Monday, December 13, 2010

Christmas Baking!

Not nearly as fancy as the ones we made as kids, but still taste yummy!
 I love baking for Christmas!  Baking with my kids brings back memories of when I was a kid helping my mom bake goodies for gifts and the family celebrations.  I remember taking hours to make elaborate sugar cookie creations, competing with Tim and Laura (my little brother & sister) to see who could make the coolest cookies, pressing the Hershey's kisses into the peanut butter cookies (and sneaking some!), and, of course, the fun of finding yummy cookies in my lunch box every day at school!

My shortcut--make 1-1-1 cookies--these are ready in less than 10 minutes!
So, as an adult, I have loved recreating those Christmas memories in my own little family--baking sugar cookies and peanut butter kiss cookies every year, as well as adding some old family recipes into the mix--lepkuchen cookies and peanut brittle from my family and snickerdoodles and cream puffs from Ryan's.

My own addition--peppermint bark, which I think I have perfected this year, thanks to a great idea from Pampered Chef!

Peppermint bark--semi-sweet chocolate swirled with white chocolate, with crushed candy canes on top.  YUM!

If only I had the Hallmark channel!  This is the one time of year that I don't mind the tv!  ;-) 

Ryan's special creation--like the goatee?

2 comments:

Kelly Cook said...

Looks like fun! I want to make some peppermint bark, but need to find candy canes w/o artificial color. We suspect TJ is sensitive and have been trying to take him off it. Thinking I could just flavor the white chocolate with peppermint oil and get a similar result.
He's going to my parents house for the next couple of days and they will bake there too.

worryfreemom said...

The PC recipe said to add 1 tsp of peppermint to the regular chocolate. That would probably work. I've seen just plain white candy canes, too...but not sure where I saw them. :-(

Karen

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