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Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category

Gingerbread Bars

Posted in Christmas, Desserts, Holiday Recipes, Holidays, tagged , , on December 22, 2010| 5 Comments »

 

gingerbread barsYears ago, I tasted gingerbread cookies and fell in love! The spices, the molasses, the soft chewiness.

Absolutely delightful.

I embarked on an adventure of finding a recipe to make my own. What I ended up with was a recipe for cut-out gingerbread cookies that was delicious but very involved and not a lot of fun to make.

Then, a few weeks ago, I attended a cookie exchange party and my tastebuds did a happy dance over some amazing gingerbread bars. I quickly abandoned plans to make my cut out gingerbread cookies and instead made the bars.

Even Hubby, who generally turns up his nose at most sweets, was impressed. Yeah, they were that good.

Ingredients

Mix flour, baking soda, salt and spices together and set aside.

Spray your pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Whip out your parchment paper (you can get it at kitchen supply stores and some grocery stores).

Line the pan with parchment then spray it with non-stick cooking spray.

Cream together sugars and the butter until pale and fluffy.

Add vanilla and molasses.

Gradually add in flour mixture.

Spread in the pan and bake for 25 minutes or until edges are golden brown.

Bars hot out of the oven. Leave in the pan until completely cool.

Frost with cream cheese frosting.

Cut into bars.

Top with pecans.

Yum!

Gingerbread Bars

2 3/4 cups flour

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

2 1/2 sticks butter

1 1/4 cups packed light-brown sugar

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1/3 cup unsulfured molasses

Cream Cheese Frosting

Glazed Pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 17 x 12 inch rimmed baking sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Line bottom with a piece of parchment, cut to fit. Coat parchment with spray.

Whisk together flour, baking soda, salt and spices.

Soften butter and then beat on medium-high speed with sugars until pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add in vanilla and molasses. Reduce speed to low and gradually add in flour mixture then beat just until comvined.

Spread batter into prepared pan. It seems like you won’t have enough batter to fill the pan, but you will, keep spreading. Bake until edges are set and golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool completely in pan.

Remove from pan, frost with cream cheese frosting and cut into 2-inch squares. Top each square with a glazed pecan.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 box powdered sugar

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 tsp. vanilla

Combine all ingredients until smooth and creamy.

Enjoy!

Happy Holiday Entertaining!

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Sugar Cookies

Posted in Christmas, Desserts, Entertaining at Home, Holidays, Recipes, tagged , , on December 17, 2010| 4 Comments »

Most everyone has a favorite cookie recipe and this is one of mine. I make this for Christmas every year and have been seen I was about 17.

I loved to bake when I was a kid and received my first Easy Bake oven when I was 5. That was a great Christmas. I remember whipping up something to give to my grandma who had come to stay with us for the holiday.

Experimenting with recipes was something I did, and still do, enjoy. It was this love of experimenting that led me on a quest for  the best sugar cookie when I was in my early teens. It had to be soft and moist, light and flavorful. After many, many trials and errors, I came up with this recipe that never fails to deliver soft, delicious cookies.

In fact, when I made them last night, Captain Cavedweller wandered in as I was pulling the last tray from the oven. Before I knew what had happened, he inhaled eight of  them, some before they were even frosted. For someone who rarely eats sweets, he was really going to town on them. I had to stand guard over the rest just to get them frosted!

Give them a try and let me know what you think. And hopefully you can get most of them frosted and decorated before they disappear!

Ingredients for Sugar Cookies

Cream butter and sugars.

Add in eggs, vanilla and lemon juice.

Mix together dry ingredients and add gradually to creamed mixture.

Chill dough, once mixed, for about an hour.

When you are ready to roll out the dough, make sure your surface is adequately floured. The dough can be a bit sticky.

Cut out your favorite shapes. Mine would be snowflakes!

Pop into the oven and bake until just set - about 6-8 minutes.

Let cookies rest in the pan when you remove from the oven for just a minute before moving to a wire rack to completely cool.

Frost and...

Enjoy!

Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

dash of lemon juice

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 1/2 cups flour

Frosting

Cream together butter and sugars. Add in eggs, vanilla and lemon juice. Mix dry ingredients together and gradually add into creamed mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Generously flour a flat surface and your rolling pin. Scoop out half the dough and roll until about 1/4 inch thick. You want to work fairly quickly at this point because the warmer the dough gets the stickier it becomes and you don’t want to add more flour. Cut into shapes and bake about 6-8 minutes or until cookies are just set. You do not want them to get brown at all. Cool in pan for one minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool completely. Frost and decorate then watch them disappear.

