Easter S'Mores Jars

I found this absolutely adorable idea on Pinterest and I COULD. NOT. RESIST. These jars are cute as a button!  And, the person you give them to gets to add a few ingredients and make them into S'mores Bars.  Perfect!  The jars are simple to assemble and the bars are easy for the recipient to make.  This is a perfect Easter Gift for the little people in your lives, but some adult supervision will be required to make the S'mores Bars.  My mom and I made a  whole batch of these jars to give to the kids in our family. 


Adapted from: Creative Holiday Gift Ideas


Here's what you need to make 1 jar:
1 One Quart Mason Jar
23 Hersey Kisses
8 Peeps
1/2 of a sleeve of Graham Crackers, crushed
1/4 cup of Brown Sugar


Here's what you do to assemble the jar:
1.  Clean the jar. 
2.  Put the crushed Graham Crackers in a baggie.  Add the Brown Sugar.  Set aside.
3.  Put the Hersey Kisses in the bottom of the jar. 
4.  Put the Peeps in the jar, with their faces facing out (so you can see their faces from the outside).  We could only fit 7 around the perimeter of the jar, so we stuck the 8th one inside the "circle" of Peeps.  
5.  Put the baggie of Graham Crackers and Brown sugar inside the jar above peeps. 
6.  Put the lid on the mason jar. 
7.  Create a recipe card with the instructions listed below.  Attach the recipe card to the jar with a piece of festive ribbon.  Ta Da!  You're done!


For the recipe card:
1.  Remove the contents of the jar and put on the kitchen counter. 
2.  Unwrap and cut Hersey Kisses into halves or quarters.  Put in a medium sized mixing bowl. 
3.  Cut (or tear) the Peeps into pieces.  Add to the mixing bowl. 
4.  Add the contents of the baggie to the mixing bowl. 
5.  Add 1 tsp of Vanilla to the mixing bowl. 
6.  Add 1/4 cup of melted Butter to the mixing bowl. 
7.  Stir the contents of the mixing bowl well. 
8.  Pour the contents of the mixing bowl into a small, well-greased baking dish. 
9.  Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes. 


Enjoy!  Happy Easter!!

Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

I went to a 4th of July Celebration and tried some Snickers Cookies.  They were peanut butter cookies with a miniature Snickers baked in the middle.   I liked them a lot so I thought I'd give them a shot.  Except I had to add my own twist, of course.  I started out with this cookie dough recipe, although I changed it up a little bit.  Then I experimented with a bunch of candy.  I finally settled on Reeses Peanut Butter cups.  

Here's what I used:

1 Cup of Butter, Room Temperature

¾ Cup Light Brown Sugar

¼ White Sugar

3.2 oz French Vanilla Pudding Mix

2 Eggs

1¼  Tsp Vanilla

1 Tsp Baking Soda

1 Tsp Salt

2 ¼ Cups All Purpose White Flour

¼ Cup 2% Milk

1 Bag Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

 

Here's What I did:

 

1.  Preheated the oven to 350 degrees.

 

2.  Creamed together butter and sugars.

 

3.  Added the pudding mix to the butter/sugar mix.  Mixed well.

 

4.  Added vanilla and eggs to that mixture.  Mixed well.

 

5.  In a separate bowl, I combined the baking soda, salt, and flour.

 

6.  Slowly added the dry ingredients to the wet ones, mixing well.  I found my dough to be a little dry, so I added the milk to get it to the right consistency.  You may not need the milk.  It's possible that you could need more or less milk.

 

7.  Unwrapped the peanut butter cups.  Made a ball out of the dough.  Put the peanut butter cup in the middle of the dough and rolled the dough around the peanut butter cup. 

 

8.  Baked for about 8 minutes.  Take the cookies out of the oven when they are golden brown.  Here are what mine looked life fresh out of the oven:

 

 

Let them cool before eating them.

 

Enjoy!