I’m doing the Christmas sweets thing this year. Anybody have any recipes to suggest? I’m going to make toffee, peanut butter conflake candy, fudge, lemon bars, peanut butter cookies, date orange bars, divinity, and anything else that catches my fancy. Anything else i should try?
Polish “bow tie” cookies – krusciki.
IMHO, best fried though there are recipes for baked cookies. Here’s one recipe for krusciki
Then you can do it Martha’s way
Happy holidays!
My dad just sent me some candy that might be homemade. He called them “turkey bones”, and they do look sorta like bones. It’s chocolate on the inside (about the consistency of Oreo filling) with a few almonds for the “knuckles” I guess, all covered in this white hard sugary coating. I’m looking for a recipe now, but I’m not coming up with anything. Has anybody heard of this? I’d love to try to make it.
Oh, and have you thought about making peanut brittle? That’s my favorite christmas candy to make.
Anyone care to share any fudge or peanut brittle recipes? As for me, I’m trying a whole mess of cookies from the Fine Cooking holiday baking issue, plus some old school favourites like molasses cookies (which end up something like a cross between a ginger bread and cake. Love 'em!)
Now If only I could just focus on looming final exams and not cookies for a few days here…
Fudge Ecstasies
Hubby just made these up. I normally hate chocolate cookies because they are not chocolately enough. These are great.
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chopped nuts
- In a heavy medium saucepan combine 1 cup of the chocolate chips, the unsweetened chocolate and butter. Cook and stir over medium-low heat until melted. Remove from heat.
- Add the eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla and baking powder. Beat until combined, scraping sides of pan occasionally. Stir in the remaining chocolate chips and the nuts.
- Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2-inches apart onto a greased cookies sheet.
- Bake in a 350F (175C) oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until edges are firm and surfaces are dull and slightly cracked. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
I don’t know how to make candy, but I remember a Christmas candy from childhood. Those hard little candies, various colors, with a design in the center, like a cross, for example. They must be chopped from a long roll, like salt-water taffy. Sort of like the Tootsie-Roll Pop.
“One…two…three…[CRUNCH!!]\ …uh, three.” 
This recipe has been in my grandmother’s family since she was a little girl. She doesn’t remember not ever having it around at the holidays. We don’t know where the name came from either, it’s just one of those things that are.
Recommendations first. You need either a tough electric mixer or someone with an arm that can take a lot of stirring. Grandma says that “in the old days” the women would shanghai the guy with the strongest arm. And you can, I suppose, use nuts other than the black walnuts in the recipe, but it wouldn’t be our tradition! I tried it once with pecans and it was tasty but not quite right for us.
Boston Cream
3 cups white granulated sugar
1 cup clear corn syrup
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup black walnuts, chopped
1 teaspoon vanilla
Combine sugar, syrup and cream in a heavy saucepan and, stirring until it boils, cook to the soft ball stage(about 236 degrees Farenheit, or 113 Celsius) Remove pan from heat and beat long and hard intil the mix is smooth and lightened in color. Just before it sets up add nuts and vanilla. Smooth into an eight inch square pan or nine inch round cake tin. Pan should be very lightly greased. By this time you can pat it smooth with your hand, if you find that easier than a spoon or spatula. Chill in the refrigerator, and when firm cut into squares, like fudge.
This stuff is really rich, so we tend to cut small pieces.
Well… Spritz cookies are good, as are pineapple cookies (or use mandarin oranges instead of pineapple). Brownies of all kinds are great. Scones, muffins, breads… the list goes on and on.
For the Sprtiz cookies, you’ll need a spritz press (I’ll be you didn’t see that one coming!). There’s a bunch of different recipies here, most of them variations on the traditional butter-based.
<< Yum! >>
You can buy some turrón.
Here are my favorites. Both recipes have been in my family for a couple of generations:
Anise Cakes/Springerlys
1 lb powdered sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp anise oil (NOT extract!)
½ cup melted butter
3 to 4 cups all-purpose flour (amount needed varies, depending on size of eggs)
Beat eggs, add powdered sugar, mix, then add the butter and beat on medium-high speed until mixture is thick and creamy and loses its gloss (this takes at least 5 minutes!). Add the baking powder and anise oil and mix, then slowly add the flour – you need to add enough to make a VERY stiff dough.
Turn the dough out onto a floured surface, and roll out with a rolling pin until it is about ½ inch thick (don’t roll dough too thin). Cut cookies – they should be about the size of a 50-cent piece. Bake at 350 F for about 10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies just start to turn brown. After cookies cool, store in a tightly sealed container to keep them from becoming too hard.
Variation: Springerlys – After cutting cookies, let them sit on the cookie sheet overnight in a cool room before baking (cookies will be puffier after baking)
Orange Spritz Cookies
2 ½ cups sifted flour
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp cinnamon
1 cup butter, softened
1 3oz package of cream cheese, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp vanilla
grated orange rind (1 tsp or more)
Sift together flour, salt, and cinnamon, and set aside. Cream butter and cheese, add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Beat in egg yolk, vanilla, and orange rind. Gradually blend in the dry ingredients.
Fill a cookie press and form cookies. Top with colored sugar, if desired. Bake on a non-stick cookie sheet at 350 F for about 12 minutes (edges of cookies should just turn brown). Cool on a wire rack, then store in a sealed container.