Football Party Tutorial + Manly Peanut Butter Cheesecakes

Football Party Tutorial + Manly Peanut Butter Cheesecakes

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

The other day while making some trip plans, hubby and and I noticed that the hotels in San Jose were quite expensive the first weekend in February. He asked me to look up what was going on, so I looked up San Jose events. After scrolling through a few pages of what couldn't possibly be the reason, I finally came to it...duh! The biggest football game of the year, haha. Who knew it was coming to the Bay!

This time of year is fun because it almost feels like an extension of the holidays. When we were living in Texas where football is quite big, I remember hopping from house to house with my tailgate treats. It was a tight-knit community and you could hear the game playing through every window you passed. It's a fun time even for people who aren't normally into the sport.

For anyone else getting ready for some football parties, I put together this party tutorial including some DIY foam finger koozies that you can make as a pre-game activity, customized candy bags, and all of my favorite treats. I've included tutorials for everything, and it's all easy enough that it requires only a one-time Walmart run to grab all the materials. I'm also excited to share my recipe for these "manly" peanut butter cheesecakes. They have a peanut butter cookie crust, with a SNICKERS® cheesecake filling, and to make them man-friendly I garnished them with candied bacon.

There's also an exciting sweepstakes below giving away multiple Walmart gift cards and XBOX Ones. There are a few different ways to enter, but if you make one of those cool snack stadiums for your own party and Instagram it, then you can get twenty entries. Check out some snack stadium and other recipe ideas here, and find all your football party essentials here.

So what do you guys usually do for the big game? Any favorite traditions or foods?

Game Day Glory Sweepstakes

Party Elements:

• Linen flag banners
• Rolled paper sacks with TOSTITOS® chips and football flags
• DIY foam finger koozies with Diet Pepsi™
• "Go Team" candy bags with Skittles® and SNICKERS®
• Mini peanut butter cheesecakes with candied bacon
• Football chocolate covered sandwich cookies 
• Seven layer dip with TOSTITOS® salsa and cheer pom pom spoons

Backdrop

Buy a 1/4 yard each of three different linens (or similar) and macrame cord. That's plenty of material to make this backdrop, and have leftover fabric for the cheer poms. Cut triangles of all different sizes from your fabrics and use a glue gun to wrap them around your cord.

Paper Flags

Roll down some paper lunch sacks, fill them with TOSTITOS®, and add these paper football flags for a festive centerpiece. Tutorial HERE.

DIY Foam Finger Koozies

DIY foam finger koozies can make a fun pre-game activity for your guests. Prep a template, craft foam in an assortment of colors, and colored markers, so that they can make their own koozie for whatever team they are supporting. Tutorial HERE.

DIY Party Candy Bags

Make your own customized bags filled with your favorite candies. Tutorial HERE.

Cheer Pom Pom Spoons 

Use your leftover fabric from the banners to make these cheer pom pom spoons. Stick them in a seven-layer dip to go with your chip bags. Tutorial HERE. 

Manly Peanut Butter Cheesecakes
Makes 12-15

Cheesecake:

• peanut butter cookies (store-bought or homemade)
• 2 (8 oz.) pkg.s cream cheese, softened
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 7 squares of SNICKERS® Peanut Butter Squared, chopped (regular SNICKERS® is fine too)

Chocolate Ganache:

• 2-1/4 oz. milk chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup heavy cream

Candied Bacon:

• 12 slices thick-cut bacon
• black pepper
• 1/2 cup brown sugar

Directions:

Candied Bacon:

Preheat oven to 325F. Line a large pan with foil. Place a metal cooling rack on top.

Place bacon strips on a clean surface and sprinkle with black pepper and half the sugar. Use hands to pat the sugar into the bacon. Turn over and do the same to the other sides. Place strips on your cooling rack and bake for 40-50 minutes or until golden brown and crisped around the edges. Let cool.

Cheesecakes:

Heat oven to 375F. Line a muffin tin with foil cupcake liners. 

Use a small biscuit cutter to cut small circles out of your peanut butter cookies. Place one circle in each cupcake liner. If you don't have a small biscuit cutter, just break or cut each cookie to fit (doesn't have to be perfect). Sprinkle a few pieces of chopped SNICKERS® on top of the cookies. 

In a large mixing bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, eggs, vanilla and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Pour into each cupcake liner until almost full. Shake the pan around so that the batter settles and there are no bubbles. Bake for about 15 minutes until set. Cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache:

Place chocolate chips in a medium mixing bowl.
Pour heavy cream into a small sauce pan and place over med-high heat. Bring just to boiling, then remove from heat and pour over your chocolate chips. Stir gently until all the chocolate is melted and smooth.

Assemble:

Pour chocolate ganache over cooled cheesecakes. Place cheesecakes in the fridge until ready to serve. Cut small pieces of candied bacon to garnish each cheesecake before serving. Use your leftover bacon for burger toppings.