#30) Chocolate Christmas Bells

This past summer I posted about peanut butter balls, an all-time favourite in our house. For Christmas there is always a batch of peanut butter balls in the fridge, but this time I wanted to improve this sweet treat for the holidays. The original recipe we have used for years calls for parowax and this imparts an unusual quality onto the chocolate - it becomes waxy (duh! haha) and sticks to your teeth. Regardless of this we have eaten batch after batch of these things and still love. But like I said, for the holidays I wanted them to be perfect. I have tweaked the recipe just slightly and now this favourite sweet treat is even more irresistible :)

Ingredients

2 cups peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 - 2 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 cup rice crispies

2 cups chocolate
2 tbsp shortening

Steps

- Put peanut butter, butter, and salt in a microwave-safe bowl. Put in microwave for 30 seconds and mix together.
- Add vanilla and rice crispies. Add icing sugar until the mixture reaches a dough-like consistency. - Roll into balls.(It would be helpful to refrigerate the mixture before rolling into balls). Refrigerate balls for 15 minutes.
- Melt chocolate and shortening in double boiler. Use two spoons to dip balls into chocolate. Place on cookie sheet covered with waxed paper. Refrigerate until stiff.
- Try not to eat them all at once :)