Christmas Goodies

This year we did one of my favorite holiday activities- baking Christmas goodies.  Lucky for me, my good friend Kayle  & her sister decided to get crafty and join in the fun.

On the agenda are the following treats:

• Snowmen Sugar Cookies
• Snowflake Peppermint Candy
• Brownie Balls
• Dipped Pretzels

.... and possibly some wine drinking and snacking!!

First stop; pick up some more wine, last minute decor items, lunch & snacks.

Once in the kitchen it was baking time.  We started baking the sugar cookies & brownies.

As they were baking we started melting the chocolates for the brownie balls and snowflake candies.

Bake the Brownies using the non-cake method and after they cool, roll them into 1" balls. 

Then you dip them in the chocolate and decorate.  These were yummers and super cute!!

I didn't have many of these left to give out - note to self - make more of these.  Yummy!

For the melted snowman "look" I topped each cookie with royal icing.  Once it was set we then melted the marshmallows in the microwave for just a second to make them soft and then applied the semi-gooey mallows to the cookies and started decorating. 

• We used food-doodlers or food markers for eyes. 
• we used colored edible dots for buttons & noses. 
• We used colored icing tubes or gels for scarves. 
• Gels take a lot longer to dry (if ever) so if you need to stack them use an icing that will set like colored Royal or other candy icing.

The pretzels were super easy.... and this is when I think I finished my class of wine.... just dip them - then add sprinkles and lay on parchment paper to set.  These were fun and messy.  We found that smaller Jimmies and Dot Sprinkles stick best.  Do them over individual paper plates and you can pour the un-used sprinkles back into the jars.

 

The snowflakes peppermints were poured into snowflake molds with 1/2 chocolate and half peppermint flavored vanilla candy coating.  We then sprinkled crushed Peppermint on top.  They turned out super cute!!  But very sweet!  Maybe next year we'll make them a bit smaller.

It was a lot of fun making Christmas cookies and other treats with my fun friends! We've got a creative bunch here!!   I hope we can do something like this every Christmas!!