Saturday, December 13, 2008

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Right now, my church is in the middle of our Christmas music. This year, I have the privilege of portraying Mary, the mother of Jesus! It's really neat, because the song I sing is from scripture; it's the song of Mary. If you did Celebrate Life (the musical), it's the one from that. Anyway, I have been doing my Christmas baking as well because I will be leaving town on Tuesday to go to an interview and then Christmas at home. Those treats will be shared here later. First off, though, I want to share a fun recipe I got from Deanna! It's kind of like rice krispie treats, except it used Honey Nut Cheerios. I took this to our Christmas party at my children's choir. I thought they were good but the kids were more interested in the Cheetos...go figure! Instead of using the jelly candies, I used skittles. No kids like those gummies anyway! This is a fun treat to make and I think kids would enjoy helping!
Cheerios Christmas Trees

Ingredients:

6 cups Honey Nut Cheerios® cereal
6 tablespoons butter or margarine
4 1/2 cups miniature marshmallows
Green food color
Skittles (or whatever candy you desire)
White chocolate, melted, to secure the skittles
Directions:

Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Pour the cereal into a 4-quart bowl. Set the bowl aside.
Place the butter and marshmallows in a 3-quart saucepan. Heat over low heat, stirring constantly, until the mixture is smooth. Remove the saucepan from the heat.
Stir in the food color until the mixture is evenly colored. Pour the marshmallow mixture over the cereal and stir until the cereal is evenly coated. Moisten your hands with water to shape the trees; you'll have to do this often through the process, but it works well! I tried spraying with cooking spray but that didn't work. For each tree, shape about 1/4 cup of the cereal mixture into a Christmas tree shape on the cookie sheet. Refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Remove from refrigerator. Place a dot of melted white chocolate on a skittle and strategically place on the trees - I made sure each skittle was a different color! Store the trees in a loosely covered container.

13 comments:

Pearl said...

oh my gosh! those are SO adorable! it took me a sec to recognize that they were cheerios - at first, i thought they were beautifully piped frosting!

Darius T. Williams said...

Now this is a really cool surprise! I'd eat all of them - lol.

Chef Jeena said...

They are so cute what a briliiant idea. :-)

Clumbsy Cookie said...

Those are soooooooooo cute! Very cool idea! Adorable!

CookiePie said...

Those are adorable!!

Emily said...

Those are so cute! I've never seen these before.

Unknown said...

Pearl - Well, thanks for the compliment...I don't think I could pipe anywhere near that well!

Darius - They were pretty small, so I think it would be easy! :-)

Jeena - Thanks! It was fun.

CC - I think they'd be fun for kids to help with.

CookiePie - :-)

Emily - Thanks...I hadn't either until Deanna posted them.

Peabody said...

Those are so fun and cute.

Maria said...

Cute little treat!!

Jane said...

Those are cute! I bet my babysitting kids would enjoy them.

That's very neat to portray Mary in you Christmas music. I bet you did a wonderful job!

Katrina said...

Cool trees and a great way to use up the Cheerios. I have a big bag of the Quaker brand ones and the kids aren't eating them. Maybe they'll have fun making something with them!

Anonymous said...

These are so cute!!
I tagged you on my blog and hope you'll play along. See my blog for details :)

Unknown said...

Peabody - Thanks! They were fun to do.

Maria - I did get a little frustrated at not getting them to look exactly that Christmas trees, but it was fun anyway.

Jane - I bet they would...they could even help you decorate them!

Katrina - This is a perfect treat for using things up!

TFK - Thanks!!