You’ve barely washed the face paint off your little trick-or-treaters, and now you have to think about Thanksgiving. If you’re part of a big, extended family like mine, you’ve probably been plotting the feast for a while. Clear away the last of the spooky cobwebs and check out a few ways you can continue the seasonal fun with your kids and save some money during Thanksgiving.
Sure, everyone thinks about turkey and cranberries for Thanksgiving. Many of the dishes served this time of year are part of long-standing family traditions. I’m sure several of you would include pumpkin, pecan, mincemeat or spiced apple pie among those traditions. But pie and other desserts aren’t easy to make from scratch, and they take a lot of time. A ready-made pie will run anywhere from $5 to $10 for the mass-produced frozen ones. They are consistently good pies, but they are usually small and won’t satisfy a crowd. And, buying a ready-made pie just doesn’t quite feel like honoring family tradition.
There are several creative options that will serve far more guests and can become a special way to get your kids involved in the Thanksgiving dessert preparation. Here are five ideas:
Turkey and Pilgrim Hat Treats:
All of the leftover Halloween candy and seasonal packaged treats now marked down. Take advantage of the discounts, and go snap up the mini-Reese’s cups, candy corn, Whoppers and Halloween-packaged Oreos. Have your little ones turn the Reese’s upside down and put them on top of an Oreo. Flip them up so that the Reese’s become the body and the Oreo is the base of the tail. Then, use the Whoppers for heads and the candy corn for tail feathers, and you can create armies of adorable turkeys that young and old will include on their dessert plates. The same mini-Reese’s can be used as the crowns of pilgrim hats on top of simple chocolate cookies.
Autumn-Themed Cookies:
Whether you make the dough from scratch or buy it, sugar cookies are amazingly fun for kids and super thrifty for parents. Fall leaves, turkeys, Indians, pilgrims and pumpkins are all easy to form and a blast to decorate. Look closely at your cookie cutter collection. Daisies could easily become turkeys. Gingerbread men can be dressed as Indians and Pilgrims. Turn simple circles into cute faces or top them with orange icing to become pumpkins. If you make your own cookie dough, you can reach for the spices and flavor it with cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and all the other things that remind us of pumpkin spice.
Cake Pops:
Little cake pops can make cake batter go a long way and help over- indulgent grownups keep gluttony in check. Just as you did with the cookies, help your kids re-imagine the pops as miniature pumpkins or turkeys. And all kinds of seasonal cake mixes on the market can help give the cake pops a special holiday flare. One example of turkey cake pops on Pinterest used caramel candy corn for the tail feathers, little bits of pretzel sticks for feet, and espresso beans for the faces.
Thanksgiving Rice Krispies Treats:
Since pumpkin spice marshmallows made an appearance on the shelves for Halloween, take advantage of the seasonal flavors and create little orange dessert pumpkins. The treats are a childhood favorite that kids of all ages can help to make. The rice puff mixture can either be rolled into balls to make 3-D pumpkins or rolled out and cut with pumpkin-shaped cookie cutters.
Something Special:
Basic Thanksgiving ingredients like eggs, cream and pumpkin pie filling can be purchased in bulk and used in side dishes as well as desserts. Don’t waste a drop! Consider creating a little pumpkin ice cream from the odds and ends of baking to go along with the pies. Your wallet will be satisfied and your guests definitely won’t be complaining.
Any combination of these ideas will cost about the same as the mass-produced pies, feed far more people and become the start of a new tradition with sweet childhood memories that far outlast the food. Here’s to hoping you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving.
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How to Save Money on Thanksgiving Desserts originally appeared on usnews.com
