Happy Holidays Camp families! A fun fact, Mac and I, Emily, were raised in the same small town of Tipp City, Ohio! Go Buckeyes! We love when our campers and staff hail from the Buckeye State and join us on the mountain! At CH, amongst the sea of passionate Gator, LSU and Bama fans roaming camp, I would make candy Buckeyes in the camper kitchen and hang my OSU flag by my bunk. But we could all agree, whoever you were cheering for, we love a simple, sweet bite sized treat!

My pride for the Buckeyes began as a little girl making buckeye candies with my family and grew deep roots when I attended Ohio State for my undergraduate degree. Now, one of my favorite treats to make for the holidays is buckeye candies. They are simple and bite sized! You and your family can enjoy some fun, and may I say delicious, family time together making buckeye candies this holiday season.

Buckeye Candy

Makes approximately 5 dozen sweet, peanut-butter buckeyes!

What you will need:

• 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
• 1 cup of unsalted butter (2 sticks softened)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 6 cups of confectious sugar
• At least 4 cups of semisweet chocolate chips (I prefer dark chocolate!)
• Tooth Picks
• 1 - 2 baking sheets that will fit in your freezer (Also clear a shelf in your freezer for the pan to fit)
• I medium pot and 1 small pot or double boiler
• Optional: parchment paper

AND WASH YOUR HANDS!

Start by using some muscle and mixing your peanut butter and butter in a large mixing bowl! Then, add your vanilla. After the vanilla is well blended, add 1 cup of confectious sugar at time! Once all 6 cups of the confectious sugar have been added, it’s time to get your hands messy! (But first, wash them!)

Mold the mixture into small (larger than a marble, smaller than a ping-pong ball) sized balls. Place the balls onto a baking sheet. They can be placed fairly close together. Once you have rolled all of your mixture into balls, place a toothpick into the top of each one! Only push the toothpick about half way down into the ball, not all the way through. Place the baking sheet in the freezer for one hour.

Things to do while you wait:

1. Research what on earth is a Buckeye?
2. Dance to Footloose approximately 15 times
3. Write a letter to a camp friend

Just before removing the frozen peanut butter balls, slightly simmer water and place the bowl/pot of chocolate chips on top to melt them (start with just 1 - 2 cups of chocolate chips and add more as you run low on chocolate). You do not want to burn the chocolate so be patient and let the chocolate slowly melt. If you notice your chocolate is very thick and hard to dip the peanut butter into, I suggest adding ½ teaspoon of butter to the chocolate to thin it a bit!

When the chocolate is ready, remove the peanut butter balls from the freezer. Dip each one into the chocolate leaving a small circle on the top to make them look like buckeyes! You may need to use an extra baking sheet during this step because you have to place the buckeyes further apart from one another. Once you have filled a baking sheet with buckeyes you can remove the tooth picks and place the balls back into the freezer to harden the chocolate!

Once you have dipped all of the buckeyes and the chocolate is hardened in the freezer you have one final step before gobbling them up! Using your finger lightly swirl the peanut butter over the hole from the tooth pick!