This recipe for no-bake Christmas wreath cookies has just six ingredients and can be made in 15 minutes. These cornflake wreaths are a festive addition to your holiday dessert table!
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Don’t these cheerful Christmas wreath cookies just put you in the holiday spirit?! Best of all, they’re super easy to make, you don’t even have to turn on the oven! The kids go CRAZY for these cookies, in fact, the first time I saw them was at a holiday tea at my girls’ preschool. They were enamored and we’ve been making them ever since.
You only need a handful of ingredients for these Christmas wreath cookies – butter, marshmallows, cornflakes, green food color, vanilla and red candies. It’s like making rice krispy treats, but with cornflakes. You can either use red hot candies or red chocolate covered candies. I used mini red M&M’s here; I bought the Christmas variety that comes in red and green and had the kids sort out all the red ones. We used the leftover green M&M’s to decorate our gingerbread houses. Or you can just snack on them of course.
While these cookies aren’t difficult to make, the “dough” is extremely sticky which can be a little tricky to shape into wreaths. After some trial and error, I found the best way to do this was to pack the cornflake mixture into a greased measuring cup, turn it out onto the cookie sheet, and then wet your fingers or coat them with cooking spray to form the hole in the middle of the wreath. You’ll want to add the red candies right away so that they adhere while the mixture is still tacky. I let my kids add the red candies while I shaped the cookies, in fact, my 5 year old did a better job than I did with the candy placement!
These Christmas wreath cookies add a fun pop of color to any holiday cookie tray. They’re fun to make and even more fun to eat!
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Christmas Wreath Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 stick of butter (1/2 cup)
- 30 large marshmallows
- 6 teaspoons drops of green gel food coloring or 1 and 1/4 liquid green food coloring
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 5 cups cornflakes
- 1 bottle of red hot candies or 1/2 cup red candy coated chocolates such as mini M&M's
- cooking spray
Instructions
- Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Place the marshmallows and butter in a large bowl. Microwave in 30 second increments until melted.
- Add the green food coloring and vanilla; stir until the marshmallow mixture is smooth.
- Add the cornflakes to the bowl and gently stir to coat the cereal evenly with the marshmallow mixture.
- Pack the mixture into a greased 1/4 cup measuring cup and turn out onto the sheet pan. Use your fingers to make a hole in the middle to form a wreath shape and decorate with red candies. It's easiest to form the wreath holes if your fingers are damp or coated in cooking spray.
- Cool completely until firm and serve.
Things You’ll Need (or Want!)
I haven’t seen these in years! A blast from the past for me – thanks – they are so pretty!
I make these every year but use almond extract instead of vanilla. To shape the wreaths, I put sandwich bags on my hands and spray a little Pam on them. Much easier to deal with the dough, and my hands don’t turn green!
LOVE the sandwich bag idea!
Thanks for the tip! 🙂
Love those cookies. They look like so much fun to make!
My mom used to make a big wreath, instead of the smaller ones. She would make them for Christmas parties. During the party, the kids would pull off pieces and eat them! Occasionally she was able to cut it into pieces before the kids got to it. I have great memories of the fun we had taking the wreath apart…
❤️
My mom made the big wreath when I was growing up too! 😉
Don’t know what happened. Mine turned out like, well let’s just say it didn’t happen for me at all. I think I needed more marshmellows, 30 just wasn’t enough. I bought a 16 ozbag, think I should have used them all
I have made these many times and everyone LOVES them… one thing to remember is you need to work pretty quick.