You can use a royal icing if you are of a mind to stir up a batch or, if you are a lazy slug like me, I whip out a can of Betty Crocker vanilla frosting and frost away. I also like to use decorator gels, especially the sparkly variety, along with sprinkles!

Enjoy!

Happy Holiday Entertaining!

The Cookie Guardian

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Hot Chocolate Station

Posted in Christmas, Easy Recipes, Entertaining at Home, Entertaining Ideas, Holidays, tagged , , on December 14, 2010| 5 Comments »

Baby, it’s cold outside… and one of the tastiest ways to warm up is with hot chocolate. If you are hosting a gathering, think about setting up a self-serve hot chocolate station. This allows your guests to get a cup of hot chocolate created the way they want it and adds a bit of fun to your party.

Start by setting up an area dedicated to your hot chocolate station. Make sure you have plenty of mugs available and within easy reach.

A beverage server like this one keeps drinks hot (and cold) for a good hour or two.

 

You can either mix up chocolate and put in carafes or beverage servers to keep warm or simply have hot water and let your guests mix their own chocolate.

If you are mixing the chocolate, it is easy to do with a can of chocolate mix. If you plan to let them make their own, hot chocolate packets keep things neat and simple.

Have a tray full of goodies they can add into their drinks like marshmallows, whipping cream, peppermint and cinnamon sticks, mini chocolate chips, and sprinkles.  You can also have flavorful extracts or liqueurs to add in. Let your imagination run wild!

Make sure you have plenty of spoons and napkins handy.

One really fun thing to do is to put marshmallows on peppermint sticks, dip in yummy chocolate and top with sprinkles to stir into warm mugs of liquid deliciousness.

Here's what you need to make Marshmallow Peppermint stirrers.

 

 

Mount the marshmallows on the peppermint sticks. I like the soft sticks rather than candy canes.

 

Dip Marshmallows into melted chocolate. Just follow directions on the dipping chocolate. So simple!

 

Put sprinkles into a shallow bowl.

Then dip away!

 

Ready for a cup of delicious hot chocolate!

Happy Holiday Entertaining!

She Who Loves Chocolate

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Seven-Layer Bars

Posted in Desserts, Entertaining at Home, Holiday Recipes, Recipes, tagged , , , on December 12, 2010| 1 Comment »

One of my favorite treats to make (Ok, I will admit it – eat) during the holidays is Seven-Layer Bars.

These are so easy to make and taste so delicious. People will think you have slaved over them when it is really so simple. The first year I made these my youngest niece, the one who got stuck wreath making with me, nearly floundered on them. Yes, they really are that good.

Last year, I took my two grand-nieces for a day of shopping and fun. We ended up eating lunch at a restaurant that offered the most wonderful dessert – a warm Seven-Layer Bar topped by vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. I thought I would melt in a puddle right there and the girls would have to find a ride home. I only half-melted because Katie, who shares my chocoholic genes, wanted a bite and then promptly inhaled the rest of my treat. Sweet little whippersnapper. Pulling out cute smiles and warm hugs while she steals my chocolate. My gracious goodness.

Anyway, here is the recipe! Enjoy!

 

Ingredients

 

 

Melt butter in the pan in the oven.

 

 

Top butter with graham cracker crumbs. Since I'm a lazy slug, I save the graham cracker packages from cheesecake mixes because they have just the right amount of pre-crushed graham crackers for this recipe (cheesecake filling goes in store-made graham cracker crusts, of course!).

 

 

Up next - sweetened coconut.

 

 

Chocolate chips followed by butterscotch chips make the next two layers.

 

 

Here come the pecans. If you have whole nuts and don't own fancy nut-crushing kitchen tools, a meat tenderizer and a ziploc bag do a bang-up job!

 

 

Finish it off with the sweetened condense milk. Remember, do not stir!

Seven-Layer Bars

 

Seven-Layer Bars

1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp. butter

1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs

1 cup coconut

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup butterscotch chips

1 cup chopped pecans

15-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Put butter in a 9 x 9 or a 11 x 7 inch baking pan. Put into oven and let melt. When it is melted pull out and top with ingredients in the following order: graham crackers, coconut, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, pecans, sweetened condensed milk.

DO NOT STIR! REPEAT – DO NOT STIR!

Just layer the ingredients and then place in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until bubbling and brown.

The smell will be heavenly when you pull them from the oven.

Cut into small squares because these babies are rich. Serve alone or with ice cream and caramel sauce. Just make sure no chocolate-thieving 7-year-olds are around!

Happy Holiday Entertaining,

The chocolate-less aunt

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