Cooking Channel's Semi-Homemade Super Bowl Snack Throwdown

By: Victoria Phillips

To celebrate the Super Bowl, Cooking Channel staff decided to embark on an unprecedented Semi-Homemade Super Bowl Ultimate Snack Challenge Throwdown. Although the name is quite a mouthful, the instructions were simple:

  • Use ingredients most home cooks can find easily.
  • Spend $20 or less.
  • Create the dish in one hour or less.
  • Microwave usage is allowed, but the oven is not.
Here's a sampling from the Super Bowl smorgasborg:

Michelle's football-shaped cheese ball (pictured above) was made with a package of cream cheese, garlic pepper, lemon juice and crushed up chex mix (light colors only), then coated in crushed up chex mix (dark colors). The catch: Just try not to eat it all in one sitting!

Kate wow-ed the judges (and took first place) with her Touchdown Truffles—cream cheese, frosting and crumbled Oreos mixed together and shaped like footballs.

Alison's Poor Man's Turtles were gooey with a hint of salt. To recreate your own, take a pretzel, put a Rolo and pecan on top, then melt in the microwave.

My Puppy Chow can get a bit messy, but that's half the fun. Chocolate, peanut butter, Chex cereal and powdered sugar—it really is that simple!

Cameron's Salted Caramel Popcorn Jars won extra points for her fun presentation.

Lindsay's contribution utilized a cornucopia of ingredients, including fudge-covered graham crackers, mini-marshmallows, raspberry yogurt-covered pretzels and even chocolate chip cookie dough. There was plenty of sugar going on here.

Roberto's messy mix of marshmallows, chocolate 'magic shell' syrup, sweetened coconut shavings, crushed graham crackers and caramel syrup came in a close second.

More Game-Day Desserts on Cooking Channel 

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