Spooky Monster Finger Cookies

 

This recipe can be made plain or with other variations.  I choose to take a more natural approach using pistachios, cocoa and dried berries. But you could make them with food colorings and flavors too.  Have fun!

 

 

Spooky Monster Finger Cookies

Makes 30-40

1 C Butter, Softened
1 C Powdered Sugar
1 Egg
1T Vanilla
Pinch of Salt
2 ¾ C Flour
1 t Baking Powder
About ½ C Sliced Almonds
4 Oz Chocolate, White Chocolate, or Almond Bark

Variations:

1 C Non-salted Pistachios, Ground
2 t Macha Green Tea Powder

OR

1 C Freeze Dried Berries (strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, etc.), Ground

2T Cocoa Powder

Beat the butter and sugar together for a few minutes.  Add the egg and vanilla.

Add the salt, flour, baking powder and the variation ingredients, if needed.  Wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.  Mold the dough into life-sized “fingers”.   As I unfortunately learned later, these cookies spread a little while baking, so make the fingers skinner than your own.  Don’t forget the knuckle and use a knife to mark 3 lines at the knuckle.  I also lightly pressed my finger on the tip so that I could later adhere the almond “finger nail”.  Bake on parchment paper for about 25 minutes.

 

 

 

Once cooled, melt the chocolate in the microwave.  Put a little bit on the tip and place the almond on top.  Make sure to pick the best almond slices. 

 

 

Slightly chill them for about 5 minutes to harden the chocolate and serve! 

I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Cone Cakes!

Cone cakes were a childhood favorite of mine.  I recently even found a similar recipe for these in my Betty Crocker Boys and Girls cookbook. They sound a little weird now, but they’re so fun and very easy to make!  My mom used to make them for our summer church potlucks.  I loved gobbling them up with my friends.

                                                     

Here's a few things that I want to mention.  If you use the colored cones or a colored cake mix it gets a little translucent and kind of weird looking.  I like the funfetti mix because the more sprinkles the better. If you want to get creative, do it in the frosting choice.  Any flavor will work.  You can even top it with a cherry if you want.  I hope you have as much fun with these as I do.

Cone Cakes

Makes 14-16 Cones

14-16 Flat Bottomed Ice Cream Cones

1 Box Funfetti or Yellow Cake Mix plus Ingredients on Box to Make the Batter

1 ½ Containers of Frosting (any flavor)
Food Coloring
Sprinkles                                                   

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Carefully line the cones in a large cake pan.  Make the Funfetti cake batter according to the instructions on the box.  Fill the cones with batter about 1/2 inch from the top.  If you fill it all the way you’ll get a mess (Like I did on a few).  VERY CAREFULLY put the pan into the oven.

Bake about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out of the center clean.  Cool. 

Dye the frosting. Frost the top, preferably with a piping bag to resemble an ice cream swirl.  Add some sprinkles, and serve!

Easter Bunny Games

Sick of the ole' scavenger egg hunt? Here are some super easy games to play with kids during the Easter holiday.  These games are also great because you can do different versions of them at different holidays. I like to go a little crazy on the prizes. The dollar store has great items for kids, as well as the $1 bins at Target and many craft stores. It's fun to play these while wearing bunny ears. Hope you have fun!

Easter Bunny Buckets
What You'll Need:
4 Easter basket style buckets or baskets without handles
Toys or candies for each bucket
Plastic Easter eggs
Something to determine where they stand
Gift bag or basket for each kid

Place the buckets in a row. 

Fill them with toys, candies, pencils, etc.  I like to go in order of how cool it is.  So maybe it's a small piece of candy or a pencil in the first bucket.  Then the last bucket has a larger gift on the side for them to pick out like a big piece of candy or a $1 store item.

Give them a place to stand by putting down a piece of tape or something.  I got creative with craft paper and stickers by making a carrot shaped marker.  If you don't give them a marked off place to stand, the kids tend to move closer and closer to the buckets which isn't fair.


Hand out the bags or basket to each kid. Each kid takes a turn.  They need to get an egg into each bucket in order 1,2,3,4.  It's up to you on how you want to give out the prizes.  From my experience, they want them right away. Have them fill up their bag with goodies.  Rotate through each kid until everyone has had a turn.  You'll want to play this at least 2-3 times depending on how many kids that you have.  I like to do this game first in case I have extra prizes from the 4th bucket.  Then you can use them in the following games.




Pin the Tail on the Bunny

This one requires a lot of creativity.  I made my bunny free style, but am giving you step by step picture instructions on the pieces that I used.  I also made mine with magnets so that I can hang it on the refrigerator.  You can use tape, to hang it, but you may want to use blue painters tape so that your walls don't get ruined.

What You'll Need:
Craft paper - 2 brown thick card stock, 1 white thick card stock, 1 pink or printed pink (for ears and nose), multi colored for the tails
1 pack heavy duty magnets,
1 pack of flat magnets,
Bow (optional)
Googly eyes (optional, you could draw them in)
Glue
Scissors
Something to cover their eyes, like a Bandanna or a scarf

Cut out the pieces similar to my pictures. Use round objects from your kitchen to get good looking circles. You may want to weigh the papers down with books as you glue them together.

Bunny Body

Body, head, ears, feet, paws

White tummy, cheeks & teeth

Pink nose

Fold pink paper in half, cut insides of ears

Glue to the back of the head.

Weigh it down with books.

Arrange the face before gluing.

Draw whiskers.

Glue body together.

Add the paws and big bunny feet.

Add the flat magnets, googly eyes, and bow.

Glue the magnets to the tails.

Cover the kids eyes with a scarf.  Spin them 2 times and let them try to put the "tail" where it's supposed to go. Each kid gets a different colored tail. Repeat with the next kid. Whoever is closest is the winner. Award prizes for each game or tally the games for 1 big prize.

Bunny BINGO

What You'll Need:
Lot's of multi colored card stock (depending on how many cards you have)
Easter Stickers (you may need to pick up multiple books of the same style.  For this one, you'll need at least 16 of each type of sticker.  You also need an extra set for reading the piece)
Rubber cement or scrap booking tape
Scissors
Container to hold game pieces
Lots of prizes!

Free style or work on excel to get 4 rows of 4 boxes each.  Keep them on one sheet of paper or adhere them to a colorful card.

Cut out squares for game pieces to cover the cards after the matching sticker is called. 
Also cut out squares and adhere one of each sticker to them.  Put these in a container and use them to call the squares.

Stick the stickers in the boxes of the game cards randomly.

To Play:
Pull out the sticker squares to call a piece.  Each kid then covers that sticker with a piece of paper.  Whoever gets 4 in a row or diagonal wins a prize!

I hope that you have a

Happy Easter!