Heinous Balls of Goodness

As is the tradition, OB needed to take a treat to preschool to share with his friends for his 4th birthday (which was yesterday). Earlier this week, I bought all the ingredients for a family favorite, Rice Krispie Treats (I know, a whole whooping 3 ingredients – I really out did myself). Although, I did not have an actual design in mind, I also decided to pick up sprinkles, frosting, melting chocolate, and cake writing icing. I figured that plain old Rice Krispie Treats (RKTs) just would not do (that might place me in the boring-mom hall of fame) and that somehow with this arsenal of decorating products, we could create a colorful, festive, happy birthday-ish snack for OB and 11 of his closest friends. On Wednesday, while chatting with my sister I mentioned the RKTs and she suggested using cookie cutters. I thought it was a brilliant idea and I could clearly envision fun-shaped RKTs that all the kids (and teachers) would be sure to love. So was the plan...

Thursday morning arrives and we have until 12:30pm to get the RKTs made, decorated and transportable. OB was very excited to help and he places the butter in the pan and is thrilled to see it melt. Then he pours in the marshmallow and, again, melting occurs and he is in awe. Fortunately for me, while adding the rice krispies, he did not ask why the marshmallows on the bottom of the pan were a pale shade of burnt (thankfully easily hidden by the cereal).  After mixing up the marshmallow mess, I laid out some wax paper and spread the crispy goop. I pulled down the cookie cutters and OB and AB (who couldn’t stand to be left out of this cooking party) each picked out a shape. OB’s choo choo train cookie cutter was the first to impale the slab of RKTs. As I lifted the cookie cutter, I quickly realized that, while a simple shape (a circle, or heart) would have worked perfectly well, RKTs are not the best medium for such intricate silhouettes. Furthermore, the stickiness of the RKTs was, well, sticking, to the cookie cutter and the wax paper. Things were not going well and the RKTs were quickly cooling and quickly becoming unmoldable. I needed to think fast. Time for Operation Save the RKTs ...

STEP 1   Be strategic – scrap the cookie cutters. I quickly and gently broke the news to the boys. “The cookie cutters aren’t working very well! I have a better idea!” (translation: 1. the cookie cutters are a big fat messy failure and  2. I don’t know what the hell we are going to do, but anything is better than this.)

STEP 2   Think simply – balls…the boys can make balls out of play dough, so they can make balls out of RKTs.

STEP 3   Add fun – Sprinkles. Seriously, what could be more fun than sprinkles?

STEP 4   Assign tasks – “AB you take the RKTs and roll out balls” “OB, you roll the RKT balls in the bowl of sprinkles.”    editor's note:  all hands were washed before preforming above mentioned tasks.

Not necessarily the award winning treats that I had in mind, but, Oh Well!  We are now in rescue and recovery mode!  So the assembly line began and thankfully, there was not a quality controller in our midst. The balls were – well, NOT round and often pitted with craters. And the sprinkles were – well, EVERYWHERE and luckily that did include on the balls. The boys were having fun and things were looking up. Precisely the time to dive further into my decorating arsenal.  I pulled out the cake writing icing, and melting chocolate. Since the RKTs were already looked pathetic, I decided we would just have FUN. I dipped them in chocolate and OB drizzled various colors of icing on top. OB had a BALL!!!!(pun intended). 

He proudly took his Heinous Balls of Goodness to school.  From all reports, except for one friend Sally (name was changed to protect the innocent), who only had one bite, all enjoyed his birthday treat.  OB's HAPPY birthday – mission accomplished!

Note to self:  Remember, often the fun of life is the PROCESS, not the product.