...Nine Treats-a-Tempting...
So far this month we've got drinks, appetizers, decorations and meals covered for your holiday entertaining. There is still one element missing, and I'm sure those with a sweet tooth have already figured out what it is...Christmas cookies! I've made a tray and left it with some milk by the tree for Santa. I'm sure he won't have time to try them all, but at least he's got some variety, which, I've been told, is the spice of life.
For me, Christmas just isn't Christmas without the sweets that I make every December. Some are recipes that my mother would make during my formative years, while others I have compiled as an adult. Up Here they're called "dainties", and as I was arranging the platter I could see why: my treats can be fragile, flaky, runny, gooey, powdery or crumbly. But they all have one thing in common; they're all sweet and scrumptious!
The nine treats I tempt you to try are (clockwise from the top): Pfeffernuesse, Peanut Butter Truffles, Homemade Turtles, Best Ever Sugar Cookies, Mocha Caramel Nanaimo Bars, Peanut Butter Squares, Cranberry-Lemon Shortbread and Cranberry Chocolate Squares. In the middle is my Festive Party Mix.
Pfeffernusse
Every year I buy the December issue of Canadian Living magazine, mainly for the recipes but I also enjoy the gift ideas and other nice holiday reading as well. The Pfeffernusse recipe is one of a few different German Christmas recipes that the magazine featured one year. It's nice and spicy; not in terms of heat, but in terms of flavour, and I find that people either love them (my nephew eats them by the handful) or tend to stay away (my neice wants nothing to do with them). The cookies are bite size, which is nice for casual snacking. Sometimes a big gingerbread man is too much of a commitment when all you want is a quick blast of flavour, so reach for one of these sugary bites instead.
Peanut Butter Truffles
The next recipe has got to be my partner's favourite, for the same reason that the chocolate peanut butter ice cream is his favourite; it's that classic combination of nut and cocoa flavours. The Peanut Butter Truffle recipe is also from Canadian Living magazine. I've found that if I used crunchy peanut butter than I don't need to add chopped peanuts, there's enough texture for me already. I should add that the first time I made these I used natural peanut butter (I try to use it as much as possible), but it wasn't sweet enough to stand up to the bitter chocolate, so use the salt-and-sugar-added stuff. Also, I don't dip my truffles with two forks like the recipe says; I stick toothpicks in them, refrigerate for 1/2 hour to harden them a bit, then dip them that way. I take the toothpicks out before the chocolate has a chance to harden again and cover the hole with a half peanut. You wouldn't have to top the truffles, but I think it's great to do because it lets anyone who is allergic to peanuts know to stay away, although I suppose if that person has a severe allergy they should be asking about anything before trying, but it's just more obvious this way, and it's prettier too! One final note: I make Cranberry Chocolate Squares (see below) after any
dipping recipes so that I can use any leftover chocolate for the bottom
layer. That way I'm not wasting even an ounce of what is one of the
greatest expenses of holiday baking. I made the squares on the same day
as the truffles, but you could also refrigerate the leftover chocolate
to melt again another day.
Homemade Turtles
Here's a recipe that I learned from my Mother. It's a simple and delicious way to make Turtles, one of the most celebrated of the store-bought Christmas chocolates. These little guys are always the first to disappear at a holiday gathering, so be sure to make lots! Here's how: Place 2 pecans side by side on a cookie sheet. Place one unwrapped caramel on top and heat in the oven on a low temperature until the caramel is soft enough to be flattened with the back of a spoon. Then melt as many milk chocolate chips on top as you can fit and smooth with a fork. Let harden in the fridge. You may want to grease the cookie sheet so that any caramel that melts off the pecans won't stick, and also butter the spoon if you find that it's sticking to the caramels as you flatten them. To smooth the melted chips, I found that just moving the edge of the tines of the fork around in a circular motion got the chocolate to settle down nicely. I suppose if you want to you could completely coat the turtles in chocolate by setting them on a fork and pouring melted chocolate overtop, but don't use chocolate chips for that because they won't melt properly; use bakers chocolate instead. For me, though, it's not necessary.
Best Ever Sugar Cookies
1 cup salted butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 cups flour
Cream butter and sugar, then beat in egg and vanilla. Add 1 cup of flour. Beat. Add second cup of flour. Beat. Add baking powder and third cup of flour. Beat. Roll onto parchment paper and cut into shapes. Bake for 5 minutes in a 400 degree oven...do NOT let golden.
Sugar cookies are the most common Christmas cookie because they're so colourful and festive (just don't tell The Gingerbread Man I said that). They're also fun to make with kids because of the mixing, rolling, cookie cutters and the icing afterwards. I've always had a beef with sugar cookies, however, because naked (that is, without globs of sweet icing and yummy sprinkles), I've never found them to taste very good. Until recently I had never had a sugar cookie that I would eat on its own. That is until I took a bite of one made by a good friend of mine. The ingredients list isn't much different from your average recipe (although it had more butter than the one I've had on stand-by for years), but my friend was adamant that if I follow the directions exactly, I, too could have lovely tasting sugar cookies. So I did. The butter must be salted, she insisted (although I suspect if you used unsalted and added 1/4 teaspoon of salt the world would continue spinning), and the flour added in thirds. And only 3 cups, no more! The parchment paper is the key there, and I think that is why my cookies always turned out blandly; I always added about 1/2 cup more flour (if not more) in order to make them easy to pick up from the counter after being cut out. I also was likely overcooking them, waiting until they browned slightly in the oven before removing them, but they do continue cooking for a little while after being removed, so it's true that if you take them out just before they brown, they'll be fully cooked and nice and soft. It's also true that my cookies taste great! The downside is that the rolling and cutting part would be difficult to do with kids, since the dough is more finicky and harder to manage. If you're doing this with kids, go ahead and throw in as much flour as you need, but your cookies will be dryer and less tasteful. Otherwise, if you've got any amount of patience (and I don't have lots, to be honest, but just enough), then try it this way. It's worth it.
