| Level: | Advanced |
| Total: | 45 min |
| Prep: | 45 min |
| Yield: | 1 sleigh |
Ingredients
- Graham crackers
- White royal icing
- Red royal icing
- Chewy fruit candy squares (recommended: Starbursts)
- Sugar wafers
- Red fruit sheets (recommended: Fruit Roll-ups)
- Miniature bear-shaped cookies (recommended: Teddy Grahams)
- Twisted red candy sticks (recommended: Twizzlers)
- Candy canes
- Shredded coconut
- Chocolate Santa, foil wrapped
Instructions
- Sleigh bottom #1: Coat 1 side of a graham cracker cookie completely with white royal icing. Place 2 candy canes on top, keeping the hooks pointing upward, holding them in place for a few seconds to let set. Sprinkle coconut over the whole cracker and candy canes and set aside to let dry.
- Sleigh bottom #2: Coat 1 side of another graham cracker completely with red royal icing and set aside to dry.
- Presents: Pipe ribbons with white royal icing on fruit candies. Set aside to let dry.
- Santa’s seat: Take 2 sugar wafer bars (attached) and completely wrap with a fruit roll-up. Take another pair of wafers and do the same. Place seam side down to keep from them unfolding. Set aside.
- To assemble: Pipe a thin line of white royal icing over the length of the candy canes that are attached to sleigh bottom #1. Place sleigh bottom #2 (red graham cracker) on top of candy canes (red side up)and hold for a few seconds to let set. Make a seat out of the fruit rollup covered sugar wafers by making an “L” shape on top of red cracker. Use 1 as the seat and the other as the back of the seat.
- On 1 side of the seat stack a few candy gifts and on the other side, place the chocolate Santa. Spread out 1 fruit rollup and place a few gifts in the middle and make a pouch, tying the ends of the rollup together with a twizzler, like a beggar’s purse. Place gift pouch behind Santa’s seat.
Reviews
My family LOVED THESE! They were not as hard as I thought. I got creative and cut some of the starbursts to make different size packages as well as got mini teddy grahams. I also left some room on the back of the sled for a little party favor like mini bottle of tequila for the adults (I wrote sled fuel on them) everyone loved them. They all wanted to save them for next year. I used a royal icing recipe from FN that called from egg yolks and it worked great- just like cement. I will definitely make these again.
When I saw this on tv, it looked fairly easy to put together. However, for me and my daughter, not so easy. We had planned on making 10 for family members for Christmas, because it looked so easy. We are definitely not chefs, by no stretch of the imagination. Our royal icing did not come out the way we hoped, so nothing would stick together. (I’m sure that would have made a difference.) Maybe next time we’ll get it together!
I had fun making this, but I used what I had on hand substituting a few things. It turned out beautifully, and I plan to do it with my grand kids. Thanks!
I did this activity with my class. The children loved it!! Everyone at school was so jealous. It was very easy for my students. We got the fruit rollups at the healthfood store and smoothie king because they have plain ones with no designs. It was a little difficult to wrap the rollup around the seat but we got it done.
i brought this up a notch by adding reindeer pulling the sleigh Don’t know why people would say it is hard to fallow i did it from the photo came out great
After reading all the comments and the snags, I think I may opt for substitutions on a few of the items….maybe pre-colored fondant for the sheet roll-ups? And just use sugar cubes for gifts…..licorice laces instead of Twizzlers? It’s such a darling idea and looks relatively easy…oh, and graham cracker 4th’s (the way some are pre-cut) to stack for the sleigh seat? I still think it’s an excellent idea. And easily incorporated into gingerbread, too!
Most of the favor was easy to do except for 2 things. There were no instructions on how to make the bench. And it wasn’t as easy as you’d think to make one. The icing wouldn’t hold the licorice together at all! I had to put a TON on and they ended up looking messy. Another problem was finding the fruit roll up for the sack. Sandra used a plain, large, round roll-up. I couldn’t find those anywhere! The only ones I could find were the small, square fruit roll-up and they all have designs on them these days. I had to combine 2 of the square ones and they still didn’t look good because of the kid designs on them. The rest was pretty easy.
I made the santa with my 5 year old daughter. We did not use Royal icing, but bought red and white icing in the store. We had so much fun doing this, and presented it to my mother-in-law from my daughter. Tomorrow (Christmas Eve) several of my nieces are coming over for an edible craft party, this is what we are going to make! I can’t wait.
If I hadn’t seen a picture and watched it on tv I would have never been able to follow these instructions. I couldn’t find Royal frosting so used Pillsbury Wipped Surpreme white frosting. I added food coloring for the red. I used fruit roll-up but on the show it showed round ones and I could only find square ones. I made them round by cutting off the corners. I made 7 of them and they turned out great.
Tried making these but everything kept falling off the sleds. I had only made about 4 so I decided to throw all the candies into a candy dish and make gingerbread cookies instead. Made the house smell really nice.