Grandma Jean's Christmas Candy

My grandmother has been making this recipe for years and I make it every year. It is a simple, yummy no-bake recipe for delicious white chocolate/peanut butter candy that is very kid-friendly. It does require melting the chocolate, so adult supervision is necessary.

Here's what you need:
1 1/4 lb white chocolate baking pieces (use the disc-shaped ones if you can find them, they seem to melt better than white chocolate chips
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 1/2 cup EACH of the following:
Rice Krisipies
Raisins or dried cranberries (I usually use the cranberries because my older daughter is very anti-raisin)
Salted peanuts (unshelled of course)
Mini marshmallows
Wax paper
Mini muffin papers (optional)

Here's what you do:
Before you start, prepare your pans. It's easier to do this at the beginning than once you have a hot pot of melted chocolate. Basically you're making little clusters of the fruit/nut/marshmallow/krispy mixture. You can dollop spoonfuls onto wax paper-covered cookie sheets, or put spoonfuls of the mixture into mini muffin papers. We're doing the muffin-paper route today because we're bringing our creation to an office party and it makes it easier for people to pick them up without spreading germs. Also at this time, you might want to make space in your refrigerator...the clusters need to cool after they're made and it takes about an hour.

Melt the white chocolate in a big pot over medium heat until it's entirely melted, stirring constantly.

Add the peanut butter and keep stirring until it's all melted together.

Add the peanuts, rice krispies, and dried cranberries/raisins and stir 'em in.

Remove from heat and add the mini marshmallows. It helps to take HALF of the mixture from the pot at this time, put into a bowl and add HALF of the marshmallows (otherwise by the time you're spooning out your last few clusters, the marshmallows will have melted). Then add the other half of the mixture/marshmallows together after you're done spooning out the first batch.

Put the mixture into small bowls for the kids to spoon into clusters. About a tablespoon per cluster. (It's easier to put the stuff into bowls for the kiddos rather than have them reaching repeatedly into the hot pot for obvious reasons).

Once you've spooned out all the mixture, put the trays into the refrigerator and let them cool for about an hour.

Enjoy! They freeze really well...so they're easy to make ahead of time.

Oh - and if you don't know what to do with the leftover ingredients (if there are any)....make Rice Krispie Treats with the marshmallows/Rice Krispies and trail mix with the nuts/raisins :-)