Need Snack Idea for Brownie Meeting!

[alphamommy]

I am responsible for the snack for my daughter's Brownie meeting next week. It will be the last meeting before the holidays, and I'm stumped for an idea for the snack. I'm not sure if all the girls celebrate Christmas, so I don't want to go too overboard with Christmas symbols.

I planned to pick up some of the slice-and-bake cookie dough with snowmen and reindeer, but I've checked several stores, and they're out. The only other thought I've had is Rice Krispie Treats with red and green sprinkles stirred in. I will also probably take grapes and/or apple slices.

I'm not a great cook, but I'd like to do something besides just buy a package of cookies. Does anyone have an ideas? It needs to be finger food.

Thanks!
Tammy

[kakn7294]

Last year for our holiday party, we had cookies and hot cocoa. Our meetings are at the school so I took my coffee maker to heat the water for the hot cocoa. The cookies were a pre-packaged tray of sugar cookies in holiday shapes that I got at the grocery store. As far as the apples or grapes, my Brownie troop likes grapes - you could mix the red and green seedless grapes together and it would be sort of Christmasy without being a Santa or reindeer or whatever. And grapes survive better than apple slices which tend to turn all brown.

[Disneyatic]

What about buying some of the slice and bake or break and bake plain sugar cookies and then letting your daughter sprinkle them with red and green sugar crystals before baking them?

I was also going to suggest the Little Debbie brand snack cakes that are in the shapes of Christmas trees. I have a brownie troop also and my girls love those!
Also, have you seen the pretzels that Rold Gold has out this year that are in holiday shapes? They are candy canes, trees, and bells...very cute!
Another thing that's fun is trail mix and you could put the red and green m&m's in it!

[Tinkermom]

You could get the plain cookie dough and put sprinkles or colored sugar on them. I also like the Rice Krispie treat idea with the sprinkles.

Another fun thing I have done was to get flour tortillas and have the girls fold them over two times and then take small bites around the edges. When they unfold them they have a snowflake they can eat!

Also, not sure if you already know this but apparently they no longer make the Pillsbury "slice and bake" cookies with the snowmen, reindeer, pumpkins, etc. It is now only the "place and bake". I had searched several stores at Halloween looking for the slice and bake ones, it drove me crazy! I finally realized that all they had were the "place and bake".

I just picked up some of the snowmen "place and bake" cookies at Wal-mart. :)

[vicster]

I used to bake sugar cookies and let the girls decorate them - frosting, sprinkles, etc. They really enjoyed doing that.

[SBETigg]

Here's a fun one I picked up from INTERCOT last year. Spread the square hash-marked pretzels (or any pretzel shape but these work best) on a baking sheet. Place a Rollo candy on top of each pretzel. Place the sheet in the 350 degree oven just long enough to soften the Rollos. Press a pecan on top of each Rollo while warm. Voila! Tasty little chocolate-caramel crispy nutty snack bites.

Beware of nut allergies with a mixed group of kids, though. I wish I could credit the original poster-- is this familiar to anyone?

[tinkerbell04]

We have our last meeting before the holiday on Monday and we are having the hot cocoa with the cookies for a treat as well. We are getting the box o joe from Dunkin Donuts but filled with hot chocolate instead. You can get at least 10-12 good sized cups out of it. We got even more when we used smaller cups. I am also going to bring marshmallows for the girls to put on top as well.

[DisneyDog]

If you are bringing apple slices, pick up a container of honey. Apples dipped in honey is a yummy, healthy snack. I brought it for my DS's snack day at kindergarden, and the kids all loved it.

[thrillme]

I don't know what you have planned for your brownie meeting but I know when I had my neice and nephew over one year I baked some sugar cookies (I'm a horrible cook I used the roll). Rolled them out and cut them into Christmas trees and cut them. Made some green frosting and bought some mini M&Ms. Let the kids frost them themselves and decorate their trees with M&M's...worked out great.

[RenDuran]

Our healthy snack this week was clementines....those cute little oranges that come out this time of year. The girls really loved them!