Mocha Caramel Nanaimo Bars
Here's another recipe that I got from a magazine that I make sure to pick up every Christmas (for that matter, I try to pick up every issue). The Mocha Caramel Nanaimo Bar recipe comes from the LCBO magazine. For those of you who haven't passed through Ontario recently, the LCBO is the Liquour Control Board of Ontario, and it puts out a free magazine about 5 or 6 times per year to promote different spirits, wines and beers. It's actually quite a nice publication, with some recipes that feature different types of alcohol and others that pair well with certain drinks. These bars have no liquour in them, and I would recommend them with a nice cup of coffee or tea; what you choose to put in your coffee or tea is your own business. I've made these squares for three years in a row now, and I still haven't managed to keep the caramel portion from oozing out once they're cut. I've added more icing sugar each year (this year I mixed in a whole extra cup), but still they're a bit too oozy. Despite this fact, they are gooooooooooood. No one has ever complained about the appearance of these dainties once they've tried them.
Peanut Butter Squares
1/2 cup butter
1 cup peanut butter
2 packages butterscotch chips
1 package coloured marshmallows
Melt butter, peanut butter and butterscotch chips (wow that's a lot of butter) in a saucepan on low heat. Cool the mixture well but not so well that it hardens completely; you want it just so you can stir it but not so hot that it will melt marshmallows. Add the marshmallows and put in a greased square pan and let set.
I like to find a new holiday recipe each year to try out; sometimes they are hits and stay in my yearly repertoire, and sometimes they just don't cut it and I lose the recipe. This year I didn't make anything brand new, but I count these squares as my "new" recipe despite the fact that I grew up eating them. I tried making them once but they didn't quite turn out. I think I didn't let the mixture cool enough and the marshmallows melted, then the whole thing ended up not setting correctly. This year, however, everything worked out fine. The squares are gobbled up by children, and they're nice and colourful on your cookie tray. I only wish that they would make holiday coloured marshmallows which are just red, green and white. Maybe this exists, but I've never seen it. If I only had a quarter for every time I wished that I owned a marshmallow empire...
Cranberry-Lemon Shortbread
Every Christmas cookie tray needs a shortbread, but I've never been a huge fan of the stuff, finding it a bit bland. That's why this Cranberry-Lemon Shortbread recipe from Inspired (yes, another magazine) by Our Compliments caught my eye; the great combination of lemon and cranberry adds some zesty zip to otherwise boring baking (sorry traditional shortbread fans, but it's just how I feel). Last year I iced my cookies and found that the icing was too runny with all of the juice, so I would only use half next time.
This year I decided not to ice the cookies and instead I pressed them with a holly stamp that I bought at a pottery studio in while on vacation in Nova Scotia. The studio is called Birdwall-Worthington Pottery and it can be visited in Mahone Bay. They make stamps with many different shapes and the neat thing is that they use Nova Scotian clay. You can check them out at this website. I figured that the stamped shape would not be altered much by the cooking process, since there is no baking soda or powder in the dough. It did turn out nicely, but I think that the craisins make it a bit difficult to see the outline of the holly. Nevertheless, the cookies are so tasty that they don't even need the icing. Finally, shortbread I look forward to eating!
Chocolate Cranberry Squares
1/3 cup butter
8 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
3 Tablespoons corn syrup
2 cups chocolate wafer crumbs
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
1 teaspoon silver dragees
In a saucepan over low heat, melt together butter, semi-sweet chocolate and corn syrup; stir in chocolate wafer crumbs and spread in a greased or parchment paper-lined 9x13 inch pan. Sprinkle white chocolate chips over the base, then the craisins and then silver dragees. Press lightly so that the toppings stick together and refrigerate until firm, about 2 hours.
I was sure that this recipe came from a Canadian Living magazine, but I couldn't find it anywhere on their site. They have a recipe with the same name online, but it is quite different. These squares are super quick and easy to make. The only thing I would say is to make sure that the toppings are pressed into the base; I even put the oven on low and put the pan in to melt the chocolate chips a bit but not enough that they lose their shape. Despite this, about half of my silver dragees seem to fall off every year when I cut the squares. Regardless, they're a yummy treat (and my Mom's favourite). I like to cut squares into small pieces so that they're bite-size, especially if they're crumbly, so that you can just pop them into your mouth instead of taking a bite and risking a party faux-pas (or a stain on your best, most festive Christmas sweater!). Also, if you don't like what you eat, you don't have to worry about how to discreetly discard the rest of your square; you already have!
Festive Party Mix
The last treat is one that you may have seen before...I admit that I double-dipped and included a recipe here that I already shared on Day Seven. The Festive Party Mix is incredibly addictive, so you'll probably want to serve it in a larger dish than I have because that much will go pretty quickly, especially if I'm in attendance at your seasonal bash. Another thing you could do is pull out the clumps after you've cooled the mixture and put them on the cookie platter amongst all the other treats. The mix is sweet, salty, chocolatey and crunchy. It's got different sizes and textures. And it's nice and colourful for your Christmas platter, although you could use normal coloured Smarties and make this for any party throughout the year. It would also make a great Christmas gift wrapped in a nice jar or a Christmas bag.
I think that Santa should be happy with his selection when he drops in on his way back to the North Pole. The nice thing about holiday baking is that you make the same thing year after year and can perfect things as the Christmases go by. I'm constantly altering things and making notes in my cookbooks so that they'll be better the next time. I may have awhile before some of these recipes are perfected, but getting there (and eating as I go) is half the fun. Oh, I'll have to make exercise my New Year's resolution this year!
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