Scroll to the bottom of the post to get ALL the “12 Days” recipes from 2019 – 2024!
Welcome to Day 12 of
The 12 Days of Holiday Treats!
Once again, this year, from December 1st-12th I’ll post a new holiday treat recipe every day – inspiration for your holiday entertaining!
The recipes I’m sharing are small-er batch – each recipe makes 1-dozen or a few more smaller-sized treats that are simple to prepare and that use everyday ingredients and equipment so hopefully you’ll be able to whip up any of these on a whim. Check out the treats from 2019 – 2024 at the bottom of this post too for more inspiration!
It’s the final day of the 12 Days of Holiday Treats!
For today’s treat, ironically what felt like it should have been the simplest treat took me 5 different iterations to get it right! I had visions of a simply coconut “snowball” made with Rice Krispies – I love a good Rice Krispie treat – see: Rice Krispie Wreaths and Browned Butter Rice Krispie Squares – and figured this one would be easy to make from my vision…
Alas it was not to be and I went through cups and cups of Rice Krispies trying to get the texture and taste right. After working on these since October on and off, I finally nailed it last weekend!
The trick was getting the texture right – they are a bit denser (i.e. more marshmallow-y) than a regular Rice Krispie treat but this is what I was after. Figuring out the cocoa was also challenging – too much and it was bitter without adding icing sugar and too little (with too much icing sugar) didn’t produce the colour I wanted…
So, after many iterations and helpful feedback from tasters who tasted all this year’s treats (“that round one? not so much!”), we finally have today’s recipe!
No-bake Coconut Snowballs
Easy No-Bake Coconut Snowballs - Fun to Make, Tasty Treats!
Ingredients
- Approx. 1 cup coconut, for rolling
- 3 cups (90g) puffed rice cereal
- 35g (1/4 cup) icing sugar
- Pinch flaky sea salt
- 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 85g (6 tablespoons) salted butter
- 200g mini marshmallows
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prepare a large baking tray by lining it with parchment paper.
- Pour the coconut into a large shallow dish and place near the baking tray.
- Place a small bowl filled with water near the baking tray (this is for your hands and the scoop when scooping and rolling the treats in coconut so they don’t stick!).
- Mix the cereal, cocoa, salt and icing sugar in a medium bowl and set aside.
- Melt the butter in a large pot (you’ll need to fit 3 cups of puffed rice cereal in this, so make sure it’s big enough) over medium heat.
- Take the pot off the heat and add the marshmallows, stirring with the rubber spatula to coat the marshmallows with the butter.
- Once the marshmallows are more or less coated with the butter, put the pot back on low heat and stir constantly until the marshmallows are melted. This might take 3-4 minutes, depending on your pot and the heat setting.
- Stir in the vanilla, then the cereal mix with the rubber spatula, working quickly to coat the cereal.
- Use a 1 1/2 tablespoon cookie scoop to form a few balls of cereal/ marshmallow mixture. Drop them in the coconut and, using wet hands, roll them around so the coconut sticks. From time to time, dip the cookie scoop in the water as well. Place them on the lined baking tray and continue until you have used all the mixture up.
- Cool to room temperature and store (in layers with parchment paper in between) in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
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I was (finally) really pleased with these and so were my colleagues who got to taste them this week too!
So that’s it for the 12 Days of Holiday Treats! series this year – I can’t believe it’s been 7 years and nearly 100 treats since I started doing this every December. Check out all the previous years’ recipes below!
Happy Holidays to you!
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Check out 2024’s 12 Days of Holiday Treats:
Day 1: Browned Butter Holiday Rice Krispie Squares
Day 2: Orange Shortbread
Day 3: Festive Macaroons
Day 4: Chocolate Wheatie Cookies
Day 5: Raspberry Coconut Squares
Day 6: Lemon Curd Tartlets
Day 7: Granola Cookies
Day 8: Lemon Shortbread Thumbprint Cookies
Day 9: Cranberry Almond Squares
Day 10: Chocolate Caramel Cups
Day 11: Cheese Crackers
Day 12: No-bake Almond Cranberry Slice
Check out 2023’s 12 Days of Holiday Treats:
Day 1: Holiday Speckles
Day 2: Soft Chocolate Mint Sugar Cookies
Day 3: Funfetti Thumbprint Cookies with Ruby Drop Centres
Day 4: Chocolate Orange Creme Cups
Day 5: Chocolate Filled Shortbread Cups
Day 6: Pistachio Fruit Bread Crackers
Day 7: Pistachio Raspberry Thumbprint Cookies
Day 8: Iced Mocha Financier Bars (GF)
Day 9: Lemon Meringue Thumbprint Cookies
Day 10: Chocolate Hazelnut Financiers
Day 11: Cranberry, Almond and Pistachio “truffles”
Day 12: Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies (GF)
Check out 2022’s 12 Days of Holiday Treats:
Day 1: Chocolate Peppermint Creme Cups
Day 2: Chocolate-Dipped Wafer Cookies
Day 3: Gingerbread madeleines
Day 4: Funfetti Cookies
Day 5: Chocolate Sugar Cookies
Day 6: Coffee Financiers
Day 7: No-Bake Strawbery Cheesecake Cups
Day 8: Holiday Joys
Day 9: Holiday Spice Marmalade
Day 10: Soft Molasses Cookies
Day 11: Coconut Roughs
Day 12: Holiday Lights Jam Sandwich Cookies
Check out 2021’s 12 Days of Holiday Treats:
Day 1: Speculoos financiers
Day 2: Chocolate Dipped Orange Sugar Cookies
Day 3: Madeleines à la Clémentine
Day 4: Chocolate Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies
Day 5: Sunbutter and Jam Chocolate Cups
Day 6: Hot Chocolate and Marshmallow Cookies
Day 7: Linzer Cookies
Day 8: Chocolate-Hazelnut Sandwich Cookies
Day 9: Choc-Mint Thumbprint Cookies
Day 10: Pailles (Puff Pastry and Jam Cookies)
Day 11: Strawberry Santa Hats
Day 12: Mulled Wine Jam
Check out 2020’s 12 Days of Holiday Treats:
Day 1: Rice Krispie Wreaths
Day 2: Cranberry Cheesecake Bars
Day 3: Peppermint Bark
Day 4: Orangettes
Day 5: Rocky Road Chocolate Crackle Slice
Day 6: Candy Cane Sugar Cookies
Day 7: Orange Pim’s
Day 8: Mendiants
Day 9: Chewy Chocolate Mint Crackle Cookies
Day 10: Apricot, Coconut and Cranberry “truffles”
Day 11: Chocolate, Cherry and Almond Brownies
Day 12: Peppermint Hot Chocolate
Check out 2019’s 12 Days of Holiday Cookies:
Day 1: Easy Three Ingredient Shortbread
Day 2: Jam Drops
Day 3: Chocolate Caramel Slice
Day 4: Melting Moments
Day 5: White Christmas
Day 6: Langues de Chat
Day 7: Chocolate Coconut Slice
Day 8: Cornflake Biscuits
Day 9: Rocky Road
Day 10: Honey Joys
Day 11: Rum Ball Truffles
Day 12: Giant Florentine Cookie (to share)
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