Christmas Treats: Rice Krispie Trees

I was on Walmart.com looking at several of the Christmas baking recipes they have. A photo caught my eye- 3 Christmas tree shaped treats with candy cane trunks. I was immediatly in love with the visual.

To me, they looked like Rice Krispie treats cut into Christmas Trees, and decorated. However, they are actual cake. I'll post the recipe below. For me, though, I do believe we'll be making these as Rice Krispie treats that the kids can frost & decorate. I just love the candy cane trunk on it!

Sparkling Tree Cakes

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans; set aside. Prepare cake batter as directed on package; tint with food coloring. Pour evenly into prepared pans.
   
   
2. Bake as directed on package. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove to wire racks. Cool completely.
   
   
3. Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Stir in whipped topping with wire whisk. Spread onto tops and sides of cakes.
   
   
4. Cut each cake into eight wedges to resemble Christmas trees. Insert peppermint stick into curved side of each cake for the tree trunk. Decorate with remaining ingredients. Store in refrigerator.

All in all, the cake recipe is pretty easy, but I just can't get it out of mind with rice krispies instead of cake!

Easy Peppermint Bark

A few years ago, I learned how to make Peppermint Bark, and I've been making the treat every year since! It takes all of 2 minutes to make, and a little goes a long ways.

Peppermint Bark


You'll Need:
1 bag White Chocolate Chips
Peppermint Extract
3-4 Peppermint Candy Canes, Crushed (I unwrap them, and put them through the food processor)
Red Sugar Sprinkles- optional

1. Melt the chocolate in a glass dish in the microwave. Start out at 1 minute & 30 seconds on 75% power, or 70% if your microwave does increments of 10. When the time is up, stir the chocolate, then return to the microwave.
   
   Microwave for 30 seconds, and stir. The bag should be almost completely melted after the total time of 2 minutes. If not, return to the microwave for 30 seconds more. After the initial 1 minute & 30 seconds, do NOT microwave for more than 30 seconds at a time. Chocolate WILL scorch, and be ruined!
2. Add 1 capful of peppermint extract and stir. 
3. Add 3/4's of the crushed candy canes and stir.
4. Spread the chocolate out on a cookie sheet. I recommend laying down wax paper first, but it isn't needed. Use a rubber spatula to spread the mixture out over the cookie sheet in a thin layer. It does not have to be uniform, or cover the whole thing.
   
5. Sprinkle the remaining crushed candy canes on top of the chocolate, then add some red sugar sprinkles on top!
6. Let the mixture cool in the fridge. Once it's hardened, start breaking it apart. This is where the wax paper comes in handy, because you can lift it from the pan to break it apart. 

Make sure to store the bark in it's own container, as the peppermint will leave a residual flavor on other treats in the container with it!

This makes for an easy, quick add in to the traditional cookie plates set out. It is a rich recipe with all that chocolate, though, so a little goes a long ways! Break it up into quarter size bites!

Homemade "Peeps"

Today as I was cruising through the blogosphere, I cam across a blog I hadn't seen yet: Frugal Family Fun Blog, by Valerie. It has some pretty cool frugal fun ideas posted, and I'm only on page 2!

The idea that caught my eye, however, were Super Easy Marshmallow Pumpkins. She's right- they are super easy, and look like they'd be fun at any party for the people who love peeps.

It got me thinking, though... how could those translate into Christmas treats? They could easily be made for Thanksgiving, as is- cute little pumpkins as a cute, easy to make Thanksgiving treat. I started considering peeps themselves. Already I've seen the Snowmen and the Christmas Tree peeps on the shelves. But, the tree would require cutting and shaping, and the Snowman would require attaching two of them together.

Then it hit me- Christmas Ornaments! You could make all sorts of colors, and use gel icing to draw designs on the front of them, and use silver or gold metallic gel icing to put the blob on top!

I am so excited to try these now. I do believe we may have to make a small handful for Thanksgiving, and some more for the various Christmas parties we attend. I know they'll be a hit!

Thanks for the great idea, Valerie!