Treat Day- Christmas Is Almost Here

After a mini-meltdown last night over cleaning, Christmas, and wrapping, I regrouped, and slept. Today, I jumped right into the last of the wrapping, which was for extended family. On Thursday, we'll make the 90 minute trek up to Mount Pleasant for Christmas with Nick's family. On Saturday, we'll make the 70 minute trek over to Sparta for Christmas with my dad & step-mom, then with my step-mom's family.

I had to get everything wrapped and sorted still for all those get togethers, so I turned on a Christmas movie and got to work. As soon as that was done, I tackled Christmas treats. Oh, boy, did I tackle them.

Today,  I made Christmas Crack, Peppermint Crack, and so far, 4 dozen mini-muffin Chocolate Chip Cookies, complete with chocolate melted into the center. I still have Turtle Cookies to make, more chocolate chip cookies, and then, both peanut butter & gingerbread cookies.

 

I love warm gingerbread cookies, all soft and squishy straight from the oven. Oh, so delicious!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night, before my melt down, I made Christmas snowflake coasters, inspired by Jessica's over at Mad in Crafts.  I found the snowflakes in blue, though, not white. Luckily, I had plenty of white glitter felt on hand to use with it.

This morning while I was wrapping, I was trying to decide what to do with them, and decided to turn them back into ornaments by adding blue ribbon loops to each one. From there, I added a small bath & body item to the front, and wrapped them up for the younger girls on Nick's side of the family. He has a younger sister, and 2 girl cousins who are in their early 20's. These made great gifts for them, and were frugal- I had all sorts of samples on hand that I picked up at Bath & Body Works for $.50 each months ago. The ornaments cost about $1.50 to make 6 of them, so each gift cost me less than $1.00!

 

So, while I was in a Christmas funk yesterday, I've decided to just go with the flow. I will finish up what baking I can today, and that's that. It will be enough. What baking I'm doing today will be split up for taking to the various parties, and another small plate to my neighbor across the street. He's such a helpful neighbor- he's used live traps to get animals out of our backyard, he fixes our cars dirt cheap, lends us tools when we need them, and helps when we need help.

I sent over a plate of goodies earlier this month, and he told me it's the only time he gets homemade goodies, when I send them over to him. So, I decided I'd send another plate over there.

Merry Christmas, everyone! May your sanity stay in tact, along with mine!

Christmas Treats: Rice Krispie Trees

I was on Walmart.com looking at several of the Christmas baking recipes they have. A photo caught my eye- 3 Christmas tree shaped treats with candy cane trunks. I was immediatly in love with the visual.

To me, they looked like Rice Krispie treats cut into Christmas Trees, and decorated. However, they are actual cake. I'll post the recipe below. For me, though, I do believe we'll be making these as Rice Krispie treats that the kids can frost & decorate. I just love the candy cane trunk on it!

Sparkling Tree Cakes

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans; set aside. Prepare cake batter as directed on package; tint with food coloring. Pour evenly into prepared pans.
   
   
2. Bake as directed on package. Cool in pans 10 minutes; remove to wire racks. Cool completely.
   
   
3. Beat cream cheese and powdered sugar with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Stir in whipped topping with wire whisk. Spread onto tops and sides of cakes.
   
   
4. Cut each cake into eight wedges to resemble Christmas trees. Insert peppermint stick into curved side of each cake for the tree trunk. Decorate with remaining ingredients. Store in refrigerator.

All in all, the cake recipe is pretty easy, but I just can't get it out of mind with rice krispies instead of cake!

Good Morning!

I spent almost all day yesterday on my feet baking, but my mom and I got SO much done. I won't have to bake this month again, unless I want to, and I'll have plenty of treats to take to holiday parties, and pass out to neighbors, and of course, eat here at home.


We tackled:


Homemade peanut butter cups
Peppermint Bark
Peanut Brittle
Brownie Bites with Candy* -you bake the brownies in mini muffin tins, then shove candy in the top as soon as it comes out, so it melts into the brownie.
Cookie Bites with Candy* -you bake the cookies in mini muffin tins, then shove candy in the top as soon as it comes out, so it melts into the cookies.
Peanut Butter Fudge
Chocolate Fudge
Sugar Cookies


I -think- that's everything. It was a long day, but I came home with 2 large boxes filled with treats, and an ice cream bucket filled with treats. Oh, so good!


Don't forget everyone- I'm holding a contest that ends on December 1st for a copy of the movie Fred Claus. Sign up is just a comment on the post.

It's Baking Day!

Last year, I got together with my mom, two sister-in-law's, aunt, and a friend of my mom's to bake on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Today, we're getting together again with a smaller group.

We spend the day making our holiday treats, so that we can stash most of them in the freezer, so that we can get our baking done before the holiday's get hectic. I have 6 different types of cookie dough going with me, as well as candy canes for peppermint bark.

My mom made up the peanut butter stuffing for peanut butter balls, and peanut clusters. We're also making fudge, brownie bites, and peanut brittle.

The day will be fun, and packed with goodies galore! I've got containers and freezer bags to bring the treats home in, so I can stash them away until closer to Christmas.

Inexpensive Child's Apron

With Thanksgiving & Christmas coming up, the chance to have the kids in the kitchen is expanding. Recently, I talked with a friend online about making an apron for my youngest daughter for Christmas. She is getting an easy bake oven for Christmas that another friend had sitting in her closet- brand new!

I am having one made for her, but after that, I found a really easy way to make a child's apron to use while baking. The main supplies- the towel & pot holder, can be found at Dollar Tree. For $3, you can buy 2 towels, and 1 2 pack of pot holders. Counting in the ribbon, this project should cost you about $1.75 to make.

Finished images of this project can be found on the blog by clicking the link below- it opens in a new window

Child's Kitchen Apron

What You'll Need:
1 Kitchen Towel
1 Rectangular Pot Holder
1 Spool of Ribbon
Sewing Machine or needle
Thread

1. Clip the loop off the pot holder, if there is one.
2. Take into account the child's height, then decide whether you want the towel to hang length wise, or sideways, depending on how tall or short the child is. Once you have decided, sew the pot holder onto the top edge, in the middle. The ends do not have to be bunched or gathered, they remain flat.
3. Once you have the pot holder sewn on, cut a length of ribbon long enough to loop over the child's head, or create two lengths that can be tied around the neck. Sew the two ends to the upper corners of the pot holder.
4. Sew two lengths of ribbon to the top corners of the towel, to tie around the child's waist. If you choose to make a sideways apron, you may want to fold the top corners down, and stitch the corner down before sewing ribbons on, to make it shorter around the waist. With smaller children, the apron might be too wide to tie around the waist at full length.
5. To keep the ribbon from fraying, you can coat the ends in clear nail polish, or fold it over and sew the ends.

The image below shows how to place the potholder, and where the ribbons go. I didn't have anything on hand to demonstrate it, so I used my art program. Yes, I really should have been a serious artist, I'm just that good. ;)