33/366: School Treat Tutorial

In celebration of Groundhog Day (which is dear to my husband's heart), Little Man and I decided to make the little groundhogs on the graham cracker again.  This is the link to last year's attempt.  This year was much easier and a lot less work.

Supplies:
Box of graham crackers
Brownie Bites (one for each hog)
One tub chocolate frosting
Slivered almonds (last year I used coconut...either work)
Small batch of white icing (powdered sugar, milk, a touch of Karo syrup)
Chocolate rocks (we have no snow in these parts, so we added rocks)

First step is to open up all of your brownie bits and lay them out on waxed paper or parchment.

These would have been fine as is, but I shaped them a bit to make them taller and not as wide.  By the last one, I realized the easiest way was to form a divot in the bottom and push the sides around you fingers.

Next, heat up your frosting so it is soupy.  I put a fork in the bottom of the bites and dipped them just to the sides, leaving the bottom without frosting.

Here is the trick...to get the bite on the paper without messing up the frosting, place the tines of a second fork through the fork holding the bite, pulling out the first fork.  You are left with the bite balancing on the convex side of the fork, then slide off on to the paper.

Before the frosting hardens, stick on two slivered almonds for the teeth.  I could do 3 brownies before the frosting started hardening.

Let those sit and prepare your white icing.  You could easily use more cake frosting instead, just warm a batch of it for the snow, set some aside for the eyes.

Lay out your graham crackers (break in half) and start assembly.   Be somewhat quick getting your hogs on the snow, that stuff hardens pretty quickly and it won't give you the stick you need.  Add your stones (if using) at this point.  Preferably by a cute little boy.

Next, I took the remaining chocolate frosting and added some blue and red food coloring to it to make it darker, almost black for the nose.  I put it in a baggie and stuck it in the fridge for a bit, since it was still pretty soupy from the dipping.  Snip off the corner of the baggie and add a nose at the top of the teeth (almonds).  Let that dry a touch and add your eyes.  Again, with a baggie and cold frosting, I added little eyes.  I was having trouble with them leaving a tail of frosting, so I worked them from the nose upward and touched the hog with the bag to stop the flow of icing.  When that icing settles, they look pretty good.

Finally, and this is where I get a little crazy...I added poppy seeds for pupils.  I know, crazy, but it really did finish it off nicely.  Wet fingers on a paper towel and pick up a seed with a finger and press into eyes.

Wa-la!

You could do these for Easter and make into rabbits, snowmen, so many ideas.  Super easy and adorable.  Great project for the kids.

Happy Groundhog Day!