Holiday Cooking

So the holidays were extremely busy and I just realised that I didn't post my holiday baking, so here goes:



1. "Snow balls"
This is simply a chocolate cake mixed with the cream cheese icing and dipped in white chocolate. I addapted this from the wonderful Bakerella, who has also done many versions of these delightful treats. They are always a huge hit when i make them.

2. Chocolate Caramel Fudge.
This recipe is adapted from Aunt Teen's Fudge recipe on allrecipe.com. Instead of adding nuts to the fudge i swirled in caramel. The caramel was melted kraft vanilla caramels, the same used to make caramel apples. I put one back into the fudge.

3. Peanut Brittle
Last year I did the cheater way of making brittle, and while it was great, I wanted to try making it on the stove this year and hoped to avoid last years problem of not cooking long enough. I tried Mom's Best Peanut Brittle from allrecipe and it turned out great. I used roasted peanuts and cooked them just as the instructions said. This resulted in the occasional nut tasting like it was burnt. After reading reviews, I found I should have added the peanuts at the end becuase they were the roasted variety. Otherwise this was a very tasty recipe and will be used for years.

4. Chocolate Covered Toffee
I have made this before and it is fantastic, it tastes just like a score bar!

5. Homemade Candy Canes
This recipe came from Martha Stewart, and while tasty, could have used a little more peppermint. these were the first time I have made candy that required "pulling" and it was quite the adventure.

Cookie Dough brownies

So, I had a bad day at work yesterday and was in desperate need of baking therapy and comfort food, and what says "its all okay" better than a brownie or chocolate chip cookies? Then I remembered the recipe I had recently seen on one of my favorite blogs - Bakerella. Now, I don't use mixes very often for anything and didn't have even any of my "emergency mixes" in the cupboard so I did a from scratch version. I picked a brownie batter that I use for a slightly cakey brownie, my favourite chocolate chip recipe and tried my brownies.

I ended up with way more cookie dough than was needed, so as an extra bonus I got some chocolate chip cookies as well

Chocolate Chip Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ tsp vanilla
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
Chocolate Chips ( I used ½ a 350g bag)

1.Cream together the margerine/butter, and the sugars. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
2.Combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually blend into the creamed mixture.
3.Stir in the chocolate chips.

Brownie Batter:
1 cup butter
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt

1.Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium Heat. Add cocoa powder and stir until smooth.
2.Add the sugar, eggs and vanilla, mixing until smooth.
3.Mix the flour and salt, then add to the chocolate mixture.

To Make the Brownies:

1.Pour the brownie batter into a greased or paper lined 9x13 baking pan.
2.Spoon cookie batter into the brownie batter in the pan and gently push down. (Note I only used about ½ of the cookie batter for this, the rest I used to actually make cookies.)
3.Bake at 350F for about 35 minutes.