Tasty Tuesday!

I'm a little late with this particular recipe, but I'd really had no intentions of sharing it. This isn't because it's a special recipe, nor because I didn't want to share it. I simply thought that everyone had this recipe already and that it was something everyone did on a regular basis.

When I told my husband what the wee ones and I were planning to make for Santa's cookies, he gave me a blank look. He had no idea what I was talking about with holly wreath cookies. When I described them to him, he confirmed that he'd never had them nor seen them before. That was when I decided that I needed to make sure everyone was aware of these easy, yummy, fun cookies

Holly Wreaths! The wee ones helped me make them, and it's possible they also helped me eat a few!

You'll need:
1 stick (8T) of butter
30 of the big marshmallows (this is not quite a whole bag in case someone needs to taste one or two of them)
7-10 drops of green food coloring
2 t vanilla
4 c Corn Flakes
Red M&Ms (or, traditionally, red hots except that we don't like red hots in our house)


Put the butter and marshmallows into a pan and heat on medium low, stirring occasionally until they're all melted and combined. Remove them from the heat and add the vanilla.


Add the green food coloring. You'll want to make it a bit darker than you think, as it will look much lighter once it's thinned out amongst the corn flakes.


Add in the corn flakes and very, very gently stir them together. If you do it like you're folding in eggs, you'll break fewer flakes which is really the goal.


Very quickly, you'll want to use a spoon to scoop out the mixture to make small "wreaths" and place them on waxed paper (or in my case, a silpat). Again, working quickly, place the M&Ms (or red hots) on top of the wreaths to make the holly berries. If you let the mixture cool before putting in the M&Ms, they won't stick.

If you're doing it, you'll want to make sure the M on the M&Ms are facing down. If you're letting small children do this, trust me when I say that explaining this concept just doesn't work.

When you're done, you'll have things that look like this:


It makes about that many -- I think I count 31 cookies. If you make your wreaths bigger or smaller, you can adjust the ratio of chocolate to marshmallow to suit your taste.

Enjoy!