Heart Shaped Rice Crispy Treats for Valentines Day

Okay so this is not a typical blog post for me.  I know that marshmallows are not vegetarian.  They are made with gelatin which has bone fragments and gross things.  And I know there are vegan marshmallows, but that is not what I used this time.  Moving on...

I made these for my daughters Valentine's Day party at school after seeing it on Pinterest.  It was super cute so I wanted to share.  I didn't read the recipe, so I probably didn't do this the best way, but I'm going to share how I made these cute and rather tasty treats.

Ingredients/Tools:

6 cups Rice crisp cereal (any cereal can work, I've made them with organic o's as well)

3 tbl vegan butter

10 oz large marshmallows

1 drop red food color

1 tsp vanilla

Heart shaped cookie cutter

Parchment paper

Popsicle sticks

Vanilla candy coating

Heart shaped sprinkles

Method:

First put marshmallows and butter in a large microwave safe bowl. Heat for up to 3 minutes and stir after each minute.  Next, add food coloring and vanilla and stir.  Add cereal and mix well.  

Then I pressed the treats out into a squarish shape on some parchment.  To do this without it sticking to you, place another sheet of parchment on top and press down.  It helps to make it more even as well.  Then, I just used my cookie cutters to make as many heart shapes as I could.  Once,  I made the shape I pushed it out of the cookie cutter with a popsicle stick again to prevent sticking.  Then, gently put a popsicle stick in the center of the heart.  I had to slightly remold the hearts after doing this, which I again did with two sticks and that worked great!

I kept reshaping the treats to get as many hearts as I could and once I was done, I let them sit and harden for the next step.

This was the fun part for me and my daughter.  First in a microwave safe bowl melt some of the candy coating.  I had a 16 oz bag and I only used about a third of that.  I don't know exactly and it doesn't really matter.  So, melt some of that and lay out a layer of sprinkles on a plate.  Then, like an assembly, spread a layer of candy coating and then either dip or lay in sprinkles.  Add more sprinkles to the plate as needed.  

The candy made these so yum, and my daughter was very excited to have such a cute treat to share with her friends!  I know this seems like a lot, but it's really simple and doesn't take that long.