When you have teenage kids that like to bake, they become a source of inspiration and ideas. Baby Whipped (who is now almost 14-years-old but doesn’t mind this moniker as the youngest of our family) found the idea for these sleepover bear snacks online. Her original recipe used bananas as the little Teddy Graham bear pillows but we didn’t like the way the bananas looked after baking. We decided that a marshmallow pillow would be a much more comfortable place to lay a little head.
Once we started thinking outside the banana, we realized we could tuck many tasty treats under the Pillsbury crescent dough covers. When baking with kids, half the fun is experimenting and letting them use their creativity.
Making these sleepover snacks is a fun group activity to get the party started. For the basic S’mores Sleepover Bears, you only need Teddy Grahams, mini marshmallows, Crescent dough, and chocolate. For creative experimentation, you can also include bowls of different flavored baking chips, nut butters, sprinkles, and different flavors of Teddy Grahams. Let the kids have some fun customizing their Sleepover Bear Snacks.
Does it matter if you use Teddy Grahams or generic bear snacks?
We have purchased both and found that the Teddy Grahams have a bit more definition to their faces. After baking, they looked more like bears in the sleeping bags than the generic ones that we found. Animal crackers or any other snack could be tucked into the sleeping bags.
What if you only have crescent dough with perforation marks?
You can buy Pillsbury cresent dough in a sheet or with perforation marks. If you have the perforations, we found it is quite easy to just pinch them together and press out the marks so you can make it into squares. Try to handle the dough as little as possible. Also, when cutting the dough, I like to use kitchens scissors. It is easy to manipulate and a safer way for kids to cut their own dough into rectangles.
Ideas for variations to the Sleepover Bear Snacks:
Try different types of chocolate. Any kind will do! We cut a variety of bars into squares. If you use Hershey’s chocolate bars, use two rectangles. Ghiradelli squares are just the right size and come in a variety of flavors.
Decorate the “sleeping bag:” We used large sprinkles to press into the crescent roll dough. You could also use a fork to make marks. My daughter suggested a stencil for small sprinkles. Or, buy edible food paints commonly used for cookies and cakes.
Surprises under the covers: Before tucking the bears in, put butterscotch, white chocolate, or other flavored baking chips under the covers. Add a spoon of nut butter, cookie butter, or Nutella.
How many bears in the bed? Why stop at one? Snuggle two or more bears in the bed. It’s a sleepover!
Like all baking projects that you do with kids, experimentation and fun don’t usually result in photo-worthy baked goods. We had some good laughs about the little guy on the bottom left, who we think had some sleepover anxiety.
Have you tried other variations? Leave a comment – we love sharing creative ideas.
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S’mores Sleepover Bear Snack
- Prep Time: 30
- Cook Time: 10
- Total Time: 40 minutes
- Yield: 8–10 1x
Description
Have fun with the kids making these fun sleepover snacks. Encourage creativity with different mix-ins and variations.
Ingredients
1 package Pillsbury cresent dough (un-perforated if you can find it)
Mini Marshmallows
Teddy Grahams
Chocolate bars, broken into 1-inch squares
Optional mix-ins and decoration: flavored baking chips, banana slices, nut butter, cookie butter, Nutella, sprinkles, edible paints
Instructions
1. Cut the cresent dough into 1.5 x 2.5 inch rectangles.
2. Put a 1-inch piece of chocolate on the upper half of the rectangle
3. Put one mini-marshmallow on the chocolate as a pillow
4. Put a bear-shaped graham cracker cookie on the pillow
5. Add optional mix-ins below the bear
6. Fold up the bottom half of the dough and “tuck in” the bear but crimping the edges with a fork
7. Optional: Decorate the outside of the dough with sprinkles or edible paints
8. Bake for 8-10 minutes until the dough is lightly browned.