Fun Christmas Rice Krispie Treats

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I LOVE making Rice Krispie Treats for every season, and now it’s finally time to make some for Christmas!

I am truly obsessed with this recipe right now because we’re not just sprinkling on some red and green sprinkles here, we’re transforming each of these Rice Krispie Treats into little Reindeer faces!

Can you even stand the cuteness?

These treats make a great festive activity for the kiddos too. They’ll love cutting out all the Rice Krispie Treats and turning them into adorable little Christmas Reindeer…and snacking on all the scraps while they’re at it!

These little Reindeer Rice Krispie Treats will definitely become a family favorite this holiday season!

What will I need for these treats?

This recipe is super simple and uses very few ingredients. To make the Rice Krispie Treats you’ll need your usual suspects:

• Rice Krispie Cereal
• Marshmallows
• Butter

To transform these into Reindeer Rice Krispie Treats, you’ll need a couple of accessories like:

• 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 Rice Krispie Treats.
• Candy eyeballs. So the reindeers can see.
• Chocolate covered pretzels. They make the best antlers

Most of these, if not all the ingredients can be found right at the grocery store or even Target!

How to make Christmas Reindeer Rice Krispie Treats

Makes 12-14 Reindeer

Ingredients You’ll Need

• 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
• 1 tablespoon 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 Reindeer

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. 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!

Storing Leftover Rice Krispie Treats

Once the treats are set and decorated, you can store them at room temperature inside of an airtight container. Try to store the treats in a single layer if you can, so the reindeer antlers don’t pop off!

These will keep for up to a week, as long as no air gets to them. They’re perfect to make ahead for a party.

I would advise against refrigerating or freezing Rice Krispie Treats–they’re best kept fresh at room temperature.

KEEPING YOUR RICE KRISPIE TREATS FROM GETTING HARD:

Below I’ll share with you my top tips for keeping your Rice Krispie treats soft and chewy and perfect every time!

1. Make sure you have enough marshmallow goo! I’ve made the original recipe off the cereal box before and there was just not enough marshmallows for me! The bag of mini marshmallows however, called for a whopping 5 ½ cups of marshmallows for their treats, and I found that to be the perfect amount.
2. Add extra butter to the marshmallow mix. I add more butter than the original recipe states. The extra fat and water from the butter will keep the Rice Krispie Treats from drying out too quickly.
3. Wrap and store the treats really, really well. Keep the treats in a super airtight container, zip bag, or wrapped really well in plastic wrap at room temp. Anything you can do to keep the air out will be your best chance for keeping these treats soft and chewy for a while.

TIPS FOR MAKING THE BEST Christmas RICE KRISPIE TREATS

• Prep that baking dish! The marshmallow mixture is super sticky, so make sure the baking dish is lined with parchment paper and well greased.
• Work fast when you’re mixing the marshmallow goo into the cereal! That stuff starts to set quickly and can just cement itself to the bottom of your mixing bowl before it gets to the pan. Make sure to have everything you need ready to go so you can mix and dump in the baking dish quickly!
• Spray your rubber spatula.You can 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. Spray the plastic with cooking spray and use it as a barrier for your hands while pressing!
• Use fresh marshmallows and cereal if you can. It just makes for a better batch of treats.
• Apply the chocolate “glue” to the eyeballs or M&Ms directly before sticking them to the Rice Krispie Treats. This is pretty trivial, but I found that adding my melted chocolate to the accessory itself was way easier than adding glue to the actual Rice Krispie Treat. My melted chocolate just seemed to seep into the treat and my antlers and eyes wouldn’t stick.

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:

• Do a mix of reindeer and other Christmas cut outs (trees, stars, bells)! You can use M&Ms, sprinkles, and different colored candy melts for decorating
• 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
• Add a drop or two of peppermint extract to the marshmallow mixture (off heat) for peppermint reindeers
• Stir in 1 cup of peanut butter into the hot marshmallow mixture to make peanut butter Rice Krispie squares
• If you don’t have a heart cutter, simply press the recipe into two 8″ cake pans or pie plates and cut into triangles for the reindeer faces
• For a really simple design, just buy premade Rice Krispie treats. The rectangle shape will still work just as well as a triangle or heart shape. Glue on the antlers, eyes, and noses, as you would for the heart shape.

Other Holiday Cookies and Treats:

Peanut Butter Red Nosed Reindeers

Christmas Puppy Chow

Snickerdoodles With No Cream of Tartar

Cinnamon Pinwheel Cookies

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