Wordless Wednesday - Yummies
Oreo truffles… dipped in chocolate and covered in powdered sugar (recipe coming soon)
Truffles and butter mints (made into shapes)
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Merry Christmas… Chel’s Homemade Butter Mints
I made these one year on a whim, having found the recipe in the now-defunct “Rosie” magazine, and they were such a hit that they are now a holiday tradition.
My friend, Linda, gets butter mints every year for her birthday, and I’m pretty sure she’d be annoyed if I decided one year not to send them.
Chel’s Butter Mints
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tbs plus 2 tsp whipping cream
- 1 tsp peppermint extract (I eyeball it.)
- red and green food coloring
In a large bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add sugar, cream and extract. Beat until combined. The mixture will be very thick. If it seems too dry, however, drizzle in a bit more cream. If it’s too wet, add more sugar.
If you want two colors, divide the mixture in half. If not, go ahead and add the food color of your choice and mix until blended. If you’ll use a concentrated paste coloring, the colors will be more vibrant.
You can either pipe them into stars (very pretty) or use a cookie press and make straws with them (easy, what I usually do).
I’m also trying (this morning!) rolling the dough out and cutting the mints with tiny cookie cutters.
You’ll need to drop them onto wax paper and let them dry overnight. In the morning, you’ll carefully flip them and let the underside dry.
The outside will be dry and crispy with soft, creamy insides.
They’ll keep for several weeks if you can keep folks from eating them for that long.
(In terms of how long they’re shelf-stable and edible, Linda one time found a batch at the alumni house of the college where we both worked … they were left over from the holiday party a few weeks prior. She ate the whole thing & said she was fine.)
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Merry Christmas… the Santa Letters
Every year, I write letters from Santa to send to the kids. It started with my kids and grew to my kids and the cousins and grew to those kids and kids of my friends and grew and grew.
They’re pretty darned good, too, if I do say so myself. My nephew, Hayden, was talking with his mom, Stacy, and with Griff recently about how he knew about Santa but he couldn’t figure out who sent the letters. “Oh, that’s my mom,” Griff said. Must be pretty good if he was still confused about them.
I send a list of questions to all of the mamas on my list, and they answer the questions about each child. Then, I write a different letter for each kid with personal information. I print them on holiday stationery and send them in holiday envelopes with a return label reading “Santa Claus, North Pole.” A little holiday postage & we’re all good.
And now I’m thinking I’ll share…
If you’d like me to include your child in my list, I’ll be happy to do so. You’ll have to chip in a little bit for postage and stationery, but not much. Or if you’d like to make your own, I’ll post my list of questions for the mamas and daddies and then a sample of my letter.
Let me know if you’re interested.
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Merry Christmas - Holiday Happies
I love the holidays. LOVE them. Pretty much everything about them. And I’ve been thinking of how I could share my holiday love with all of you, corny though that sounds. (And yes, I know that ‘all of you’ is about 10 folks, most of whom love me in real life already. Whatever.)
So until Christmas, I’m going to try to share holiday happies with you, little treats for my bloggy friends like I send little treats to my real-life friends. I hope you enjoy them.
And for today’s happy, go have a yummy Starbucks drink for a worthy cause. Today, in support of World AIDS Day, Starbucks is donating five cents to the Global Fund for every hand-crafted beverage sold. So, go have a chai latte and know that you’re helping someone.
I’m thinking Eliza and I will leave early in the morning and stop on our way to work and school. Wish we lived near enough to each of you to have you meet us there.
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Any suggestions?
My folks went home early, leaving this afternoon instead of early tomorrow morning. We’ve put up some of the Christmas decorations and been lazy all afternoon. Griff and Eliza have both watched at least one Christmas movie already. We’ve got a bunch of favorites on DVD, and I’m adding Christmas movies to my Netflix list ,so I can see every single one available.
What are your favorite holiday movies?
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