Taste of Home: Holiday Editions Giveaway

Friends, do I ever have some exciting news for you today!  Not only do I have a delicious recipe to share, I also get to give 10 magazines away to 5 lucky readers!  It all started a few weeks ago when Little Crafter and I opened the door to find a surprise package waiting for us that contained two Taste of Home magazines!  We got a copy of the Best Holiday Recipe edition as well as the Candy and Cookies one!  Needless to say, it didn’t take us long to flip through and find plenty of things we wanted to try.
Now, you all know that cooking isn’t really my thing, right?  I’m no gourmet chef, but we did manage to find plenty of recipes that weren’t too complicated and also didn’t contain lactose, so even hubby can enjoy them!  Here’s the first one we tried, and let me just say that they taste even better than they look…
CRISPY PEANUT BUTTER BALLS

Here’s the recipe, as found in the Best Holiday Recipes edition.

2 cups creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup butter, softened
33/4 cups confectioners’ sugar
3 cups crisp rice cereal
4 cups (24 ounces) semisweet
chocolate chips
1/4 cup plus 1 teaspoon shortening,
divided
1/3 cup white baking chips

1. In a large bowl, beat peanut butter and butter until blended; gradually beat in confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Stir in cereal. Shape into 1-in. balls. Refrigerate until chilled.

2. In a microwave, melt chocolate chips and 1/4 cup shortening; stir until smooth. Dip balls into chocolate; allow excess to drip off. Place on a waxed paper-lined pan. Let stand until set.

3. In a microwave, melt white baking chips and remaining shortening. Stir until smooth. Drizzle over candies. Refrigerate until set.

Here’s a look at how we made ours:
First, we gathered our ingredients.  I found that generic crispy rice works just fine, but I’d never skimp on the peanut butter!  Get the good stuff.
Before we started mixing, I had Little Crafter use a rolling pin to crush up the rice cereal…a trick I learned from my grandmother, who loves adding this to all kinds of cookie and candy mixes.  She says the texture is better if you crush them up, and I’m not going to argue!

My little sous chef helped me to mix the peanut butter, butter, sugar, and cereal together in the bowl.  At first, he stirred it with a spatula…

But eventually, we just had to get our hands in there and finish the job!  If you’re wondering about the glove, it’s because this child hates…I mean hates…to get his hands messy.  Giving him gloves was the only way I could get him to do this part, which I knew he’d love!

I rolled the dough into balls, handed them to LC, and he put them on the trays, which then went in the fridge while we ran a few errands.

All that was left was the chocolate coating {the best part}!  Mmmmm!
Don’t they look delicious?!  Let me assure you, they are out of this world!
How do I know?  Well, that one poor candy had to get cut for photography’s sake…I couldn’t just put it back in with the others, now, could I?  And I couldn’t just try the milk chocolate, the dark needed to be sampled too…otherwise how could I justify giving them to other people?  It’s only right to quality test…
 
As for LC, the one thing he hates more than messy hands is chocolate {yeah, I have no idea how that happened}, so we made him the white chocolate version.
These were an absolute hit in our house!  I definitely plan on making lots more over the holidays to share with our friends and family.  I already came up with a cute way to package them, which I’ll be sharing on the 14th, so be sure to stop by and see what it is.  In the meantime, we also have our eye on a few other recipes in the magazines, like the Mint Truffles and Mocha Cookies, and hubby has requested to try the meatballs found in the appetizer section.
Want to try some of these delicious recipes for yourself?  Here’s the best part!
Taste of Home is letting me give FIVE lucky readers TWO magazines each!
Each winner will receive one copy of the Best Holiday Recipes edition plus one copy of the Candy and Cookies edition!  Rafflecopter will walk you through the entry process below; good luck, and Happy Eating!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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37 Comments

  1. I would love to win…so I could share these with my mom! She loves Taste of Home and would love to have these too 🙂 Thanks for the chance…PS: that little crafter just makes me smile 😀

  2. I love Taste of Home! I’d love to try the recipes you mentioned– especially the Mocha Cookies! I made cookie dough truffles from an old ToT magazine once– delicious!

    1. Beatrice, I’m so sorry the recipe wasn’t there; it somehow got lost in my transfer from Blogger to WordPress! The full recipe, amounts, and info about the coating are there now for you! Also, for the coating, you can use those chocolate candy melts!

  3. Would you please clarify one thing for me about the confectioner’s sugar? The posted recipe reads as follows:
    33/4 cups confectioners’ sugar

    Is that 3 and 3/4 cups or just 3/4 cup where an extra 3 got in?

    Just wanted to make sure before I started.

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