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I love family traditions that are centered around the holidays, and I can’t wait to share a few of them with you today, including an indulgent Skippy Peanut Butter White Chocolate Bark and a happy little Christmas Town made with Honey Maid Graham Crackers!
Every year I look forward to making edible, sweet gifts to share with neighbors and friends. I’ve always craved the white chocolate and peanut butter combo, so I put it together in today’s festive dessert and sprinkled it generously with chopped Honey Maid Graham Crackers and some red candy melts that scream, “It’s the holidays!”
Trust me…it’s every bit as good as it looks and more! Yum!!
I love this treat because the kids can easily jump in and help too and then they can feel like they helped in the gift giving process!
{PEANUT BUTTER WHITE CHOCOLATE BARK}
Adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction
1 c. creamy Skippy Peanut Butter
1 c. confectioners’ (powdered) sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
16 oz. white baking chips
3/4 c. chopped Honey Maid Graham Crackers
Red Candy Melts
Line a 9×13 inch pan with parchment paper.
In a medium bowl, add peanut butter.
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Skippy is super easy to find at Walmart on the aisle near the ice cream toppings and jelly.
Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla. As you can see, the mixture will be pretty thick, so put it in the microwave and zap it for about 45 second until it becomes more spreadable.
Melt white chocolate chips and spread 1/2 in the bottom of the pan.
Get big spoonfuls of peanut butter mixture, flatten them in your hands, and lay them on the white chocolate.
Spread the other 1/2 of the white chocolate over the top and swirl if you’d like.
Sprinkle with chopped graham crackers.
Drizzle with melted candy discs. Place the pan in the fridge for about 10 minutes to set.
Cut into pieces and partake or wrap and give to someone else to enjoy.
Every beginning of December my kids know it’s time to make graham cracker houses and decorate them with lots of colorful candy! It’s one of our favorite holiday traditions. In fact, they ask me year-round if we can make them. 🙂
Since my kiddos are obsessed with the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas, I wanted to make a simplified Christmas Town with none other than Jack the Pumpkin King as a marshmallow snowman. They got a kick out of him.
If you haven’t seen the show, Jack is a skeleton that resides in Halloween Town and gets tired of the same old same old, so he ventures out and finds an amazing Christmas Town with so many new things to do and see, and the story goes on from there.
This graham cracker village tradition is especially fun because, after the houses are assembled and dried, the kids can do no harm, so I let them loose decorating, and they have an absolute hay day!
I started by grabbing a large piece of cardboard and lining it with plastic wrap.
Then I made a quadruple batch of simple white buttercream frosting (1/2 cup softened butter per about 4 c. powdered sugar), placed some heaping spoonfuls in a resealable bag, snipped an end, and used some to “glue” two Honey Maid graham crackers together with supports in the back for each of the four sides. This is for the large house.
Then I stuck them together with more frosting.
For the smaller houses, Skippy Peanut Butter was a perfect glue! Then, to continue the snow-laden look on the houses, I added a line of frosting at the seams.
After I added on rooftops and let the entire house set completely, I cemented them to the cardboard with frosting.
I assembled one large house and then three smaller houses. I spread frosting all around them, on the rooftops, and then lined the roof ridge and edges with more frosting, so I could decorate them with goodies.
I love that the colorful candies look like Christmas lights on the eaves of houses.
I piped on frosting heavily in a few more areas to look like snow mounds. I sprinkled everything with large white sugar crystals.
I made Jack Skellington the snowman by piling three jumbo marshmallows on each other and sticking them together with frosting. Then I inserted straight pretzels on the sides for his arms. I drew a face on with a regular black marker (because we won’t be eating this later). If you’d like it to be fully edible, just use food markers.
I made a side window with yellow candies to look like the glow of a light. I piped on frosting and made candy pathways to the houses and small groups of candy pine trees. I also made a wreath on the roof by piping a circle of frosting on and decorating it with green and red candies, with a red candy bow at the base.
And that was it! This was such a fun family activity and now we’ll get to admire it on our countertop for the next month or so as a festive representation of this wonderful time of the year! I cherish these memories!
What family holiday traditions do you have? I’d love to read about them in the comments below!
I have very vivid memories of making gingerbread houses out a crackers when I was a kid. I can't wait to do that with my kids once they are a tad bit older. Also the peanut butter white chocolate bark looks amazing, too bad everyone else in my house has a peanut allergy. Perhaps I'll make a batch just for me! :)
Amy | Club Narwhal