This post is brought to you by Kraft and #CollectiveBias. #TasteTheSeason

I’m helping my mom plan her Christmas Eve party and spent some time yesterday playing around with a few appetizer recipes and had a blast making Mini Melting Snowman Cheese Balls.

I thought using the melting snowman as the theme for the party would be fun. I fell in love the first time I saw the original melting snowman cookie, created by Meaghan from The Decorate Cookie and knew someday I wanted to make my own melting snowman treats. Well, today is the day.

 

These little guys have captured my heart all over again.

I chose to be bold and made my melting snowmen savory instead of sweet. Each one of these little appetizers is the perfect bite – a crunchy Italian toast topped with a cheese spread made with Philadelphia Cream Cheese and Kraft Shreds Italian Five Cheese Blend favored with Italian-style dressing mix. They are decorated with Parmesan cheese snow, tiny carrot noses, and colored cream cheese eyes, smiles, arms, and buttons.

Wont these look adorable on a buffet filled with party food?

Are you planning a holiday party? Have you started thinking about it yet? I always start early. I like to be prepared. Getting a head start gives me the opportunity to experiment with recipes, to work out all the kinks. If the recipe works out well, then I will freeze it, if possible, and save it for the event.

Another reason I like to plan early is so that I can take advantage of sales and coupons. I make a lot for my parties, even when I’m not the host, and I want to keep my spending under control.

 

I am in charge of making all the desserts for the party, but being everyone is asked to bring an appetizer, I will make one as well.

I really liked the cheese ball recipe I used to create these melting snowmen. It was quick and easy to make, but admittedly, decorating these tiny little snowmen was time consuming. I’m not gonna lie. For me the effort was totally worth it, but if you are strapped for time, just make one large melting snowman cheese ball instead. It will look just as cool.

Something I always like to make for my parties are food tags. I don’t want to spend my entire evening telling my guests what is on the buffet. I’ll print some of these tags to go with all of my desserts and have extras on hand for the guests who are bringing appetizers. We can just print the name of the dish so everyone knows what they are eating.

This is especially helpful if people have food allergies. I like to include any ingredients that someone might have issues with like nuts or shellfish.

I’ve created a printable for you to use, if you too want to host a melting snowman party too. Just click, here on the Melting Snowman Food Tags link and you’ll go to the printable page.

Mini Melting Snowman Cheese Balls

Ingredients: (makes 30)

Cheese Ball – 
1 block (8 ounces) Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1 bag (8 oz) Kraft Italian Five Cheese Blend
2 teaspoons dried Italian-style dressing mix

Decorations-
2/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese
black gel or paste food coloring
2 teaspoons milk
30 Italian toasts or bagel chips
2-3 mini carrots

Supplies:
teaspoon or teaspoon size scoop
pastry bag
#3 pastry tip (or use a zip top bag and cut a small hole)

Instructions:

Cut off 2 ounces of the cream cheese and put in a small bowl. Put the remaining 6 ounces along with the bag of Italian Five Cheese Blend, and the Italian dressing mix in the bowl of a food processor and pulse until well combined. If you don’t have a food processor, you are going to want to chop up the cheese into small pieces then mix it with the cream cheese and seasonings.

Spread a very thin layer of the cheese spread on each Italian toast. Dip it, cheese side down, into the grated Parmesan cheese or just sprinkle some over top.

Scoop out a teaspoonful of the cheese spread and roll into a ball. Roll it in the Parmesan cheese, covering all but a small area, just enough to stick to the toast. Set it on a cheese covered toast. If the cheese ball wont stick, scrape off some of the Parmesan cheese from the toast, add a dab of cheese spread, and stick the ball on top.

Repeat, until all the cheese spread is gone.  You should get about 30 Mini Snowmen Cheese Balls.

Cut the carrots into thin slices then cut out triangular shaped carrot noses for the snowmen.

Mix some black food coloring and the milk with the reserved 2 ounces of cream cheese. Spoon it into a pastry bag fitted with a small round tip or into a small zip top bag with a small hole cut at one tip.

Pipe on two eyes and a mouth. Insert a carrot nose. Pipe two twig arms and three buttons onto the cheese covered toasts.

Note: Piping the black cream cheese onto the Parmesan cheese can be a little tricky at times. I kept a paper towel handy, to wipe off the pastry tip as it got coated in the cheese. It helped, a lot.

I can’t wait to serve these at our holiday party. They are really too cute.

Not only am I helping my mom with her holiday party, but I’m hosting some friends for a luncheon soon and could use some more inspiration, so I’m heading over to check out the Cooking Up Good website. Not only can you find recipes on the site, but they also have coupons, sweepstakes, and a loyalty program. Maybe I’ll enter and win something fun for Christmas. That would be nice!

In preparation for my parties, I need to do some more shopping at Walmart. They have a great selection of Kraft products. I realized as I was adding savory recipes to the bottom of this post, that I have not made too many for Christmas. I think I need to work on that!

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.

 

Be sure to check out all my fun Christmas Recipes!

 More Savory Holiday Recipes

from Hungry Happenings

Spinach Artichoke Frittata Trees

Green pesto covered crescent roll Christmas tree appetizers

More Snowmen Treats

Frosty Snowmen Pretzels

White Chocolate Cupcake Wrappers

Silly Snowmen Rice Krispies Treat Pops