Graham Cracker Houses and ‘Smore Snowball Cookies!

Today, I needed a break from cooking pre-Thanksgiving food. Holy Smokes, I want to be a Thanksgiving Hero sooo BAD! But, ultimately, a girl can cook only so much before she just gets tired of thinking about that one meal. I wanted something fun and tasty…I had some Honey Maid Graham Crackers, a jar of Skippy Peanut Butter and an idea! Graham Cracker Houses and ‘Smore Snowmen…a match made in holiday-heaven! #collectivebias

I’m so glad I didn’t throw away that old Halloween candy and had made a stop at WalMart earlier in the week. Otherwise, my pantry might not have had such fabulous findings to make these wonderfully tasty desserts-I mean house…I mean house, right?

What I Use to Build Graham Cracker Houses!

• 1 box of chocolate Honey Maid Graham Crackers
• 1 box of plain Honey Maid Graham Crackers
• 1 jar of Skippy Peanut Butter
• A bunch of leftover candy from Halloween (or some new stuff, if you intend to gorge like I did)
• 1/2 cup of confectioners (powdered) sugar to sprinkle over the top and get too messy with!
• A pan or something to put your graham cracker house on-this is your foundation, so it needs to be sturdy!
• A roll of heavy-duty aluminium foil to cover your pan with, just to make it look pretty (because the bottom of my pans are decidedly not a pretty surface)

How I Put My Graham Cracker Houses Together…

1. Flip that pan or baking sheet over and cover it in foil.
2. Spread a fairly thick layer of peanut butter over the center, creating a sticky surface to stick your walls in…and a lawn…if you’re going to make your snowballs into that like I did, be sure to leave room on your lawn for your snowmen-they can’t live inside the house or they’d melt!
3. Start putting-up your walls using the plain graham crackers. I like to use the peanut butter for mortar between joints (see my technical-builder-lingo coming out, there?!) and to bolster the backsides of the walls, so they don’t slip and fall.
4. Be sure to break-out a little quarter-block of one graham cracker to make a door from…the snowmen have to be able to get inside to get a cup of hot cocoa!
5. To provide further support, I sometimes add an extra wall or two inside…since you have to press the candy onto the outside, this keeps the walls from caving-in while you decorate.
6. Using the chocolate graham crackers, put up a little roof. I decided on an art-deco feel and put my roof on sideways with a pitch slightly off-center. You can do the same by adding some supports on your interior walls that meet the apex of the roof wherever you want that apex to be. I could have gone and done like a “normal” person (bah!) and centered the apex of the roof by just leaning the two sheets of graham cracker together, distributing the mass equally, but I can’t just be normal…that would be not-normal for me!
7. Now you decorate! I just used leftover Halloween candies and some peppermints I had in the pantry. You can use whatever. A better decorator than me would have done something different, but that’s kind of the beauty of a graham cracker house-they’re all beautiful and unique!
8. Sprinkle it all with the powdered sugar to pretend it just snowed…
9. Set up the snowball cookies and call it finished!

What You Need to Make ‘Smore Snowball Cookies!

Please note, this recipe should make approximately 1-dozen snowballs, but, if your house is anything like mine, you’ll only get like 5 before the “dough” is gone. It’s like I make them into balls, then they just disappear before they make it into the bowl!

• 2 cups of crushed (pretty well) graham crackers
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter
• 1/2 cup of slightly-melted chocolate (1 minute in the microwave should do well enough)
• 2 cups confectioners (powdered) sugar in a quart-size plastic bag
• To make a snowman like my too cute friend below, you’ll also need 2 mini-chocolate chips and a toothpick broken into a “nose” and two “arms”

Putting Your ‘Smore Snowball Cookies Together!

1. Mix slightly-melted chocolate chips with the peanut butter and graham crackers. Mix thoroughly and allow to sit 5-10 minutes.
2. Roll your “dough” into balls. For snowmen, roll an equal number of balls in corresponding small, medium, and large sizes for snowmen head, body and bottom.
3. Drop individual balls one at a time into the bag-o-sugar and shake it gently to fully cover each ball. Remember, because of the chocolate, the more you handle the balls, the more they won’t stick together, so be fast, my friend!
4. Enjoy! Or, for those truly dedicated to making a little snowman or snowlady, stack balls in correct order (large on bottom, medium on top of that and small at the tippity top) on your Graham Cracker House’s lawn-they insert your nose and arms, accordingly. Or just eat them before they become snowmen-they’re good that way too…

So, that’s really it. I think I need to run by WalMart and stock-up again…I think I used all my graham crackers…and maybe all the peanut butter in the house!

Special thanks for sponsoring this post goes to #PBandG #CollectiveBias and #Yippee.