Almond Bark Cookies

I absolutely love these easy, no bake cookies. My mom always has them on her goodie tray during the Christmas holidays and I can’t wait to go home today and enjoy a few.

2 lb. almond bark (white)

1 C. mini marshmallows

2 C. dry roasted peanuts

3 C. rice krispies

1 C. peanut butter

Melt almond bark and add the remaining ingredients. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper. 

Chocolate and peanut butter buckeye balls

Review by Lyndee:

Ingredients:

2 cups creamy peanut butter

3 cups rice krispies

3 cups powdered sugar

¼ cup melted butter

2 packages melted chocolate chips or almond bark

Mix all ingredients but the chocolate together.  Form into small balls and place on cookie sheet.  Set in fridge until firm.  Once firm, dip in melted chocolate.  Place back in the fridge until set (about an hour).  Store in fridge or freezer until ready to eat. 

I’ve always loved this sweat mix of chocolate and peanut butter but it seems I only get them around Christmas.  I decided to try a batch and keep them in the freezer for when I need a quick sweet tooth fix.  They turned out delicious.  Mine weren’t as pretty as the ones my family makes.  I got lazy rolling the balls and instead used an ice cream scoop.  Then I ran out of chocolate so some of them didn’t get completely covered.  Again, they still tasted great but they aren’t going to win any food presentation prizes.  

Reese’s peanut butter cup rice krispies

Review by Lyndee

Ingredients:

4 peanut butter cups

2 tbsp peanut butter

6 cups of rice krispies

Directions:

Melt peanut butter and peanut butter cups in a pan with butter.  Add 6 cups of rice krispies.  Drop and cool on a sheet or press into a buttered baking dish.  Cut into squares when cool. 

This recipe was wrong.  The people that pinned it are obviously missing an ingredient.  There were way too many rice krispies and not enough goo.  They didn’t stick together.  I even melted some more peanut butter, cups and kara syrup together and added that when I realized they weren’t going to stick.  It helped a little bit but basically you just have flavored rice krispies.  Don’t get me wrong, the flavor is awesome.  Sprinkle this on some ice cream or just eat it with a spoon, but these do not work for bars or cookies.  Total bummer. 

"Pig" Thanks!

Have you see the latest dessert making the rounds on the internet and pinterest with the pigs taking a bath in a chocolate pond bordered by kit-kats?  I thought it looked fun and definitely worth a try since I had to make someone special a little something to say "thanks".  Here's where I obtained the inspiration for my own take on the Pig Cake: http://diycozyhome.com/swimming-pigs-kit-kat-chocolate-cake/ and http://sodelicio.us/2013/02/little-piggies-swimming-in-nutella-in-a-kit-kat-barrel/.

I made my own revisions to this recipe.  And, made the inside more of a rice krispy dessert than pure Nutella.  This created a much less expensive dessert as well -- jars of nutella are around $4 each!!!

Here's what I did (with a few unintended bumps along the way)...

Make up two round pan rice krispy cakes.

Then, spread a little JIF Hazelnut Spread on top of one of the cakes.  I used this instead of Nutella, and was very happy with it -- it is delicious!!!!  And, it's a bit cheaper than Nutella.  

Then place them on top of one another.  

Then, I began putting the rest of the chocolate spread on top of the cake.  I used the whole jar!

Then, I grabbed my bag of Kit Kats, and noticed that I purchased the MINI sized kit kats, instead of the normal sized kit kats!!  Dang it!

So, I improvised.  I just stuck the mini kit kats into the rice krispy cake and then tied a string around the top to keep it all in place.  It didn't look as clean as the picture I used for inspiration, but it seemed to do the trick.

Then, I added my decorations.  Candy pigs are not the easiest thing to find, and there is a snowball's chance in hell that I'm going to attempt to make them myself.  So, I went to my son's toy box and found some of his farm animal toys.  I stuck them in the cake, and then (in pink frosting of course), I wrote "Pig" Thanks!  

This was a super fun, and not to difficult little cake to make!  The kids got a big kick out of it, too!