Baked Goods for a Beginner
Stop what you’re doing and listen up. I have very important information! Today, my friends, is National Chocolate Covered Anything Day. Yes, it is. Seriously. It’s on the internet so it must be true! Not that we need an excuse to make baked goods, cover them in chocolate and nosh them down, of course.
I’m not one to attempt to create decorative birthday cakes or fancy cupcakes. My attempt at Cake Pops even fell flat and that should have been impossible since I was using a kitchen gadget designed to make cake pops easy for even a novice. My baked goods never end up looking like what they’re supposed to. I recently even created a Pinterest board entitled “Mine Wouldn’t Look Like That” where I put pictures of really cool looking food that I can only dream of creating.
Of course, I love chocolate (and therefore baking with chocolate) but what I prefer to do is stick with easy recipes that are almost impossible to botch. If I want to be creative, I try thinking outside the box using ideas that even in my state of kitchen talent turn out looking okay. As an example, I could use M&Ms in place of chocolate chips in cookies. It would fancy up the traditional cookie a bit but in true style, my cookies usually end up thin and crispy.
But my goal was to create something in honor of this festive day. It had to be chocolate covered. DH and I decided we would make a treat we love, Ritz Peanut Butter Wheels, and modify it a bit. We headed off to Walmart to pick up our supplies. Bags of M&Ms were very affordable and would have been even better if I had remembered to print the M&M coupon!
While the recipe itself wasn’t original, I didn’t see anywhere online where M&Ms were incorporated! After tossing around a few ways to use them, we decided that breaking them up would be best. I used a small rolling pin to test it out and when it worked, hubby decided to pull out the real tools to finish the job. Rubber mallet = no broken pieces shooting through holes in the bag. (I need to add a kitchen-only mallet to my wish list, apparently.)
Next up, spread peanut butter on a Ritz cracker and top with a second cracker to make a sandwich. It’s important to squeeze them together evenly or the end product is all lopsided. Trust me, I know. While we used regular M&Ms for this recipe, I think crushed up Peanut M&Ms would have been awesome in the middle of the sandwich with the peanut butter.
Of course, we don’t do much around here by ourselves. Involving the kids is very important! Miss K loved the idea of getting her fingers dirty dipping the crackers into the melted chocolate!
Immediately after dipping, add a sprinkling of the M&M pieces to the top. We regularly shook the bowl to allow the small M&M dust to fall to the bottom allowing us to take advantage of the colors of the candy-coated outside!
After two dozen chocolate covered ones, we created two dozen vanilla ones. Personally, I thought these were even prettier!
M&M Topped Chocolate Covered Ritz Peanut Butter Wheels (Makes 24)
Ritz Crackers
Peanut Butter
Chocolate Almond Bark
Vanilla Almond Bark
M&Ms
Extremely easy, delicious and perfect for people of any skill level! Wouldn’t you agree that these are better with the addition of the M&Ms? If so, give this one a shot!
These look delicious and perfect to make with the kids! #client
Wow! What a salt and sugar combination. Yummy!
Oh my goodness, how amazing do they look?!?!?!
These look yummy and fun! I don’t think I could quit eating them.
I’ve always wanted to try these! They look like the perfect combo for sweet and salty, which I love.
These are so pretty! And how can you go wrong with Ritz, chocolate, and peanut butter? Pinning this for later!
I had no idea!! I need something covered in chocolate ASAP!
My 8 year old has been wanting to do something like this for a while. I’m pretty sure that I have almost everything we need, so I’m going to let her have a go at these! What a great idea! Thanks so much for sharing it!
So easy and so yummy! What more can you ask for?
Oh yum! These look delicious!
I sure wouldn’t say no to those snacky treats. They look delicious!
YUMM!!! I Just made Chocolate Covered Mickeys. But this looks super easy too, I will have to try these for my next play date snack 🙂
Those look delicious! I would totally sign up to pound out the M&Ms that looks like a great stress relieving activity and yummy
M&M’s are a great topping idea!
How fun! Nice simple recipe that the kids would love helping with. Love it!
oh my goodness that recipe looks irrisistible! so dangerous!
My family would love these! So funny, I just went shopping and happen to have all the ingredients needed except for the vanilla almond bark! About to give these a shot!
What a fun idea and so easy too! My kids would love these.
I absolutely LOVE baking with M&M’s, but the only problem is that I eat half of them before I am done LOL.
I must admit, I love anything covered in that kind of chocolate! Mmmm… fun-filled goodness!
I love the way the white chocolate looks on these – nice contrast! You can’t go wrong with chocolate & peanut butter!
Those look delicious! Anything with M&M’s is alright with me! 😉
Oh my goodness, these look so yummy… what a treat!
oooh these are awesome. I love how you used real peanut butter cracker sandwiches… how cool
Those look awesome…and easy! I think the white ones look so pretty.
Pinned! Will make them tomorrow for my son’s sleepover party! Three hungry boys here we go! 🙂 Love your recipe!
That really is easy enough for most anyone to do. They sound fabulous too!
Those look like my kind of treat! I love sweet and salty snacks, this looks perfect.
Seriously, National Chocolate Covered Anything Day may be my favorite holiday yet!
love this idea, thanks for sharing!!!! pinning!
My kids would love these – I think they’d even like making them! 🙂
These would be perfect for family gatherings and pot lucks…a great idea as we start moving into spring!
This is one of the craziest recipes I have ever seen. My kids would really like the candy crushing part.
I have been on a Ritz craze lately. Those crackers are so good. I might have to try your recipe – it looks so fun to make!
OMG! I Can’t Wait To Try They Look So Good!!
Yum! I’ve always done the ritz, pb and white chocolate but I never thought to do a topping like M&M’s – that’s a great idea!
Those look awesome and definitely a recipe my kids would love!
That is a really great idea. Love these
Those look perfect. I will be making them this week.
OMG look at all the yummy treats, talk about midnite munchies
Oh what a cute idea. I think my son can make these.
Ooooh that looks yummy! Now that’s one treat the kids would indulge on!
Those came out so pretty! I love the combination of sweet and salty. I think I would like the flavor of the chocolate better, but the vanilla does look more festive.
We love peanut butter crackers with chocolate! I think I would use those mini M&M’s on this because they’re a bit softer and easier to chew.
love making recipes like this with my kids. it’s fun AND it’s delicious!
I would have never thought to cover peanut butter and ritz crackers in chocolate but I’m thinking this is probably incredibly delicious. What a fun and easy treat idea!
You’re making me hungry. REALLY hungry!
Darnit all to heck! These look soooo delicious – but I can’t have crackers – but still….it’s nice to fantasize about eating these. 🙂
These would be so much fun for the grandkids, I’ll send this to my daughter!
Its ‘s very easy for me to cook for the children
These baked goods look very tasty. Thanks for sharing!
These look great! Will have to make sometime.