Our oldest son was invited to a birthday party with the theme “Christmas in July”.  I have to give this mom props she always comes up with great themes. I envy her creativity and all I can do is share her super mom party skills in the hopes of helping another mom.

The itinerary that was included with the invitation was crazy.  Crazy fun for a group of 9 year olds and crazy ambitious for a mom. 

One of the activities was a holiday bake off.  Everyone was supposed to bring a holiday treat to share with the group and the birthday girl was going to pick a winner. Cute idea, but to be honest I was not thrilled that I now had to bake. I found this great idea through a buzzfeed post and was able to talk my son into making these cute santa hats. What I liked about this idea is that we could make it in very little time, and it did not require any special tools or a degree from the culinary academy.  Getting my 9 year old to agree to this was a small feat in itself, but I managed to get him on board. We did make some modifications from the original recipe that allowed it to be more kid friendly and easy for a 9 year old to do most of the work. I just supervised and did the stuff that required sharp knives and hot ovens. 

Full disclosure this is a step by step tutorial and was not thought through prior. Pictures were taken on the fly with my iphone. As well as not being a trained chef, I am equally a novice at photography.

What you will need

• Box Brownie Mix
• Wax Paper
• Toothpicks
• Large Marshmallows
• Miniature Marshmallows 
• Strawberries
  

First thing we did, was put about 8-10 large marshmallows in the freezer.  We did this to make them easier to cut later and keep their shape. 

Then we made the brownies.  We used a box brownie mix and cooked it according to the recipe on the box.  The only modification that we did was line the baking pan with wax paper so we could easily remove it from the pan.  My son did most of the work the only thing that I assisted him with was making sure he used the correct measuring cups and oil, he did the rest on his own.

While waiting  for the brownies to cook and cool we washed and cut the strawberries.   This is also something that my 9 year old son was able to do on his own because he could use our butter knives without fear of cutting off a finger.  The only drawback was that more strawberries were being eaten than cut. I suggest buying extra for this reason.

While my son was cutting the strawberries I cut the frozen large marshmallows with a sharp knife into ⅓ slices and laid them on wax paper. This part i did because a sharp knife was being used to make a small cut. I put another piece of wax paper over the top and used the rolling pin to flatten them out a little bit more. You can also just use your finger to flatten them out and reshape them.

  Once the brownies were cooled down I pulled them out of the pan on the wax paper and flipped them over on a cutting board. I then peeled back the wax paper.  This will reveal an even sheet of brownies.  

Now it is time to cut out the brownie circles and once again this is a great job for the kids it is easy to do. Depending on the size of your strawberries and marshmallows you will want to make the brownies circles a similar size. I happened to have a cookie cutter that was the right size and just flipped it over to use the circular back. You could also use a shot glass if you dont have the right size cookie cutter.

As you are cutting out the brownies it is easier if you start plating them on the platter that you are going to serve them on.  

Once all of them have been plated you can add the marshmallow layer.  

Then use a toothpick and add a miniature marshmallow and then your strawberry and stick it on top of your marshmallow brownie base.  This is also a very easy operation that even a small child can help with.  

We did get 2nd place in the contest and my son was very proud of his accomplishment since he had done most of the work on his own.

I have to give credit for this project to Erica’s Sweet Tooth she had a far superior version, but was not sure if it would survive the 100 degree temps of Southern California in July and was not as easy for the kids to make.