Christmas Rice Krispies Treats
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These Christmas Rice Krispie Treats are a fun, festive way to kick off the holiday baking season with the kids! With just a few simple ingredients, you’ll have a batch of sweet treats that everyone can help make and enjoy.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Kid-friendly and easy – Perfect dessert for little hands to help make!
- Quick to whip up – Ready in just minutes, no baking needed.
- Festive and fun – Adds a playful holiday touch to this easy treat.
- Customizable – Shape and decorate however you like.
- Crowd-pleaser – Both kids and adults love these sweet!
Ingredients for Holiday Rice Krispie Treats
This recipe is super simple and uses very few ingredients. To make Homemade Rice Krispie Treats you’ll need your usual suspects:
- Crispy Rice Cereal
- Mini Marshmallows
- Butter– you can use unsalted or salted for this recipe.
Tip: for extra flavor you can brown the butter or add a teaspoon of vanilla extract to the marshmallow mixture after cooking.
For the Christmas Reindeer decorations, you’ll need the following:
- A 3″ wide heart shaped cookie cutter. Hearts make a great reindeer shaped face and gives you the perfect spot to stick antlers
- M&Ms. I used all red, but you can use brown too if you wanted to make other reindeers besides Rudolph.
- Chocolate chips, white chocolate, or candy melts. Use what you have on hand. This will act as the glue that sticks the M&Ms and all the other accessories to the classic Rice Krispie Treats.
- Candy eyeballs. So the reindeers can see.
- Chocolate covered pretzels. They make the best antlers
Pro Tip
Pro Tip
To keep the Rice Krispie Treats from getting hard, make sure to use fresh marshmallows and a generous amount of butter.
Instructions
The full ingredient amount and step by step instructions can be found on the recipe card.
Prepare a 13″ x 9″ baking pan by lining it with parchment paper. Allow some of the parchment to hang over the sides of the pan, making a sling. Spray the parchment paper and pan lightly with cooking spray.
In a large bowl, add the Rice Krispies cereal. Set aside.
In a 2 quart saucepan, melt the butter and the marshmallows over medium-low heat. Stir constantly until all the ingredients are melted completely and smooth.
Once melted, turn off the burner, and immediately pour the marshmallow mixture over the cereal.
Using a rubber spatula, quickly mix the marshmallow mixture into the cereal until completely coated.
Dump the mixture into your prepared baking dish. Press the cereal mixture into the dish evenly, making a nice compact layer. You can do this cleanly by spraying a piece of plastic wrap with cooking spray and setting it over the Rice Krispies mixture while you’re pressing.
Allow the Rice Krispie treats to sit for 2 hours to set up.
Shaping the Christmas Rice Krispies Treats
Once set, remove the Rice Krispie Treats from the pan and set them on a cutting board or a solid surface. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter, about 3″ wide, and cut out as many heart-shaped treats as you can.
Melt 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips or candy melts in a microwave-safe bowl until melted and smooth.
Using a spoon or a chopstick, add some of the melted chocolate to the back of your pretzels. Place the pretzel, wet chocolate side down, on one of the heart “humps” to make an antler. Repeat on the other side so that your sweet reindeer has two antlers on top of its head.
Next, add a dollop of melted chocolate to two candy eyeballs and place the eyes in the middle of the heart.
Lastly, add a dollop of melted chocolate to an M&M and glue the candy to the pointy tip of the heart. Now you have a reindeer!
Repeat gluing on the accessories until all your hearts have transformed into reindeers.
Allow the treats to sit for 5-10 minutes for the chocolate to completely harden.
Serve and enjoy!
Tips
- The marshmallow mixture is super sticky, so make sure the baking dish is lined with parchment paper and well greased.
- The Rice Krispies Treat mixture sets fast, so have everything ready to mix and transfer to the pan right away!
- Spray your rubber spatula with cooking spray to reduce sticking while stirring together the cereal and marshmallow mix.
- Use a sheet of plastic wrap to help press the Rice Krispie mixture into the pan.
- Adding the melted chocolate directly to the decorations worked better than applying it to the Rice Krispie Treats. The chocolate tends to seep into the treats, making it hard for the antlers and eyes to stick.
Storing Leftover Rice Krispie Treats
Once decorated, store the treats in a single layer in an airtight container at room temperature to keep the antlers intact! They’ll stay fresh for up to a week—perfect for making ahead for a party.
Avoid refrigerating or freezing for the best texture.
Variations:
The goal is to have fun making these Rice Krispie Treats into adorable little Christmas Reindeer! Here are some variations that would be great to try:
- Use different shaped cookie cutters to make Christmas trees, snowmen, and stars. Drizzle on white chocolate or milk chocolate and srinkle with colored sugar or red and green sprinkles.
- Use plain or peppermint coated pretzels in place of the chocolate covered ones.
- You can use any variety of M&Ms or even Reese’s Pieces for the noses
- Use Cocoa Krispies in place of regular Rice Krispies, or add red or green food coloring to the marshmallow mixture to color the treats.
- Stir in 1 cup of peanut butter into the hot marshmallow mixture to make peanut butter Rice Krispie squares.
- You can use premade Rice Krispie Treats to cut down on prep time.
More Holiday Cookies and Desserts:
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Christmas Reindeer Rice Krispie Treats
Ingredients
- 6 cups of Rice Krispies cereal
- 5 ½ cups of mini marshmallows
- 5 tablespoons of unsalted butter
- Milk Chocolate Covered Pretzels about 26
- Candy Eyeballs
- Red and/or brown M&Ms
- 2 tablespoons of melted chocolate chips white chocolate, or candy melts (chocolate or vanilla is fine)
Instructions
- Prepare a 13″ x 9″ baking pan by lining it with parchment paper. Allow some of the parchment to hang over the sides of the pan, making a sling. Spray the parchment paper and pan lightly with cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, add the Rice Krispies cereal. Set aside.
- In a 2 quart saucepan, melt the butter and the marshmallows over medium-low heat. Stir constantly until all the ingredients are melted completely and smooth.
- Once melted, turn off the burner, and immediately pour the marshmallow mixture over the cereal.
- Using a rubber spatula, quickly mix the marshmallow mixture into the cereal until completely coated.
- Dump the mixture into your prepared baking dish. Press the cereal mixture into the dish evenly, making a nice compact layer. You can do this cleanly by spraying a piece of plastic wrap with cooking spray and setting it over the Rice Krispies mixture while you’re pressing.
- Allow the Rice Krispie treats to sit for about 2 hours to set up.
- Turning the Rice Krispie Treats Into Christmas ReindeerOnce set, remove the Rice Krispie Treats from the pan and set them on a cutting board or a solid surface. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter, about 3″ wide, and cut out as many heart-shaped treats as you can. Alternate the placement of the wide end and the pointed end of the hearts to get the maximum amount of treats possible!
- Melt 1 tablespoon of chocolate chips or candy melts in the microwave until completed melted and smooth.
- Using a spoon or a chopstick, add some of the melted chocolate to the back of your pretzels. Place the pretzel, wet chocolate side down, on one of the heart “humps” to make an antler. Repeat on the other side so that your sweet reindeer has two antlers on top of its head.
- Next, add a dollop of melted chocolate to two candy eyeballs and place the eyes in the middle of the heart.
- Lastly, add a dollop of melted chocolate to an M&M and glue the candy to the pointy tip of the heart. Now you have a reindeer!
- Repeat gluing on the accessories until all your hearts have transformed into reindeers.
- Allow the treats to sit for 5-10 minutes for the chocolate to completely harden.
- Serve and enjoy!
