Cornflake Christmas wreaths will add some festive flair to your holiday cookie exchange

Classic Christmas treats don’t always have to be cookies. One of the perennial holiday favorites you might find at a cookie exchange that more closely resembles a cross between a Rice Krispies bar and your breakfast cereal is the cornflake Christmas wreath.

Spicy Southern Kitchen blogger Christin has her own version that’s sweet and simple with only five ingredients.

Melt butter in a pan and then add marshmallows until also melted. Drop in green food coloring and mix. Then stir in your cornflakes cereal (you could also use Rice Krispies). With well-greased hands, form the green cereal into wreath shapes.

Christin used mini red M&Ms for the “berries” on these wreaths. But cinnamon mini candies or Red Hots are also often used. Whether you scatter the red candies around the wreath or cluster them together in one spot is up to you.

Christin recommends using a round cookie or biscuit cutter to help shape the wreaths as well as liberal use of cooking spray since they can be a little tricky to shape.

Swanky Recipes makes her wreaths by rolling the sticky cornflake mixture into logs and then forming the logs into a circle. The resulting wreaths are tightly shaped and round.

Pettijo at Paging Supermom makes her wreaths in muffin tins and uses a spoon to form the center of each wreath. Then she freezes them before popping them out of the muffin tins. She also recommends keeping these frozen until ready to eat and then giving them 20-30 minutes to soften just prior.

The Handmade Charlotte blog uses corn puff cereal instead of corn flakes and shows how that cereal looks shaped into wreaths and dyed various colors. O’s cereal, like Cheerios or Froot Loops, is another substitute you could use.

If you’d rather make cupcakes than cookies, we shared a recipe that uses green M&Ms to form a yummy wreath on top of that favorite dessert.