Need quick and cheap recipes for school bazaar

[MazdaUK]

Help! I promised to cook stuff for the school Christmas bazaar next Saturday and I realised its only just over a week and I've got hardly any time! I'm looking for Christmassy things that I can pack into little bags - I'm already making mince pies but any ideas for stuff to appeal to kids?

If they're easy enough for my kids to help with so much the better!

 

[piratesmate]

Since you'd like your children to help, how about some no-bake cookies? I don't know what kind of dry cereals you can get there...can you get crisped rice or any kind of Chex cereals? You could do Rice Krispy treats or candy sushi (WDW) or Chex Mix. How about chocolate peanut butter balls? That's always been a traditional Thanksgiving weekend family project for friends of ours. (The kids do the dipping.)

No Bake Cookies

1¾ cups sugar
½ cup milk
½ cup butter
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
3 cups quick cooking oats
1 tsp vanilla

Boil together sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa for 1½ minutes. (Start timing when mixture reaches full rolling boil. If you boil too long, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. If you don’t boil long enough, cookies won’t form properly.)

Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients. Stir until well blended. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool until hardened

Chinese Noodle Cookies

1 package Peanut Butter Chips
1 package Butterscotch Chips
1 Can or bag of Chinese Noodles

Melt the chips, stir in the noodles & drop by spoonfuls on waxed paper. Let cool to harden.

Peanut Butter Balls

3 lb confectioner’s sugar
1 lb butter/margarine, melted
2 lb peanut butter, creamy
2 pkg chocolate chips (large pkg)
¼ bar paraffin, grated

Mix together sugar, butter & peanut butter; work with hands. Roll into balls. Melt chips in double boiler adding paraffin. Dip balls in chocolate. Freeze until firm. [NOTE: Paraffin makes the chocolate runny enough to coat the balls easily. Not required, but makes a much nicer end product.]

 

[kat3668]

This is fun and looks so pretty
Pretzel Wreaths

Ingredients:

8 oz. vanilla chips, melted
Miniature pretzel twists
6 pieces (24 inch long) Red ribbon or licorice strings

Line two cookie sheets with waxed paper. Using six pretzels form a circle on a prepared cookie sheet, placing the side of the pretzel with the single hole on the outside of the ring. Remove one pretzel from the circle and dip the inner section into the melted vanilla chips. Replace the pretzel and continue with the remaining pretzels. To form the top layer, dip six pretzels into the melted chips and place over the first circle so the coated holes overlap the two pretzels. Refrigerate until set and weave with ribbon or red licorice string. Makes six wreaths.

I also enjoy making candy cane bark with my kids, I use Wilton white melting chocolate from the craft stores ( you know the type that you make homemade lollipops with)Then I put mini candy canes in ziploc baggies and give my kids toy hammers to let them smash the heck out of them.
After the chocolate is melted have them sprinkle the broken candy cane pieces on top... so yummy!
You can also make variations of this with marshmallows stirred into the chocolate or rice krispies, M&Ms , nuts or whatever you can think of.
I alos have covered oreos, and sugar wafers in this chocolate it comes in lots of holiday colors, red and green etc.

 

[MazdaUK]

Keep them coming!

I'm not sure I can get all these ingredients in the UK, especially paraffin. Are quick cook oats ordinary porridge oats or different? Would oatmeal work instead?

 

[The Disney Bunch]

Since you'd like your children to help, how about some no-bake cookies? I don't know what kind of dry cereals you can get there...can you get crisped rice or any kind of Chex cereals? You could do Rice Krispy treats or candy sushi (WDW) or Chex Mix. How about chocolate peanut butter balls? That's always been a traditional Thanksgiving weekend family project for friends of ours. (The kids do the dipping.)

No Bake Cookies

1¾ cups sugar
½ cup milk
½ cup butter
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
½ cup peanut butter (creamy or crunchy)
3 cups quick cooking oats
1 tsp vanilla

Boil together sugar, milk, butter, and cocoa for 1½ minutes. (Start timing when mixture reaches full rolling boil. If you boil too long, the cookies will be dry and crumbly. If you don’t boil long enough, cookies won’t form properly.)

Remove from heat and add remaining ingredients. Stir until well blended. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto wax paper. Let cool until hardened

Chinese Noodle Cookies

1 package Peanut Butter Chips
1 package Butterscotch Chips
1 Can or bag of Chinese Noodles

Melt the chips, stir in the noodles & drop by spoonfuls on waxed paper. Let cool to harden.

Peanut Butter Balls

3 lb confectioner’s sugar
1 lb butter/margarine, melted
2 lb peanut butter, creamy
2 pkg chocolate chips (large pkg)
¼ bar paraffin, grated

Mix together sugar, butter & peanut butter; work with hands. Roll into balls. Melt chips in double boiler adding paraffin. Dip balls in chocolate. Freeze until firm. [NOTE: Paraffin makes the chocolate runny enough to coat the balls easily. Not required, but makes a much nicer end product.]

