Santa Treats: Date Pinwheels and Buckeyes

What do you have waiting for Santa? We have date pinwheel cookies and buckeyes waiting for Santa at our house. The date pinwheels are one of our family's traditional Christmas cookies. The buckeyes are one of those things that remind me of home. I'm originally from Ohio (the Buckeye State), so I have made these at Christmas time since I've been a kid. We also make them occasionally for big OSU football games, but I'm not a big football fan. These peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate are a big hit around the holidays.

Christmas Blueberry Muffins

By Angela Goodwin on December 16, 2011

Festive muffins that would be perfect for Christmas morning.

Today was the last day of school for my kids before the break, so they had class parties all day. I figured since they would be indulging on sweets all day it would probably be best to offer them something less sugary for today's treat of the day.

I just used a basic muffin mix. I only made mini muffins today, 

but this trick would work for full size muffins as well.

To get the festive colors on top I simply sprinkled colored sugar on 

top of the batter before I put them in the oven. 

Christmas Cookie Trio

By Angela Goodwin on December 15, 2011

Three Christmas cookies to give away as gifts.

It is the time of the season to bake cookies as teacher gifts. I found these cute shoebox sized gift boxes that I thought would be perfect for my kids teachers. To dress turn these ordinary boxes into something slightly special I added some cute tissue paper and a gold foil sticker. Awhile ago my mom got me an embosser that I use on my stickers that has my name on it. I think it is a cute personal touch, but even if you do not have a fancy embosser, the foil stickers do add a nice touch.

The three cookies I made for the gift boxes are: Oatmeal Butterscotch and White Chocolate Chip Cookies that I made at the beginning of this month, Snickerdoodles which I got the recipe from Crisco's website, and Chocolate Crinkle Cookies which I got the recipe from an ad in my Food Network Magazine.

The Chocolate Crinkle cookies are rolled in sugar first and then in powdered sugar.

The Snickerdoodles are rolled in a cinnamon sugar, 

but to make them festive I added colored sugar to the mix.

Christmas Cupcakes

By Angela Goodwin on December 14, 2011

Caramel filled cupcakes perfect for Christmas parties or class treats.

I decided to take a break from cookies and make some cupcakes. 

With so many class parties and Christmas potlucks, it is nice to bring in 

something yummy that is easy but still impressive.

I started with just a box cake mix.

I fill my cupcakes molds with about 1/3 cup of batter.

After they cool, I use an apple corer to remove a hole from the center.

I put some caramel icing inside, but you can use any kind of filling you wish.

One of the fillings I like to use is pudding, but I add whipping cream instead of milk.

Finally I ice the top with green icing. This is Wilton's Buttercream Icing. 

I use this all the time with great results. 

Thumbprint Cookies

By Angela Goodwin on December 13, 2011

Recipe Source: Kraft Recipes Thumbprint Cookies
This is one of my favorite holiday cookies

I have been waiting to make these cookies for awhile. My whole family loves them, but they also make great cookies to give away as gifts. I try to hold off making them as long as possible so that there is enough to give away.

If you are using the Kraft recipe I posted a link to, I will say that I substitute the 1 cup of chopped pecans for 1 cup of oatmeal. The few times I made it with the nuts I didn't like it as much. After I started using the oatmeal, the cookies just were much softer and yummier.

A lot of people who make thumbprint cookies say you need to roll them into balls before you press down into the dough. I find that using my dough scoop works fine. I do chill the dough for a half hour though, but I do that so it bakes better.

I like having a very uniformed center, so I use the back end of a measuring spoon. You will need to spray it down with non-stick spray every few cookies, but I think they turn out looking nicer.

I add about 1/2 teaspoon of preserves in my cookies. Today I used peach and strawberry. I have also done raspberry and apricot in the past with a lot of success.

Holiday Pretzel Treats

By Angela Goodwin on December 12, 2011

Recipe Source: Family Fun Holiday Pretzel Treats
A wonderful combination of salty and sweet make these treats very popular with the family.

I found this recipe quite a few years ago in the Family Fun magazine, and I have made them every year since. They are so yummy, but they are not hard to make. The process is a bit tedious, so if you can recruit your children to help that always makes it a bit easier. 

Here is what you will need. Square pretzels, M&Ms, and Hershey Kisses and/or Hugs.

Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper. Next line up as many pretzels as you can on the sheet. Place your Hugs/Kisses on top of the pretzels and put them in a warm oven. I usually put it on the lowest setting my oven has. This time I had to preheat my oven and then turn it off because my small British oven doesn't do super low heat. This method worked quite nicely. You only need to cook them for about 5 minutes.

