these to good use Amey.
You’re amazing! I was just looking at some Halloween recipes that required googly eyes. Actually I’m pretty sure they were yours! 🙂
Haha! I love googly eyes so I wouldn’t be surprised. xo
What do I think? How about an eyeball tree? Made with rice syrup. Seriously I shouldn’t live on the edge like this, I’m sure SOMEthing is watching.
Great idea genius girl. xoxox
I’ve never used rice syrup before. Is it thin or thick like corn syrup? I should probably try it out…
It’s thick and has a buttery flavor. Make sure the brand you buy is Gluten Free. I think maybe it’s “Lundberg’s”? But my little bitty Health Food Store always carries an organic, GF brand. xoxoxo