Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Holidays 2010

Christmas is over for another year. I have been so busy and unmotivated that I have not been posting anything. I did make some great goodies this year that everyone loved. I am glad that I decided to go the food gift route this year because we had no money and no time for store-bought gifts.

This year I made Fruit Gelées from Not So Humble Pie. These were my great triumph this year as I had never made anything like it before. They came out perfect! I want to make them again and again because it was so easy and so awesome. I did take some photos with my phone so they are only ok.



By the way, do not do what I did and scatter extra sugar on the bottom of the container. Even though I *know* sugar sucks up moisture (after watching years of Good Eats how could I not know!) I added more to the bottom. Two days later when I was ready to make up my gifts there was a layer of goo at the bottom because the sugar and moisture in the air made a thick syrup. I salvaged as much as I could, not wanting to give my friends sticky candy, and only threw out about a third of what I made.

I am very excited to try making these again. I need to find a good place to buy pectin at a reasonable price because I don't think more than $5 a box is reasonable when I need two for the recipe.


My gifts this year had a yellow theme apparently. Also included in my gift boxes this year were these Lemon Burst Cookies. These cookies were delicious and delightfully fragrant. I do not own any fruit extracts so I made up the difference with extra zest and extra juice. The photo for these came out better than the candy photo.



Unfortunately I over baked one batch of these cookies. Fortunately it didn't make much of a difference in taste, they were just a bit darker. These were a big hit and I recommend anyone who enjoys lemon to make them. Also it is a good idea to chill the dough before rolling in the powdered sugar, it will be less sticky.

You have to have fudge for Christmas. I think it is a rule somewhere. I tried two fudge recipes. One failed and one surpassed my expectations. The first recipe I tried was Chocolate Philadelphia Fudge which sounded great. Why not replace the marshmallow creme with cream cheese, sounds delicious, right?

This did not come out right at all. If you click on the link and check out their photos, it looks like real fudge. Here is a photo of how mine looked.



It came out really light colored and did not set up at all. Furthermore it didn't taste very good which is odd because it is basically chocolate cream cheese frosting. I don't know what I did wrong but even freezing this fudge didn't help. I had to throw it out. If anyone decided to make this, please let me know the result.

My second fudge recipe came on the back of a baking bar that I bought to make the Philly fudge with. I do not remember the company but I think it was Tollhouse or Nestle. Here is the recipe for the fudge, it is very simple.

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk
8 ounces semi sweet chocolate, chopped*
1 teaspoon vanilla.

Combine condensed milk and chocolate in a microwave safe bowl.
Microwave on high for one minute**
Stir and microwave 15 seconds more if needed.
Stir in vanilla a pour into an 8X8 pan lined with foil***
Refrigerate at least 2 hours until firm.

*I used chocolate chips because that is what I had on hand
**Don't worry the chocolate won't burn
***The recipe calls for a loaf pan but I felt that would make really thick fudge so I used a larger pan

Sadly, I have no photos of the yummy fudge but it did come out excellent and is my new favorite recipe. I used it to make, not only regular fudge, but chocolate mint fudge as well by using the dark and mint chips from Nestle. They were very well received.

I hope everyone had a great holiday and great food!

Sam


1 comment:

  1. what an awesome blog! I can`t wait to see your future posts! :)

    have a great time,
    Paula

    ReplyDelete