Crafting in the Corners: Christmas

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Super easy Almond Toffee Bars

My phone rang this morning at 10 am. It was Kyle calling from work saying he had an odd question for me. Apparently the chocolate mint Christmas cookies I had baked for him to take to the office were a hit. Such a hit that one of his coworkers wanted me to bake up a few batches today for him to hand off to his neighbors. Said coworker was supposed to spend last weekend baking goodies of his own for his neighbors. Said coworker did not spend the weekend baking, but instead watching football... Men. Not only did he want those tasty minty cookies, but he wanted me to come up with another tasty treat- did I mention he wanted all of this done today? Good thing I'm super momma and all. I did a speedy Google search (ahhhh Google, I love you) for easy Christmas treats and found these little suckers.

Almond Toffee Bars
Ingredients :
12 graham crackers
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 bag of Heath bar baking bits
2 small bags of sliced almonds

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or foil and cover with graham crackers.

3. Stir butter and sugar in a saucepan on the stove. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Once boiling, let boil for 1 minute and continue stirring. It will thicken into a nice caramel.

4. Pour caramel over crackers and spread it around so all are covered.

5. Put in the oven and bake for 3-6 minutes- just until caramel is bubbly.
6. Remove from oven and sprinkle with toppings.

7. Cool completely and cut into small bars.

Yep, I pulled it off. I took one cello bag of my chocolate mint Christmas cookies and one cello bag of these bars, tied them together with a shiny red ribbon, one of those nice little tags and topped it off with a red jingle bell. I delivered a whole bunch of these cutie-patootie gift bags before the end of the work day. Here's to an accomplished Christmas eve-eve! Now tomorrow I just have to finish MY projects for Christmas presents.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Chocolate Mint Christmas Cookies

Cookies all packed up and ready to go, Sophie helping mommy, Cookies ready for baking, Mommy and Sophie baking up treats!

These Christmassy cookies are so oh em gee delicious. As soon as you're done reading this post, run and grab the ingredients- you'll thank me later. Oh, a warning, I left my camera in the car. The car that hubs took to work today. Iphone cam had to do, I apologize.

Chocolate Mint Christmas Cookies
Ingredients:
1 cup soft butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp peppermint extract
3 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa
Pinch of salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
6 candy canes, crushed

1. Preheat oven to 350. Using your mixer, cream together butter and sugar, like so:

2. Mix in egg, vanilla and peppermint. Add in next four ingredients and 4 of the crushed candy canes (reserve two for later). It should look something like this.

3. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and roll dough into small balls (see pic) and smush with your choice of smushing object- I used a measuring cup.

Pre Smush

Post Smush

4. Bake at 350 for about 6 min. I like cookies soft and just a tad undercooked, if you don't- cook em longer. Right after taking them out of the oven, sprinkle the last bits of candy cane on top and kind of poke them into the cookies with your fingers so they stick.

5. Stick them into cute little cello bags and print these adooorable little taggies out to stick on the bags. Give them to people you love to spread a little holiday cheer!