Okay, Pia discovered this idea in the Rose Levy Beranbaum Christmas cookie book and I’ve adapted the recipe for our readers.  They taste like rice crispy treats, but better, and they look much more impressive. Like painted Christmas cookies and other food-effigies, these are a huge hit with kids.

These delicious little wreath cookies go faster than hotcakes in our home.

Christmas Wreaths

 

 

 

 

Lay out pieces of waxed paper on a cookie sheet. and butter the waxed paper.  Butter the bottom and sides of a saucepan (are you sensing a pattern here.) Melt 1/2 cup butter (1 stick) in saucepan, then put in about 30 large marshmallows in the pan and melt them. Do not cook too quickly or it will burn. Once the mixture is completely melted, whisk in 1 tsp green food coloring and 1 tsp vanilla, then pour in 4 cups of cornflakes. Mix together until flakes are well coated. Put pan into warm water to keep from cooling and becoming hard. Now drop the mixture onto the waxed paper in heaping tablespoons, and shape into wreaths with buttered fingers. Place a few red hots or chopped up red hot tamales candies on each wreath.  Attach the candy while the wreath is warm or it won’t stick. 

Try to fend off those who would eat them until the wreaths are cooled.  It is reported that they can keep for up to one month in an airtight container, but, we’ve never tried to keep them for more than one hour. 

Enjoy.