Christmas Goodies!

I can't believe it's almost Christmas!  Even if the house is a mess, even if there is a pile of old mail and newspaper sitting in the kitchen, even if the puppy is neglected (or at least thinks she is - she still gets her two walks a day), even if I haven't made dinner in over a week, and even if I just had a baby a month ago, I can still find time to make Christmas goodies!  And boy are they delicious this year!  Tina can attest.  In retaliation to us having a baby, she is misbehaving - including jumping on the counter and eating 15 cookies and untold numbers of pretzel turtles while we weren't around to stop her.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread, Toffee, Chocolate Chip Peppermint Cookies, and pretzel turtles!

 Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread

Cream Cheese Filling - beat all ingredients together until smooth:
8oz cream cheese
1/2 C sugar
1 Tbsp flour
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla


Bread:

Combine:
1 2/3 C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg

In a separate bowl combine the following ingredients.  Beat Well:
15 oz can pumpkin
1/2 C oil
2 eggs
1 1/2 C sugar

Stir the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture until just combined.  Pour 1/4 of the batter into two greased and floured 8inch bread pans.  Spoon the cream cheese mixture on top of the batter in each of the bread pans.  Top with remaining pumpkin batter (it's ok if you don't quite have enough pumpkin batter to cover the cream cheese as you will be mixing the two layers anyways).  Using a knife inserted through the top two layers, swirl the cream cheese and top pumpkin batter together to create a marble effect.

Bake at 325 for 55-60 minutes.

Adapted from recipe posted by the Nanny Create Blog.  Thanks for a delicious recipe!

Chocolate Chip Peppermint Cookies

2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
¾ cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 C chocolate chips
  3/4 C Andes Peppermint Crunch Chips - At first I couldn't find these so the first batch I made used chopped up Andes mints.  It turned out delicious.  The next day I went to the store and there they were in a special holiday display in front: Andes Peppermint Crunch Chips.  Despite the name "crunch" they are soft white chocolate peppermint chips.  Truth be told, Geoff and I couldn't really tell the difference between the cookies with the chopped up mints and the cookies with the Peppermint Crunch Chips.



Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.


In a seperate bowl, beat together the butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and vanilla until smooth.  Beat in the eggs one at a time.  Stir in the flour mixture.  Stir in the chocolate chips and peppermint chips.

Refrigerate dough for 24 hours (I'm a believer - the dough really improved after the 24 hours in the fridge).  Scoop cookies onto cookie sheets.  Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.


Original Recipe from Culinary Concoctions by Peabody.  Thanks for the delicious recipe!

Toffee:

1 C coarsely chopped almonds or pecans, toasted, divided (to toast, spread onto a cookie sheet and bake for 4-5 minutes at 350, stirring halfway through).
1 C unsalted butter
1 C sugar
3 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp corn syrup
3/4 C semisweet chocolate chips

Line a 9x13 pan with foil, extending the foil over the edges of the pan.  Sprinkle with 1/2 of the toasted nuts.  Set aside.

Butter the sides of a heavy 2-qt saucepan.  In saucepan, melt butter.  Add sugar, water, and corn syrup.  Stir over medium-high heat until mixture boils.  Reduce heat to medium.  Continue to boil at a moderate, steady rate stirring constantly until a candy thermometer reaches 290 degrees (about 12-15 minutes).  Watch carefully after 275 because the last 15 degrees will go fast!  Immediately remove from heat and pour into prepared pan.

Let stand 5 minutes.  Sprinkle with chocolate chips.  Let stand 2 minutes.  Spread chocolate chips over candy.  Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 C toasted nuts.  When candy is firm, use foil to lift it out of the pan.  Break into pieces.  Store tightly covered.

Original Recipe from bhg.  Thanks for the delicious recipe!

And finally, some baby photos, as that's what my biggest fans (aka - my parents, babies grandparents) actually come to the blog looking for.

 

Oreo Truffles

These take a little more time than the pretzels I just posted, but they are definitely worth the process.

Use of food processor or blender to grind a full package of oreos into fine crumbs (original oreos, not the double stuff).  Mix crumbs with a full package of cream cheese.  I mix them in my bocsh with either the cookie paddles or the dough hook.  The resulting "dough" will be super heavy and thick.  If you try to use something without enough power (ex: most hand mixers), you will risk burning out the motor of your mixer.  You could probably also do this with a spoon, and then kneed the dough for the last little bit to get a firm, sticky dough.

Now the fun part:  use a cookie scoop or a melon baller to ball up the dough.  Place balls in the fridge until firm.  In a double broiler, melt Bakers chocolate (about 12 oz).  Dip balls into chocolate, place on parchment paper or slip mat.  Allow to cool - I cool mine in the fridge.  Devour!

If you don't have a double boiler, here is what I did:

Fill pan with some water.  Put a glass or metal bowl on top of the pan.  Choose a bowl that fits snugly but doesn't hang too far down and touch the water.  Note: this isn't yet the full 12 oz of chocolate inside the bowl.

Pretzel Turtles!

Easiest holiday goody ever!

Place rolos on square pretzels.  Top with pecan halves.  Place in heated oven for 2-4 minutes, until just barely soft enough to press the pecans down into the rolos  (if you let them get too soft in the oven, they become a melty mess).  Remove from oven and press all the pecans.  Cool and devour.