Making no bake cookies with kids is fun.

Dot and I enjoy baking, but nothing gets requested as often as these yummy, yummy no-bake cookies.  Despite the fact that there’s a fair amount of sugar and butter, I try to tell myself that it’s offset by the oats and peanut butter, for a cookie that’s not entirely horrible for us.

To make no bake cookies, you will need:

2 cups sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch salt
1/2 cup peanut butter
3 cups minute oats

Ingredients for no bake cookie recipe

• Start by putting the milk, butter, sugar, and cocoa into a saucepan.
• Heat the mixture to boiling and let it boil for 1 1/2 minutes.
• Remove from heat.
• Stir in peanut butter, oats, and vanilla.  (I put the peanut butter in first so it can melt before I add the oats.)

Boiling the no bake cookie mixture for 1 1/2 minutes is supposed to be the key to getting these to turn out just right.

The mixture will be very hot, so I usually have Dot watch me as I scoop spoonfuls out onto wax paper.  She then “helps” by flattening them down with a spatula.

This recipe makes about 36 no bake cookies.

What I Learned the Hard Way: Every once in a while, I get a batch of these that won’t quite firm up.  I have yet to figure out why, exactly.  What I have learned, however, is that you can put them in the freezer to harden them up, and they’re still totally delicious.  (Seriously, even if they’re just piles of goo on the wax paper, they’re totally delicious.)

Homemade Play Dough

This play dough recipe has been one of our best craft projects yet.  Dot has been known to play with it for literally HOURS during the day.  The hardest part is convincing her not to mix all of the colors together, but we do what we can, right?  The recipe itself is pretty easy, although I had a bit of a scare, as I figured I didn’t have cream of tartar around the house.  It turns out my husband had purchased some for something he made back at Thanksgiving, so we were able to add it in.  Apparently, it gives the play dough better elasticity.  (By the way, don’t let the number of pictures in this post make you think this is a complicated project.  It was actually really, really easy.  I just took a lot of pictures.)

Related Pages: Coloring Pages for Kids, Peanut Butter and Jelly Recipes, Circus Crafts

Homemade Play Dough Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup (warm) water
• 1/4 cup salt
• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• food coloring

Homemade play dough ingredients

Measure dry play dough ingredients into a saucepan

Play dough ingredients start out a little soupy

As you cook over medium heat, the play dough firms up, it only takes a few minutes

When the play dough is firm, take it out of the pan and knead it.  It’s probably not too hot, but check it just in case to make sure you or your kids don’t get burned.

Coloring your homemade play dough

I then cut the dough into six roughly equal pieces, one of each color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)

Five drops of food coloring per play dough ball

I placed each ball into a plastic bag and then kneaded it to get the color to spread evenly.  To get the colors, try this.

• Red = 5 drops of red
• Orange = 3 drops of yellow, two drops of red
• Yellow = 5 drops of yellow
• Green = 5 drops of green (or three drops of yellow and two drops of blue)
• Blue = 5 drops of blue
• Purple = 3 drops of blue, two drops of red

You can also make your play dough smell good by adding things like peppermint extract, cinnamon, vanilla extract, etc.  I added banana extract to the yellow, but apparently I needed more, as we couldn’t smell it when all was said and done.

Make scented play dough

A play dough rainbow!

Keep your play dough in an airtight container, and it will last quite a while.  We’ve had ours for about two weeks, and it’s still in pretty good condition!

What I Learned the Hard Way: Mixing the color into the play dough is harder than it looks.  The majority of the time we spent making the dough revolved around mixing in the color.  You can make all of your dough a single color by adding the food coloring to the mixture before you heat it, but I wanted to have lots of colors and think it was worth the extra work.

While these are great summer drink recipes for kids, I’m going to be pulling this page out again later for Christmas parties and for New Years Eve drinks for the kids, too!

Related Pages: Easy Summer Kids Recipes, Peanut Butter and Jelly Recipes, Summer Birthday Party Games

Check out all of our kid-friendly recipes while you are here!

But man (and child) cannot live on berries alone – though my kids would if they could! So here’s a roundup of really easy summer recipes both you and your kids will love. These would be perfect for summer BBQs, summer party food, or just take a rainy afternoon and make them with your kids!

Related Pages: Watermelon Recipes, Summer Party Games, Ice Cream Party Games

Summer Fruit Recipes

Easy Kids Lunch Ideas

Smoothie Recipes

Summer Dessert Recipes

Check out all of our summer kids crafts while you are here, too!

Fun Bunny Cupcake Idea

Related Pages: Easter Mad Libs, Printable Easter Crafts, Easter Kids Poems, Easter Coloring Pages

What you Need to Make Bunny Cupcakes

Pre-made cupcakes frosted with white frosting

Bunny gummy candies

Large white marshmallows

Small pastel colored marshmallows

Chocolate syrup, mini chocolate chips, or other tiny round candies /sprinkles for the bunny eyes

How to Make Bunny Cupcakes

Honestly, decorating with gummy bunnies is pretty self-explanatory. I put four onto the cupcake and then added an extra dot of white frosting in the middle.

Make Bunny Cupcakes

For the bunny face cupcake, I cut large white marshmallows in half, then in half again so that it was cut in quarters. (You can cut marshmallows with a butter knife or plastic knife, don’t let the big steak knife fool you!)

Place two of the marshmallow quarters onto the cupcake, sticky side down. Place a small pink marshmallow onto the bottom of the bunny face for the nose. I then took a toothpick and dabbed a tiny bit of chocolate syrup on the end, and placed the dots for the bunny eyes. This was my improvisation because I didn’t have any sprinkles or chocolate mini morsels laying around (what kind of cook am I that doesn’t have mini morsels in her kitchen?!).

(Check out more Easter cupcakes at Hoosier Homemade!)

But today was not one of those days. *grin*

Today I was in a rush and I was trying to figure out a way to make easy bunny cupcakes. I did, and they are quite cute… but then I looked at the almost-full bag of colored marshmallows and the last few undecorated cupcakes and I was inspired.

So viola – the easiest flower cupcakes on the planet:

Easter Dessert Flower Cupcakes

How to Make the Easiest Flower Cupcakes Ever

Quite honestly, these are so easy they are almost self-explanatory.

Bake cupcakes from a mix.

Frost them with store bought frosting.

Pop colored marshmallows on top.

Done.

For the flower leaves and the pointed yellow petals, all I did was cut the cupcakes in half diagonally like this:

Cut marshmallows

Even a little kid could cut the marshmallows, because you could use a plastic knife to do it.

By the way – my kids devoured them so fast I didn’t get to try one. So if you make these Easter cupcakes, please let me know how they are!