When they come out of the oven press an M&M down on the center of the melted Hugs/Kisses. I suggest only doing one cookie sheet at a time because it could be very overwhelming to get all the M&Ms pressed down before they cool, unless of course you have recruited help.

Chocolate Covered Waffles

By Angela Goodwin on December 9, 2011

Last week my husband and I went out to our favorite little French cafe where we sometimes have tea, and I ordered a waffle off the dessert menu. It was so good; they had this nice crispy waffle served with a pear and rich chocolate ganache. I decided that I was going to try and duplicate that yummy waffle for one of my treat of the days.

I start with basic waffle mix.

I was so excited to see Nestles has dark chocolate chips now! I followed the directions on the back for dipping chocolate, which is really meant for strawberries but hey you can dip it in whatever you want. Then I spooned the chocolate on the waffles and let it drain. Admittedly this was tricker than I had envisioned because the chocolate got stuck in the waffle holes. I figured out it worked best when I let it drain on one said and flip it to drain on the other side. Of course I topped it with some homemade vanilla ice cream I had left in the freezer.

Christmas Tree Brownie Cookies

By Angela Goodwin on December 8, 2011

Today I was inspired by those Little Debbie brownies they sell this time of 

year that are in the shape of Christmas trees that have icing and sprinkles on top.

I started off with a brownie mix and my tree cookie cutter. I spread the 

brownie mix all over the small jelly roll pans I have and then 

cut out the tree shape after it is already baked.

To make sure I can get the brownies off, I line the jelly roll pan with parchment paper. First you need to lay out a sheet of parchment paper and trace the bottom of the pan with a pen. Next you cut out the paper on the inside of the pen mark. It is very important not to containment your food with pen! To get the parchment paper to stay in place on the pan just spray some non-stick cooking spray on the bottom of the pan. Make sure you spray the top of the parchment paper as well as the sides of the pan.

When the brownies were done I used my cookie cutter to get my Christmas tree shapes. 

If you rotate the direction of the tree you will find that you can get more trees out of each tray.

Since they were baked so thin, the brownies have the same qualities as a cookie.

I iced the cookies with ready made chocolate icing. However, I just use that as a 

base coat to hold on the fondant. Here in the UK we have fondant icing. 

It looks much like powered sugar, but you just add a 

little bit of water and you get fondant. 

As you can see I dyed the fondant green and rolled it out. The powder I used was just extra fondant icing, but you can use powdered sugar. Once the fondant was rolled out I just used the same cookie cutter to cut out the tree shapes. I used a cupcake spatula to gently remove these from the marble slab and to put on the cookie. Then I decorated them with Smarties and gummy stars.

Soft Ginger Cookies

By Angela Goodwin , December 7, 2011

Recipe Source: Colonial Williamsburg Tavern Bakery
This recipe comes from Colonial Williamsburg. Their bakery had simple cookies that were delicious.

We used to be future enough to live near Colonial Williamsburg for awhile, 

and we loved going to the Tavern Bakery to get their yummy cookies. 

Before we left I picked up a small recipe book that had all their baked goods recipes. 

Fortunately today, most of these recipes are on their website.

It seems I can't take many pictures now without my "model" trying to show off. 

I guess this is typical of a 2 year old. I will note that I substituted molasses for dark corn syrup. 

The cookies taste the same, but they just don't come out as dark.

I also grind my own nutmeg. I never really like nutmeg until I ground it fresh myself.

Once the dough was mixed, I dropped the scoop of cookie 

dough into a small bowl of sugar before baking.

Chocolate Chip Donut Holes

By Angela Goodwin on December 6, 2011

Using a simple muffin mix you can make these delicious donut holes.

My husband loves donuts and chocolate chip cookies, 

so I thought he would love these chocolate chip donuts.

To make these donuts you just need a muffin mix that requires you to just add water.

For this recipe I use only half of the required water to make the batter thick enough.

When you mix up the batter, it should have the consistency of cookie dough.

I use a cookie scoop to measure out the amount of dough to plop into the fryer.

I only fry these for a minute or two until the outside is done.

My husband loves cake donuts, but I find that when I keep them 

in the fryer until they are done then the donut sucks up too much 

oil and it tastes terrible.

I bake the donuts for about 10 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees so the centers are done.

Finally I roll them in powdered sugar as they are hot out of the oven. 

The sugar melts to them so it makes less of a mess when they are eaten.