Cinnamon Sugar Bunco Snack Mix

It was my turn to host our monthly Bunco night and I wanted to add a little extra dice-related fun. So I Pinterested the heck out of Bunco recipes. (Actually, I compiled my favorites into a list that you can find here.) I found this fun snack mix idea from the Make the Best of Everything blog but she wasn't too clear on how to make them. So I did a bit more searching and found three different recipes to make this yummy Cinnamon Sugar Bunco Snack Mix! Here's how.

 First, lets start with the dice-shaped shortbread cookies. Here's the recipe for shortbread I used from Simple Bites.

Shortbread Cookies

• 3/4 pound (1 1/2 cups or 3 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix together the butter and sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour and salt, then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together.
3. Dump onto a surface dusted with flour and bring everything together with your hands. Dump into a cake pan and pat down to make a sheet of dough roughly 1/4 inches deep. 
4. Chill for 30 minutes and then cut into squares (mine were roughly 1x1 inches). 
5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place squares on a cookie sheet (I used parchment paper) and bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown. Let cool.

The above recipe suggested a lemon glaze, but I didn't think that would go well with cinnamon sugar. I found a better glaze from Gonna Want Seconds. The recipe is below.

Cinnamon Sugar Glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 tablespoons whole milk
• Mini chocolate chip cookies

1. Combine all ingredients, except chocolate chips, in a small bowl and mix until smooth. 
2. Use a small spoon (I used a baby spoon) or knife to spread a small amount onto each cookie.
3. Before the glaze dries, add mini chocolate chip cookies in the designs of dice faces. 

Now it's time to make the rest of the snack mix. I adopted my recipe from Chocolate, Chocolate and More. 

Cinnamon Sugar Snack Mix

• 1 1/2 cup pretzels
• 1 cup salted peanuts
• Half a bag of popped popcorn; unpopped kernels removed
• 4 tablespoons of melted butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon course sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line baking sheet with parchment paper. 
2. Mix pretzels, peanuts, and popcorn. Set aside.
3. Mix melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. 
4. Use either a large bowl or a ziploc and dump all ingredients into it to shake until everything is uniformly covered. 
5. Bake 7-8 minutes and let cool. Add your dice-shaped shortbread cookies and store in an air-tight container. 

Easy Banana Bread

There’s nothing I hate more than throwing away produce. Yet almost weekly I find myself digging through my fruit bowl to find and pitch whichever apple, peach, or lime has decided to rot. This week it was our bananas. They had gotten to the point where they were entirely brown. Yum. Thank goodness this is the perfect banana-state for banana bread. So I decided that this would be a great activity for Rose and me to complete today.

Recipe

3 Mashed Bananas

1 cup Sugar

1 Egg

¼ Melted Butter

½ cup Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a bowl, combine bananas, sugar, egg and butter. In a second bowl combine flour and baking soda. Slowly stir the banana mixture in until it is just mixed. Stir salt into batter. Finally, pour batter into your pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean (around 1 hour).

Rose’s Experience

First off, we only had two bananas so we had to reduce the recipe by a third (I did my best with the egg). We began by throwing the bananas into the bowl and I helped Rose mash them. She enjoyed this, but she also enjoyed reaching in and grabbing a chunk of banana to eat every now and then also.

Then it was time to mix in the sugar. Oh boy! Rose was in heaven. She thought sugary bananas might quite possibly be the best invention ever. I could see I had a problem on my hands as the egg was next to be added. So I got her bowl of rice out (I have dedicated a bag of rice just for Rose to play in every now and again) and she played around in that while I finished the recipe.

Since my batch was smaller than what the recipe called for my bread only had to bake for around 40 minutes. I cut it up and buttered a piece for myself and another for Rose. We both enjoyed our yummy snack and I added this simple recipe to my recipe book for future use.