How was your Christmas celebration? Or, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, how was your past week? It was busy, busy, busy around here. We have had some fun adventures, a busy Christmas full of family and are getting ready for the new year to bring some more fun. Have you been busy too? Hopefully your hectic holidays are winding down, but don’t stop spreading cheer just yet! Spread cheer with simple surprises this winter season.

SPREAD CHEER WITH SIMPLE SURPRISES

The kids are out of school and I am trying to find a balance of attention for them and not letting my other responsibilities get left behind or completely overwhelm me. We have been looking for lots of fun activities that aren’t too time consuming or involve a lot of preparation or supplies. We’re working with little attention spans and all. That also lets me spend time with my boys and still not have too much mom guilt when I tell them I need to do some work or a few chores.

Betty Crocker®  cookie mixes have come to our rescue more than once this past week! We love cookies… because, who doesn’t? We used Betty Crocker®  mixes to make our cookies for Santa and he loved them. He told me so. We’ve shared cookies with lots of family and friends this past week too. It’s been fun to spread some cheer with simple surprises, like a plate of cookies.

I knew that Christmas Eve would be a busy day and we had quite a bit of baking we needed to do. Among the pies, rolls and waffle dough we needed to make we also needed to make cookies for Santa. I knew we weren’t going to have a lot of time so I went with one of my favorite flavor combinations. Peanut butter and chocolate!

I picked up the Betty Crocker® peanut butter cookie mix at Walmart. I grabbed a sugar cookie one too because I knew my kids would be home for the next three weeks and we might need a project to do. We haven’t made the sugar cookies yet, but there’s still two weeks of Winter Break so I’m not tucking it away into the cupboard just yet.

We made peanut butter blossoms for Santa on Christmas Eve and it was perfect. My boys love to help mix things up in the mixer and Betty Crocker® cookie mixes are perfect. They are quick and there’s just enough ingredients that my boys stay interested. We rolled the dough so my boys even got to help with getting it ready to bake, which they usually don’t get to do.

While the cookies baked, my boys helped me unwrap the chocolates to top the cookies with. They did really well and didn’t even eat that many of the chocolates, although that was their favorite part, of course.

We will be making some more cookies while we wait for New Year’s tomorrow, although I’m not sure what kind of Betty Crocker® mix we’ll use yet. There are so many to choose from. I love being able to get my kids in the kitchen in a low-stress, fun project that we can do together. It’s something we all enjoy. And the end result is pretty great too. Another simple surprise we can all enjoy.

If you want some fun cookie ideas, check out the Betty Crocker® Homepage. How would you like a coupon to save on some delicious Betty Crocker® cookie mix? You can do just that with any Betty Crocker® cookie mix and this coupon on Ibotta. How are you going to bake with Betty this winter?

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Betty Crocker. The opinions and text are all mine.

I can’t think of a better way to kick off the chilly season than with some fun in the kitchen. Celebrate the first snow fall, with these fun and super easy Nutter Butter Snowmen cookies!

I often run out of steam and energy before we’re finished when I’m in the kitchen with my boys; so, I decided to skip the baking part and just jump right to the fun part. We used Nutter Butter Cookies and candies to decorate and make snowmen!

NUTTER BUTTER SNOWMAN COOKIES

Print This Recipe

Nutter Butter Snowmen Cookies

Prep time:  30 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Decorate Nutter Butter cookies and turn them into a winter wonderland! Create friendly snowmen with candies and white dipping chocolate.

Ingredients

• Nutter Butter Cookies
• White Dipping Chocolate
• Mini Chocolate Chips
• Mini Chocolate Candies
• Mini Peanut Butter Candies
• Chocolate Flavored Roll Candies
• Red and Green Licorice
• Confetti Sprinkles
• 

Instructions

1. Melt the white chocolate.
2. 
3. Work one cookie at a time so you can get it completely decorated before the chocolate hardens.
4. 
5. Spread the white chocolate on one side of the Nutter Butter cookie with the back of a plastic spoon.
6. Shape the chocolate roll candies into the shape off a top hat. I actually found it easier to make several at a time and have them ready to go straight on the cookies as soon as I got the chocolate spread.
7. Use the mini chocolate candies, the mini peanut butter candies and the confetti sprinkles to create eyes and buttons on the snowmen. The orange peanut butter candies perpendicular on the cookies made a great nose on the round snowman faces.
8. Use the licorice to make a scarf for the snowman.

Notes

The best part of these cookies is that you can decorate them however you want! Your imagination is the limit. My kids liked the snow globe, but my favorite was the snowman faces. Get creative.

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These would be perfect for neighbor goody plates this holiday season. My kids loved the snow globe cookie, but it wasn’t as pretty as I had in my head so I only did one of those. My favorites were the snowman faces.

Tips and Tricks I Discovered While Making Nutter Butter Snowman Cookies

• I loved that the cookie decorations were trapped in the melting chocolate after it hardened. It was less messy when my kids were eating them… and that’s definitely a win. You could definitely substitute the melting chocolate for frosting too, if that is more your style.
• I opted to just spread the melted chocolate on one side of the cookie because I like Nutter Butter cookies as they are and didn’t want to change the taste too much. I didn’t want the dipping chocolate to overpower the Nutter Butter cookie flavor. And it cut down on sugar a little bit.
• I used my little melting pot to keep the chocolate warm and melted. It worked great. A small slow cooker would probably work as well. Just make sure you don’t over heat your chocolate or it will get grainy. You can also just heat it in a microwave-safe dish in the microwave in 30-second intervals until it’s melted. If you have access to a melting pot, I would highly suggest using it.
• It was much easier to shape several hats before I started putting the chocolate on the cookies. Then I just had to grab one and stick it on. I didn’t have to worry about moving quickly before the chocolate hardened.
• Use a toothpick to help you place the little candies on the cookies. The candies are tiny and kind of hard to position with larger hands. My boys did great if I was steadying their hands. A toothpick lets you push the candies right where you want them.
• Use an orange peanut butter candy bit for the snowman face nose. Stand it up on the cookie to make it look more carrot shaped and give your cookie more dimension.