Crispy Rice Cupcakes

The bake sale was a HUGE hit!

This past Friday night, our little group of girls held a bake sale at my little sister's school (to read more about that, go here).

The drama team was putting on a production of the Wizard of Oz. For intermission, our team offered sweet treats in return for donations for the victims of Japan. Our Bible study formed a couple of weeks before the disaster hit Japan, and these girls felt led to help.

Now that this went so well, we're looking forward to doing more!

This week, I'm going to be featuring a bunch of different "bake sale" recipes, many of which I made for our little event Friday night.

This first one turned out to be my absolute favorite.

So much so, that these have made their way onto my little boy's birthday menu (so it's not until August, but it's not too early to start, right??).

Crispy Rice Cupcakes

(Original recipe by Paula Deen)

Ingredients

• 6 Tablespoons butter
2 (10.5-ounce) packages miniature marshmallows
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 (12-ounce) box crispy rice cereal
3 (2-ounce) bottles colored sprinkles, divided
1 (16-ounce) package chocolate-flavored candy coating
4 tablespoons solid vegetable shortening

Directions

Lightly grease 2 (12-cup) muffin pans.
In a large saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Add marshmallows, and stir constantly until melted. Remove from heat; stir in peanut butter and vanilla. Add cereal and 2 bottles sprinkles, stirring until combined. Using greased hands, press into prepared pans, mounding mixture into a cupcake shape. Cool 1 hour. Remove cupcakes from pans.
In a medium bowl, combine candy coating and vegetable shortening. Microwave on High, in 30-second intervals, stirring in between each, until chocolate is melted and smooth (about 2 minutes total time). Dip tops of cupcakes in melted chocolate.
Immediately sprinkle with remaining sprinkles.

Makes 24
(Tip: I made some mini ones too, just in case there were a few parents who didn't want their toddler eating a massive cupcake full of sugar, thus resulting in spending the remaining half of the play chasing around a sugar crazed kid)