are you pinterested? green marshmallow wreaths

December 19, 2012

mmmmm hmmmm…there are spaces in this photo where wreaths once were…

My mom has been making these wreaths every year since I can remember. They’re one of my favorites, and so simple. For her, anyway. She’s a very good bakestress. Which could be read as “gets stressed while baking” which would also be true, but I mean that she should have a title because she’s so good at baking. Anyway. When she makes these wreaths, they turn out gooey-er than mine did. You can’t see the corn flakes peeking through so much. I might be getting smarter with the baking myself because I made a mental note to increase the amount of marshmallows next time.

(I don’t know why I’m using any form of the word bake, because you don’t even have to bake these at all. But what can I call us? Melters? We melted these wreaths! That seems weird.)

For these yummy wreaths, you do have to melt a lot of marshmallows, and then stir in the vanilla and food coloring before the marshmallows begin to harden, which happens very quickly.

So I remembered something I saw on Pinterest about using a crock pot of hot water to put a bowl of melted chocolate inside to keep it from hardening while you’re dipping pretzels or whathaveyou.

Then I said to me, AHA! I can do that for the marshmallows!

Asher and Elsie helped me with this wreath making extravaganza. And by helped I mean that they ate stuff and dropped stuff and had sticky marshmallow stuff all over everything. No matter, I say. We are creating memories here! (Bake-stress)

This really did work well. I was able to stir up the marshmallows and butter, add the food coloring, vanilla and corn flakes and keep the bowl in the crock pot all 4938 times I was interrupted. Distractions didn’t have to bake-stress me out because the marshmallows didn’t harden in their little crock pot safe haven. Go team!

Here’s the recipe for the wreaths! Happy not-really-baking!

Holiday Wreath Cookies 

1 cup butter
8 cups mini marshmallows (or 7 cups big marshmallows)
3 teaspoons green food coloring
2 teaspoons vanilla
6.5 cups of corn flakes

*In a large bowl that will fit in a large crockpot, place marshmallows and butter. Melt both in the microwave, one to two minutes at a time, stopping to stir, until completely melted.

*Put the bowl in already hot water in crockpot, to stir in vanilla and food coloring. Mix well. Slowly add in corn flakes until fully coated.

*Lay out wax or parchment paper. Take spoonfuls of mixture, 2 inch ball sized and set on paper. Work into a wreath shape. Gently press in red hots as berries for your wreath.

*EAT SOME WHILE YOU WORK.

It will make you feel like this:

P.S. The first ever EO newsletter came out last night, thanks to my friend Holli. So if you didn’t enter your email in that box up there on the right, you didn’t get one. And now other people know stuff that you don’t. Just saying.  (Okay. Now that I know you’re extremely curious…if you click on that “EO newsletter” up there, you can just see it. I’m not making any promises, but you might find some inspiration there. Even just from a quote or two.)

to pin the recipe:

{ 2 comments }

Jennifer Peterson December 19, 2012 at 4:35 pm

What a great idea!!! And BTW love your daughter Elise name;)
Jennifer Peterson recently posted..Winter Wonder Fest… Navy Pier Chicago

Heather December 20, 2012 at 7:15 pm

These are a staple at our house every Christmas, too, and my mom also made them every year. I have horrible luck using the microwave to melt the marshmallows so I gave up doing them that way, but the crock pot is an interesting workaround!
Heather recently posted..Holiday Brunch – Citrus Cream Cheese Pull-Apart Rolls

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