Melting Snowmen Cookie Balls

Have you ever made something that's way to cute to eat?  I think these little melting snowmen certainly fit that description!  This was my mother-in-law's pick for our 2nd annual Christmas baking day last weekend.  These little snowman are really quite simple to put together, they just require a little time and patience, and the outcome is both cute and delicious!  I think this would be the perfect activity for kids to do over Christmas break.  I'm still a kid at heart, and I had so much fun making these!

Melting Snowmen Cookie Balls

Makes 48

You will need:
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
24 Nutter Butter cookies (just less than 1 package), crushed
4 blocks almond bark, melted
1/4 cup peanut butter*
48 mini Oreo cookies
food coloring

1.  In a medium mixing bowl, mix cream cheese and crushed Nutter Butter cookies until well combined. (We used our hands.)

2.  Roll into 48 1-inch balls and place on a cookie sheet.  Freeze for 10 minutes or until they are firm.

3.  Dip cookie balls into melted chocolate (with or without peanut butter, see note below). 

4.  Place dipped balls on a wax paper lined tray.  Allow the excess chocolate to pool below the snowmen. 

5.  Place a mini Oreo on top of the cookie ball while the chocolate is still wet.

6.  When all the balls have been dipped and topped with an Oreo, let them sit until the chocolate has hardened. 

7.  Divide remaining melted chocolate into 3 small bowls and color each bowl either blue, orange, or red with the food coloring. (I used 4 drops of blue, 4 drops of red, and 1 drop of red with 3 drops of yellow for the orange.)

8.  Scoop each color of chocolate into small ziploc bags and snip a tiny piece off the corner to make a piping bag.  Decorate each snowman with eyes, a nose, and a mouth.  (If you have decorating icing, you could use that to create the faces instead of coloring the chocolate.)

*The original recipe from Kraft Food & Family magazine called for 1/4 cup of peanut butter to be added to the melted chocolate.  We did that and ended up with tan snowmen instead of white.  Kraft has since edited the recipe to take out the peanut butter.  You can leave it in or omit it.

Slightly adapted from: Kraft