Rice Krispie Kisses

Every year for the past four years, the kiddies have looked forward to making these sweet little treats for St. Valentine's Day.


They're just rice krispy treats with tinted melted marshmallow,


...packed into a smallish funnel,


...wrapped in foil (sprayed lightly with non-stick cooking spray)


(with a cute little ribbon--or a strip of paper with a sweet message written on it).


I snip the corners off the foil squares before wrapping the krispy treat. Otherwise, there would be a big wad of foil at the top.


Yum!


Now go give 'em to all the little neighbor kids!

NOTE: I made 2 regular batches of rice krispy treats. Using a funnel that holds about 1 cup of water, I was able to make 16 krispy kisses (8 kisses in each batch). If needed, more can be made using a smaller funnel or just by not filling the funnel up to the top.

For a more authentic chocolatey (and gluten-free!) kiss treat, you can use Cocoa Pebbles. Sadly, krispy rice cereals still contain gluten because of the malt ingredient.

Kool Aid Dough

The kids are still on a bit of a break before we start our new school year in a couple of weeks...so they are ripe for some kitchen chemistry experiments (in our Adventures with atoms and molecules book) and for a little fun making their own concoctions.

Here's a kids' concoction that always goes over well. I guess with the ingredients used, it could be ingested by the gluten-eating sort...but I'll just consider it another non-edible recipe! If you've tasted it, you'd say, "EWWW!" also.

With summer going strong, it's too hot to bake! Since we're not eating much regular flour around here, this recipe will also help us to use up all that white fluffy stuff hanging out in our pantry!

Mix:
2 pkgs. of unsweetened Kool Aid
2 cups hot water until dissolved

Add:
2 TBSP vegetable oil
Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine:
2 1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1 TBSP cream of tartar

Add Kool Aid water to dry ingredients and mix well.
Knead in additional flour as needed.
Store in air-tight container.

This dough has a very nice consistency and keeps a LONG time without drying like other commercial doughs.

In the picture above (of mostly dwarves in a goblin cave), the dough was made from strawberry Kool Aid. Cherry makes a better scent and a brighter pink! You know...just FYI!

Last year, the kids made this for their friends on Valentine's Day. It was a good alternative to giving kids more CANDY!! They divided it up and put balls of the dough into zippy snack bags, put some Valentine's stickers on them and made their deliveries! We made 2 batches, and I believe they had enough to give to 12-15 friends.

Check out this site for MANY many more dough recipes to try. Our kids also really like the peanut butter dough since they can snack as they play!