Freakishly Frightful Frankenstein Treats

We have our annual fright fest coming up! It’s one of the best pre-Halloween parties on the block! All the guests are invited and told to bring the craziest, grossest Halloween themed foods and snacks. Crispy Frankenstein Treats will be perfect to serve to the ghouls and goblins on our guest list! Crispy rice treats are a staple snack in our house, so I know they are going to be a favorite dessert option. They have less than 5 ingredients (woo-hoo!) and making mini monsters was just too much fun to pass up. See how frightfully easy these Frankensteins are to make...

First, gather the ingredients.

Line a 13x9-inch pan with aluminum foil. Butter it generously and then set it aside. This will help the cooled marshmallow mixture to not stick to the pan.

Melt 1/4 cup butter in large 6-quart saucepan over medium-low heat.

Add 1 10-ounce package of marshmallows and stir in. Ok, going to be honest with you, the ghouls in my kitchen attacked the large bag of marshmallows and ate a few too many before we could get them into the saucepan. Tyler, my five-year old, and I substituted some mini marshmallows for the missing regular-size marshmallows. About 10 mini marshmallows equals 1 regular-size marshmallow. I know...nothing like this ever happens at your house, right?!

Continue cooking, stirring occasionally until melted and mixture is smooth. About 5 to 7 minutes should be perfect.

Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in 1 teaspoon green food color. Continue to stir until the green color is evenly mixed - make sure to get the white marshmallow mixture off the side of the pan.

The color should look like this! I KNOW this is a pan that you’ll be excited to clean later on!

Stir in 6 cups crisp rice cereal until the cereal is well coated. This is where the recipe starts to come ALIVE! Frankenstein here we come!

Pour your freakishly frightful mixture into the prepared pan.

The recipe calls for you to press down firmly with buttered hands. My goblins would like nothing better than to butter up their hands and touch everything within reach. So I opted for a non-stick spatula, which had the same effect. Cool treat mixture completely.

Invert bars onto a large cutting board. Then remove the foil.

Cut into 18 (3x2-inch) rectangles. Ours turned out to be a little larger.

Next, the directions call for you to press a craft stick into the short side of each bar. Rather than now, I inserted the craft stick after I decorated the treats.

How do you like Frankenstein’s hair? We used decorator gel to create hair. Ok, a few of the treats had some oozing, bleeding "wounds," but this is a PG show here, so we are showing you the cute ones, not our war victims like the boys really wanted me to show you. But, they’re boys - you can just imagine...

We used trail mix to make the faces. I know you can find cute candies you could use at the store this time of year. Melted baking chocolate really worked well to affix the candy in facial arrangements. (Icing works, too.) It usually takes an hour to have the faces "set."

We did use pretzel sticks to make arms on one of Frankensteins. If the treats have cooled too much it can be difficult for small hands to push them in without breaking the pretzel sticks. I substituted a penne pasta threaded on a toothpick as arms and a raisin as a hand.

With our fright fest party coming up, I also made a few of these guys into centerpieces too!

Our party is always a HUGE deal to the kids (ok, to us "older" kids) on the block. The appetizers and entrees always entertain and some downright make you think twice about trying them! With our frightful Crispy Frankenstein Treats, I know they’re going to get eaten and my kids are going to love telling our friends how they made them.

Do you have a favorite frightful or fun recipe that you do this time of year? If so, please share, I know "the kids" will want to try them out for this freakishly fun time of year!

Come back in a few days when Becky will share a classic Wisconsin soup that is perfect for cool fall nights.

Alex is paid to write for the Land O’Lakes Recipe Buzz® Blog.