Category Archives for Preschool Treats

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Today is National Peanut Butter Cookie Day.  I just so happened to have a peanut butter cookie recipe to share with you!  I don’t make cookies very often, because, quite frankly, I find them to be a pain in the butt to make.  I usually opt for cookie-like bars, which taste like cookies but are much easier to make.  Yes, I am lazy!  But when it was my turn to take snacks to Lena’s preschool last month, I decided to go with cookies.  I found a recipe for Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies on Allrecipes and tried it out.  I added one thing to it; here’s my version.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
½ cup shortening
½ cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
¾ cup white sugar
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1½ cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup quick-cooking oats
¾ cup white chocolate chips


Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°.


In a large bowl, cream together shortening, butter, brown sugar, white sugar, and peanut butter until smooth. Beat in the eggs one at a time until well blended. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in the oats and white chocolate chips until just combined. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.


Bake for 10 to 15 minutes, or until just light brown. Don’t over-bake. Cool and store in an airtight container.


Makes 4 dozen.

I love peanut butter cookies.  The white chocolate chips were my addition.  I made a yummy peanut butter blondie that has white chocolate chips, so I thought they’d be good in these cookies too.  

I usually like my cookies soft and chewy, but I still really liked these even though they are kind of flat.  The oatmeal gives them just a hint of chewiness, which was enough for me.  I might try adding a little bit more oats next time I make these and see what that does to them.  But they are pretty good as they are.

I hope you are able to celebrate the “holiday” by making some peanut butter cookies of your own!

Easter Goldfish Carrots

Here’s a cute Easter snack idea for you.  I made these for my daughter’s preschool class last week.  I got the idea from Pinterest, originating from the blog Loralee Lewis.  She used icing decorator bags for hers.  I was going to do the same thing, but I couldn’t find bags that didn’t have a huge Wilton logo on them.  Does Wilton have a monopoly on decorator bags, because all I could find were Wilton!  So I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, when one of my bloggy friends, Debi from Recipes for My Boys, posted a similar idea using quart sized Ziploc bags instead.  It wasn’t until I read her post that I realized that the Wilton bags would be way too big anyway.  The quart sized bags would be just perfect and a lot cheaper!  They don’t turn out quite as long and skinny as the decorator bags, but hey, there are short, fat carrots too!
Here’s how I made them.

Get some cheap dollar store zipper bags.  Don’t get Ziploc brand because they have a logo on them too.

 Lay out the bag.
 Cut the zipper off on a diagonal line.
 Fill with Goldfish crackers.  I bought the giant box (30 oz.) of Goldfish crackers and I got about 12 little bags out of it.
 Twist the top.
 Cut out 11″ lengths of green ribbon.
 Tie the tops with green ribbon.

 These are really simple to make and are perfect for stuffing into Easter baskets.  It’s kind of refreshing to have an Easter treat that isn’t loaded with sugar!

HAPPY EASTER, EVERYONE!

Snowman Cookies

A picture of these cookies is one of the first things I “repinned” on Pinterest when I first joined back in August. I knew they would make the perfect preschool snack this winter.  The recipe originally came from the blog My Pretty Purse.

Snowman Cookies


Ingredients:
2 (4 oz.) bars Nestle Premier White chocolate
1 tbsp shortening
12 Nutter Butter cookies
12 orange Tic Tacs, ⅓ cut off
36 mini M&Ms
Black decorator gel icing


Directions:
Break the white chocolate into small pieces and place in a medium-sized microwave-safe bowl with the shortening.  Microwave on 70% power for 45 seconds.  Stir.  Microwave an additional 45 minutes if necessary.  Stir until smooth.


Dip cookies individually in melted chocolate using two forks to roll them around.  Use the forks to lift them out and place them on a parchment paper lined baking sheet.


Once all the cookies have been dipped, place a cut-off Tic Tac on each one where the nose should be.  Then place 3 mini M&Ms on each one to make buttons.  Using a very light hand, draw eyes and a mouth on each cookie with the decorator icing.


Allow a couple of hours for them to set completely.  Even after setting, be careful with the eyes and mouth as the black icing may smudge.


Makes a dozen cookies.

Aren’t they just the cutest things ever?  And they are incredibly easy to make.  I didn’t have enough of the Nestle white chocolate to cover all the cookies I wanted to make, so I used some white melting candies for the remainder, but it didn’t work as well.  It didn’t coat it as smoothly, and I had trouble getting the black icing to stick to it.
I didn’t change very much about the original recipe, except to specify quantities.  I used three mini M&Ms instead of two regular ones.  My snowmen only had brown, yellow, and blue buttons because I used the red and green M&Ms to make my candy covered chocolate dipped pretzel rods at Christmastime.
Apparently, there was a discussion in my daughter’s class as they were eating these, whether they were cookies or candy.  Lena said, “I said they were cookies, but this other girl said they were candies.”  I told her that they were both right, because they were cookies with candies on them.  She thought this was a genius answer and told me that she would be sure to relay this information to the other girl the next time she saw her.  I’m going to treasure these times she thinks my answers to her questions are genius, because I know it won’t last forever!


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Groovy Gobblers

It’s National Candy Day! What better way to celebrate than to give you a recipe using chocolate chips, fudge-stripe cookies, and lots and lots of candy corn?  I saw these cute little guys in Taste of Home and had to make them for preschool treats.
Groovy Gobblers

Ingredients:
1 (12 oz.) pkg semisweet chocolate chips
1 (11 oz.) pkg candy corn
52 fudge-striped cookies
¼ cup butter, cubed
4 cups miniature marshmallows
6 cups Rice Krispies

Directions:
In a microwave, melt chocolate chips; stir until smooth. For tails, use a dab of chocolate to attach five candy corns to the chocolate side of half of the cookies in a fan shape; refrigerate until set.

In a large saucepan, melt butter. Add marshmallows; stir over low heat until melted. Stir in cereal. Cool for 10 minutes. With buttered hands, form cereal mixture into 1½” balls.

Remelt chocolate if necessary. Using chocolate, attach the cereal balls to the chocolate side of the remaining cookies. Position tails perpendicular to the base cookies; attach with chocolate. Refrigerate until set.

For feet, cut off white tips from 52 candy corns; discard tips. Attach feet to base cookies with chocolate. Attach one candy corn to each cereal ball for heads. With a toothpick dipped in chocolate, 
dot each sprinkle to make pupils. Let stand until set. 

Store in an airtight container. 

Makes 26 turkeys.
Aren’t they adorable?  And pretty tasty too!  I made most of them with regular candy corn, but wanted to see what they looked like with the chocolate kind.  I think I kind of like the chocolate kind better.  
The original recipe called for round white confetti sprinkles for the white part of the eyes, but I couldn’t find those.  I melted some white chocolate and freehanded that part. I think in the future I would not even worry about the white part.  Since the candy corn is light colored, I think it would be fine to just put a dot of dark brown for the eyes.

 

It’s kind of funny to see a whole army of little turkeys sitting on your table!


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