Christmas Candies Part One: Peanut Butter Buckeyes

Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year! Not only is it a time of family, and reflection, and thanksgiving, but also time for...

SWEETS!

I'll show you the step by step guide to Buckeyes!

Recipes yields approximately 50 balls.

1 ½ cups creamy peanut butter

½ cup butter (room temperature)

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups crisp rice cereal [optional]

2 ½ cups sifted* powdered sugar

6 ounces chocolate chips

Toothpicks (for assembly, not to eat! ;) )

*I doubled this recipe. After sifting half of the powdered sugar, I gave up! They turned out fine, so don't worry about sifting! Also, some use 4 cups of sugar, but I used about 2-2.5. I would recommend starting with 2 and adding more to get the crumbling texture you'd like!

Directions:

1. Crush crisp rice cereal into a powder.

2. Beat together butter, peanut butter, and vanilla.

3. Mix in powdered sugar and rice cereal a little at a time. (You may have to use your hands at this point. It gets rather thick!)
4. Mix until a fine crumble starts to form.
5. Roll up into bite size balls. Balls should be firm. If not, chill for 30 minutes.
6. Melt chocolate in microwave. I used chocolate chips. Melt 30 seconds at a time and stir so you don't burn or overheat the chocolate.
7. Roll out wax paper.
8. Poke the ball with a toothpick and roll in chocolate halfway, like in the pictures.
9. Chill and enjoy!

These bad boys are always a hit! For prepping, chilling them may be necessary, but I think they taste better at room temperature. I serve them in little paper wrappers.

Enjoy!