Cooking with Kids: Peanut Butter Balls

Sweet Pea is 5 years old.  

From: I found this very kid friendly (and almost healthy) recipe in Family Fun Magazine.  I have modified the recipe a bit for clarity and because I thought that original size of the peanut butter balls was too large.

Material: 

• Peanut butter ball recipe. (Right click on link and select “Save Link As…” or “Save Target As…”  to save the worksheet to your computer.  This is a .pdf file and requires Foxit or Adobe Acrobat to view.)
• 
• 3 or 4 Graham crackers (or graham cracker crumbs).
• 1/2 cup Non-fat dry powdered milk.
• 1/2 packed cup Raisins.
• 1/4 cup Honey.
• 1 cup Peanut Butter
• French rolling pin, wooden mallet or something similar.
• Large plastic zip-lock bag.
• Large mixing bowl.
• Medium bowl to hold cracker crumbs.
• Wooden spoon.
• Spatula.
• Jelly roll pan.
• Plastic wrap.

Procedure:

• Put 3 or 4 graham crackers in the zip-lock bag and show your tot how to gently hit them with the rolling pin to create cracker crumbs.

•  Pour the cracker crumbs into the medium bowl and set aside.
• Add the powdered milk, peanut butter, honey and raisins to the large mixing bowl and let your tot mix everything together.

• You may have to help your tot stir a bit to ensure that all the ingredients are uniformly incorporated.  

• Use the spatula to divide the dough into 4 parts.

• Working with 1 part at a time and covering the remaining dough, divide that part into 12 equal pieces.  Place the pieces on a plate.
• Allow your tot to help roll each piece into a ball shape.

• Place the ball shape in the bowl of cracker crumbs and roll gently until all sides are coated.

• Place the graham cracker covered peanut butter ball on a jelly roll pan.  Repeat with the remaining 11 pieces, and then repeat with the other 3 sections of dough until you have 48 peanut butter balls.   (The jelly roll pan shown below contains a double recipe.)

•  Cover the balls with plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to serve.

Observations: Sweet Pea loves cooking so I knew she would like these.  As an added bonus she got to pound the heck out of some helpless crackers and rolling them is almost like playing with Play-doh.  This was a super fun recipe to make with her. 

We made them as birthday treats to bring to her preschool class and she told me that almost everyone liked them.  I consider this a successful report about any food that doesn’t involve frosting.

I would highly recommend them for anyone who enjoys cooking and isn’t afraid of bringing their kids into the kitchen with them.

Notes from the Trenches:   My first warning is that these are terrible to keep in the fridge if you are trying to count calories.   They are not exactly unhealthy, but they are calorie dense (about 50 calories each, according to my own, very possibly incorrect, calculations) and I found myself eating 1 or 2 every time I wandered by the fridge.

I really wanted to make these with our usual natural-style peanut butter, but was afraid that they wouldn’t be firm enough.  If anyone makes them with natural peanut butter, please let me know how they turn out!

Rating: 3 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Frugal)