[poeticeclipse]

I'm a huge fan of puppy chow. If you want fun fingerfood... this is it.

it's chex cereal, peanut butter, chocolate chips melted down, and powdered sugar. For the exact recipe of how much just google it. It's even festive because all the pieces kind of look like snow is covering them! :)

[conorsmom2000]

For Conor's class this year, I'm making cupcakes that I'll frost with chocolate frosting (a few vanilla, just in case) ....then I let the kids take 2 brown m&m's and 1 red m&m and put them on the cup cakes as 2 eyes and a red nose - then we break pretzles (Rold Gold thin) in half (they need help with this!) for the antlers, stick them into the cupcakes and ta da!! Reindeer cupcakes! I made these when Con was in Kindergarten as well - you can see a picture of them here (http://jmcmurray.smugmug.com/gallery/3052828/1/229774451/Large)!

[ElenitaB]

Jen, those are adorable!

I wanted to really send out a vote of appreciation to Tammy for recognizing that not all of the girls in the troop might be celebrating Christmas. That will go a long way in the eyes of the girls celebrating Hanukkah. Also, when dealing with children that age these days, it's very important to shy away from anything with nuts.

You can't go wrong with fruit (especially the clementines because they're so easy to peel and they're small and sweet). Sugar cookies decorated with glazing sugar (the white stuff), anything with snowflakes, hot cocoa (what a great tip about getting the Dunkin Donuts box with hot cocoa :thumbsup:), marshmallows, and maybe a can or two of whipped cream would make for a great snack.

For a party when my son was one year past Tiger Cubs, I got several packages of Little Debbies gingerbread men (they're plain and individually cellophane wrapped) and the small tubes of colored icing. The kids had a BALL! If you can't find those, this year, Pillsbury is selling sheets of sugar cookie dough for you to cut out, and Toll House is selling sheets of gingerbread dough with the shapes of trees and gingerbread people ready for you to pop out and bake (and it comes with icing as well). Both of these could be decorated by the girls. As we all know, kids love to play with their food (and so do we adults... all the parents had a blast at that party).

A great resource for holiday cookies, cakes and cupcakes is FamilyFun magazine's website. FamilyFun is a Disney-owned company, and their ideas are always great and often not too hard to do.

[JessicaRabbit]

This sounds like a lot of work - but really it is easy and kids seem to love the concept.

You get a disposable pizza pan at the grocery store and a tube of sugar cookie dough. You press the sugar cookie dough onto the pizza pan (like the dough for a pizza - if you like "thick crust pizza" use 2 tubes of cookie dough) - and bake it in the oven according to package directions.

Then get a package of chocolate chips (milk chocolate is sweeter but you can also use the semi-sweet) and melt it in a double boiler or just over a larger pan of boiling water stirring occassionally until it is smooth. While still warm, spread the chocolate onto the cookie dough (the "sauce") and you can top your pizza with just about anything you want - coconut looks like cheese - but my kids like M&Ms, sprinkles (or jimmies as we call them) skittles, etc. Really you can use just about anything. Just put the toppings on while the chocolate is still warm so it will harden when the chocolate hardens. You can then slice the pizza as big or as small as you want depending on the number you have to feed.

Another idea is "fruit kabobs" - you can buy strawberries, grapes, cantalope (or any kind of melon) and pineapple already cubed at the grocery store and thread it on bamboo skewers. You can serve plain, with honey, or pre-made dip (like chocolate or marshmallow - they are generally in the produce section).

Good luck!

[Cinderelley]

Before the schools here banned food that was made at home, I used to cut up apples and pineapples and send them in with caramel dip. The kid loved them, and it was fast and easy.

[Crystal Palace]

I'm a huge fan of puppy chow. If you want fun fingerfood... this is it.

it's chex cereal, peanut butter, chocolate chips melted down, and powdered sugar. For the exact recipe of how much just google it. It's even festive because all the pieces kind of look like snow is covering them! :)


Hehe I was going to suggest this same recipe! They're called "Muddy Muddies" and you can find the recipe on Chex's website. They are soooo good and sooo easy! I just made a batch a couple of weeks ago and ate them all!:secret:

[alphamommy]

I finally found the cookie dough with snowmen, reindeer, etc., embedded in it! I picked up some this weekend, and will buy some red and green grapes tomorrow.

Thanks for all the suggestions!
Tammy