Hate to say it but if this is for a school, yuo might want to reconsider anything with peanuts! Our school has a no peanut policy because we have 9 students with aurborne peanut allergies. Otherwise it sounds yummy!

 

[piratesmate]

Keep them coming!

I'm not sure I can get all these ingredients in the UK, especially paraffin. Are quick cook oats ordinary porridge oats or different? Would oatmeal work instead?

Well, you really don't need the paraffin/wax. It just makes the coating a little smoother. Maybe it's called something else? Here it's used in canning jellies...you seal the top of the jars with it if you don't want to put it through the water bath. I can't even think of anything else it's used for.

I don't know about the porridge oats & I can't remember if we've ever used regular oatmeal for this recipe, although my mother's recipe card doesn't specify which type & there's no point in asking her as her answer to most things is "Honey that was so long ago I can't remember!"

Quick oats are just regular oatmeal that is thinner so it cooks in less time.

"quick oats = quick-cooking oats = quick oatmeal = quick-cooking oatmeal = easy oats Notes: These are thin flakes of oatmeal that cook up in about three or four minutes. They're a good choice for oatmeal cookies. Substitutes: rolled oats (More nutritious and chewy, takes longer to cook."

As for the peanut allergies...that's something I don't often think about. At DD's school they have a peanut free table at lunch, but that's it. Only when a child has an allergy is a class then limited as to what snacks they can bring - it never affects the rest of the school. I'm guessing that there are very few allergies in this district & none are life-threatening.

 

[MazdaUK]

Kids aren't allowed to bring things with nuts in for lunch, but there are no limits set for the bake stall as they want all the goods they can get (even bought stuff) and it would be very hard even if you didn't use nuts to ensure there are no nut traces (the only way to guarantee it in a factory is to have a dedicated nut-free line in a separate sealed area) so we expect accompanying adults to keep an eye on any sensitive kids.

Its just occured to me looking at another thread that I could get my Pampered Chef cookie press out.

 

[kehouse]

chocolate covered pretzels are easy, cheap and something the kids can help with. i like to use the big pretzel rods and chocolate bark.
or over on the budget board is a thread on quick christmas treats.
http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=973110

 

[marlynnp]

I vote chocolate covered pretzels also.

If you want to make some different, you can add broken toffee bits to the milk chocolate ones, add broken candy canes to white chocolate ones. And if you use pretzel rods they look great dipped in sprinkles (hundreds and thousands)

 

[MazdaUK]

Thanks for all your tips everyone! DH has just taken a big box of stuff to the school ready for tomorrow.

 

[MazdaUK]

Just to let you know the school raised over £4,700 profit!

 

[piratesmate]

Just to let you know the school raised over £4,700 profit!

Wow! That's so great! Congrats!

What did you end up making?

 

[MelanieC]

Hi there,

How about magic cookie bars. These are so delicious and easy to make. You could easily leave out the nuts if you were worried.

Link to Eagle Brand web site

This is THE EAGLE BRAND® best-loved classic - a favorite of kids and adults alike! EAGLE BRAND® is the magic ingredient in this easy cookie bar recipe.

Servings: Makes 2 to 3 dozen bars
Serving Size: not available
Nutrition: not available
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 35 minutes


Ingredients
1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine, melted
1 (14-ounce) can EAGLE BRAND® Sweetened Condensed Milk (NOT evaporated milk)
2 cups (12 ounces) semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut
1 cup chopped nuts
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°F (325°F for glass dish). In small bowl, combine graham cracker crumbs and butter; mix well. Press crumb mixture firmly on bottom of 13X9-inch baking pan.
Pour EAGLE BRAND® evenly over crumb mixture. Layer evenly with remaining ingredients; press down firmly with fork.
Bake 25 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool. Cut into bars or diamonds. Store leftovers covered at room temperature.




Notes: Recipe Variations: Substitute chocolate chips or nuts with: candy coated pieces, dried cranberries, raisins, mini marshmallows or butterscotch chips.

 

[DisneyJo]

Oh my word your school made loads, I thought ours did well at £2300! I know it's too late but we do a couple of things the first being snowman poo! Basically brown and white chocolate crispy cakes mixed in a bag. Also Reindeer food (to be sprinkled outside on Christmas eve for the reindeer!) which is just cheap porridge oats and sugar which I colour with food dye to look pretty. They have some great tags for these on organizedchristmas website.

By the way my husband works in Sidcup, he is head golf pro at world of golf on the A20! So he's out busy making the money whilst I'm at home in the warm dreaming of spending it on yet more Disney trips!