Rice Krispie Treat Pumpkins

Hi everyone! It's Monday and that really sucks. So let's look at cute things instead of being productive. Sound good?

 

So I had a Halloween party this weekend, and made these adorable little rice krispie treat pumpkins! I got the recipe from Pinterest (original recipe here) and went to work. Here's the original recipe, which I decided to double:

3 Tbsp. butter
½ tsp. vanilla extract
red and yellow food coloring or orange gel coloring
5-1/2 cups mini marshmallows
6 cups crispy rice cereal
mini tootsie rolls

1. In a large saucepan, melt and slightly brown butter on medium heat. Add vanilla extract and marshmallows. Stir until marshmallows are completely melted. Add food coloring until desired orange color is reached. Add cereal and stir until completely combined. Turn off heat and let sit for a few minutes, until cool enough to handle.
2. When mixture has cooled enough, spray your hands with cooking spray and mold cereal mix into circles. (I made nine medium sized pumpkins). Unwrap a tootsie roll and press into each pumpkin top. Add candy for the eyes and noses (we used a little frosting to adhere). Eat and enjoy!

Sounds easy enough, right? Um yeah, not really. So first of all, when I decided to double the recipe, it wasn't the brightest idea I've ever had. The mixture was huge and so hard to work with. Please consult photo below of enormous orange rice krispie treat mixture taking over my stove:

Yeah. So that happened. The original recipe said that it makes 9 pumpkins. So I figured hey, 18 pumpkins would be better. I guess the person who originally made them made them HUGE, because I kept rolling them into balls and had a TON. I ended up throwing half the mixture out which sucked. It was also tough rolling the mixture into balls to begin with - if you press too hard the cereal breaks. After I rolled them all, pushing the tootsie rolls in the top was also difficult. They wouldn't stay, and again, if you push too hard the cereal starts breaking off!

Needless to say, I don't think i'll be making these again. They looked cute, sure, but I was going for an easy, no bake recipe for a party and it was just a pain in the ass. Hope everyone had a fun Halloween!! =)