Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

I love that these cookies are so easy to make.

The cookie dough does require 4 hours refrigeration, so factor that in to your prep time.

Once they’re out of the fridge, just roll them in balls dip them in sugar and bake.  Easy Peasy.

This recipe will also make at least 72 cookies.  Which is a GOOD thing!

Cranberry Orange Biscotti

I love this recipe.  So flavourful and so festive.

Gingerbread Biscotti

I looked through over a dozen Gingerbread Biscotti Recipes and this looked to be the best.  And it was !

I’m not much of a dunker, but I’ve heard they’re excellent for dunking.

Peanutbutterscotch Crunchies

I’m not sure where I found this recipe on the internet, but I’m glad I did.  It’s a goodie!

Three ingredient recipes are always keepers.

Snowflake Cake

Ok, so here it is… this was my backup cake in case my Rudolph Christmas Cake didn’t turn out.

I served this cake at a different Christmas occasion and it was LOVELY!

From the outside you’d never know what magic is on the inside.

The icing on this cake sets it apart from your normal basic butter cream or sugar icing.  The recipe for that is below.

The snowflakes were made from either white chocolate or candy melts, whichever you happen to have on hand. While still wet, I sprinkled white decorative sugar on them… I sprinkled just a few with some blue sprinkles, but given the chance, I wouldn’t do that again.. so take note!

 

 

When you cut this winter beauty, here is what it looks like inside.

Ingredients

1 pkg. (2-layer size) yellow or French vanilla cake mix

2 pkg. (4-serving size each) Jell-O Vanilla Instant Pudding, divided

6 squares Baker's White Chocolate or 1 pkg white candy melts

1/4 cup icing sugar

1 cup cold milk

3 cups thawed Cool Whip Whipped Topping

 

 

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Prepare cake batter and bake as directed on package for 2 (9-inch) round layers, blending 1 pkg. dry pudding mix into batter. Pour batter equally into two bowls.  Add enough gel food coloring ( I use Wilton) to each bowl to make red and green.  Bake.  Cool cakes in pans 10 min.; invert onto wire racks. Gently remove pans; cool cakes completely.

Meanwhile, draw 3 or 4 snowflake shapes on paper, ranging in size from 1 to 3 inches in diameter. Place on tray; cover with waxed paper. Melt chocolate as directed on package; cool 5 min. Spoon into small resealable plastic bag; cut small corner off bottom of bag. Trace over snowflake patterns with chocolate, rearranging patterns as needed to make a total of 35 chocolate snowflakes. Freeze 10 min. or until chocolate is firm. Carefully transfer snowflakes to plate; refrigerate until ready to use.

Beat remaining dry pudding mix, sugar and milk in large bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in Cool Whip. Place 1 cake layer on plate; spread with 1/3 of the pudding mixture. Cover with remaining cake layer. Frost top and side of cake with remaining pudding mixture. Decorate with snowflakes. Keep refrigerated.

*Adapted from Kraft Canada

Enjoy !

Christmas Rudolph Cake

Here is my Christmas Rudolph Cake.

Figurines were made ahead of time to allow for them to harden and keep their shape. Some figurines were made entirely of fondant, others were were fondant covered rice krispie treats.

The actual cake was tremendously delicious.  For this cake I used a doctored cake mix which you will find at the end of this post.  The doctored version of a cake mix makes more batter and gives the mix a denser texture needed for some fondant cakes.

To see the Fondant figures click HERE 

It was about this time during the cake assembly that I decided to make my back up cake !

But I kept trudging on, and I was pleased with the results.

Doctored Cake Mix for a denser cake

1 pkg of any kind of cake mix to which you add all of the ingredients called for on the box
In addition: 1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 cup softened butter 
2/3 cup water

Preparation:

Prepare your pan with spray oil as well as a fitted piece of parchment paper on the bottom.  Spray parchment paper with spray as well.

Beat the butter, then add all of the ingredients the cake mix called for and then all of the other ingredients. Blend on low for 1 minute, then 2 minutes on medium, scraping the bowl down. Generally, cook at 325F for the larger cakes, 350F for smaller and you will need to add baking time, perhaps about 10-15 minutes to the times given on the cake mix box. Check every  5 minutes or so.  You will get about 6 1/2 cups of batter from this recipe.  Deliciously moist, yet dense enough to work with.

Enjoy ~!

Rudolph Fondant Figurines

I’ve spent some time lately making these fondant figurines for this Christmas cake that I have planned (in my head).  Whether or not this cake actually turns out anything like I planned will be another story.

Here is a sneak peek of the Rudolph Characters that will be a part of the cake.

First we start with Hermie the Elf.  I made Hermie as if he was popping out of the snow bank when he first meets Rudolph, (and of course because he didn’t need a body that way).

Next, I did Sam the Snowman.. not bad.. a little rough around the edges, but I’ll fine tune him later.

 

Then, the Bumble.

At the time of this picture he had no arms or legs yet. He’s finished but you’ll see that when you see the cake.

Of course we needed Santa.

With my computer in the background, I keep a picture of the characters up on the screen while making the figurines.

Um… yeah, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed these characters bodies, but they seem to have gigantic bodies and toothpick legs. So there was no way little skinny branch legs were gonna hold up this fella, so yep, he’ll be stuck in the snow too!

Rudolph took me three different tries… so no pictures yet. I’ll post pictures of the finished cake when it’s done in a couple of days. Wish me luck…  without it, you just might see cupcakes posted instead.