Tangled Thoughts

I dont do much cooking, or baking for that matter.  But around the Christmas season, occasionally, we do a little bit of baking.  Last year – we went all out.  Seriously.  I will link to the list of things we did last year.  Instead of writing it all up again!!

This year?  Weve decided to play things a little down.

With Amandas wedding coming up – we just decided that it would be much more…logical to focus on our family…instead of going all out.

But…I still think we will do a little baking, depending.

I wanted to post a few things we did last year…

These are pretty much the key ingredients:

To make…

Peppermint Fudge:

Seriously.  This is a recipe we stumbled on (literally) last year via wordpress dashboard (hows that for “finding a recipe”?).  Anyway, it was SO easy and SO good!

Click here for one of the original recipes.

I edited it up, to make it as simple as it is.  Its really not that picky of a recipe, even I could make it if that tells you something.

• 1/4 cup butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• about one package of white chocolate chips
• 1/2 bag of mini marshmallows (give or take)
• 1/2 cup crushed candy canes
• 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Directions

• Line a “8 or 9 inch” glass pan with wax paper, set aside.
• In a large heavy saucepan, combine the sugar, sour cream and butter. Cook and stir over medium heat until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a rapid boil; cook and stir until its thicker, about 5 minutes.
• Remove from the heat; stir in white chocolate and marshmallows until melted. REMEMBER TO STIR!! mix in peppermint candy and extract. spread into prepared pan. Chill until you can no longer stand it its hardend
• Lift fudge out of pan. cut fudge into squares. Store in the refrigerator.

Peppermint Bark:

This is something our aunt showed us how to make, and doesnt really have a recipe…although Im sure someone has one SOMEWHERE!

• Line cookie sheet with wax paper.
• Melt a few tablespoons of butter in a sauce pan.
• Add dark chocolate chips.
• Burn Stir like wild, add butter, and a little bit of canned milk.
• Add peppermint extract
• Spread on cookie sheet, set aside to harden*.
• Repeat Steps 2-4 with white chocolate chips
• Spread on-top of the dark chocolate.
• Add crushed candy canes to the top.
• Let harden.

*This is where it gets tricky, you need the dark chocolate to harden enough to spread the white ontop, but not too hard or else they wont harden together!

Chocolate covered pretzel:

Just melt chocolate with peppermint extract and dip the pretzels in.  (Doesnt work so good with white chocolate.) Set them on wax paper, and add sprinkles, or crushed candy canes!!

Christmas cookies – Im sure everyone has their own recipe for these, but one thing we found out last year, was that if you drizzle melted white chocolate over the cookies and add sprinkles or crushed candy cane, it takes care of the last of the cookies that ended up without frosting.

Also a tip for frosting – adding some cream cheese and lemon?  Works wonders!

Good luck and happy baking!!

P.S. – When your done, send me some 🙂