It's that time of year...

Goodie Plates!!!!  Someone commented to me that I make too many things, that they wouldn't go to all the work.  But then I thought.  If I only made a few things, but still took around the same amount of plates, there wouldn't be very many leftover's for me!!!  I'd rather make all my favorites (let's face it I was going to make them all anyway) and double the recipe (no extra time that way) and have plenty for plates AND my own enjoyment!  Plus it isn't hard, just time consuming, and OH so worth it!  So here is the set up around the island while I'm making the plates.

A sample plate.  I should have gotten bigger plates so I could have fit 3 of each thing (but that mean's less for me... hmmmm maybe these plates were the perfect size).  So we have (starting from the top and going counter clockwise) Sugar cookies, caramel brownies, candy cane marshmallows, peanut butter squares, almond brittle, sandies and chocolate pecan fudge.  I didn't get around to making truffles, but they wouldn't have fit on the plate very well.
 
And here is Tonight's round of plates.  I'm sure I'll be making some more (you always want one for that person that drops off a plate that you weren't expecting to so you can reciprocate right away) and Santa has to get one...  And since I know I'll get some request's for recipes see below.  I'll be posting each recipe for your enjoyment!  Merry Christmas!

Candy Cane Marshmallows

I have to give credit to Martha Stewart for this one! You can find it on her site here. They turned out great. My 2 1/2 year old can't stop eating them and they are great in my homemade hot chocolate. Pretty too! I'm not sure if I am allowed to reproduce it here so if someone knows one way of the other just tell me. For now here is the recipe (in her words, not mine- I like my recipes short and to the point).

Candy Cane Marshmallows
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
4 packages (1/4 ounce each) unflavored gelatin
3/4 teaspoon peppermint extract
2 large egg whites
2 teaspoons red food coloring
1. Coat an 8-inch square pan with cooking spray; line bottom with parchment paper. Coat the parchment with cooking spray, and set pan aside. Put sugar, corn syrup, and 3/4 cup water in a small saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring, until sugar is dissolved. Stop stirring; let mixture come to a boil. Raise heat to medium-high; cook until mixture registers 260 degrees on a candy thermometer.
2. Meanwhile, sprinkle gelatin over 3/4 cup water in a heatproof bowl; let stand 5 minutes to soften. Set the bowl with the gelatin mixture over a pan of simmering water; whisk constantly until gelatin is dissolved. Remove from heat, and stir in extract; set aside.
3. Beat egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until stiff (but not dry) peaks form. Whisk gelatin mixture into sugar mixture; with mixer running, gradually add to egg whites. Mix on high speed until very thick, 12 to 15 minutes.
4. Pour mixture into lined pan. Working quickly, drop dots of red food coloring across surface of marshmallow. Using a toothpick, swirl food coloring into marshmallow to create a marbleized effect. Let marshmallow stand, uncovered, at room temperature until firm, at least 3 hours or overnight. Cut into squares.

Sugar Cookies

These are actually from my Grandma Houghtaling. My mom talks about how she always had some of this dough in the freezer ready for a batch. But since my mom and her siblings would sneak some every so often that by the time Grandma pulled out some dough there wasn't much left. I have about 120+ different cookie cutters and my kids and I make these cookies for EVERY holiday. My husband complains that the peppermint icing should only be for Christmas so I do experiment with other flavors, but my favorite is still the peppermint I grew up with. I use these 13x20 pans for my kids to decorate on, it catches the extra sprinkles which I pore into a misc sprinkle bag that they love to use up, you can see the misc sprinkles on the trees above.

Sugar Cookies
3 ¼ C flour
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. baking powder
½ C Butter and margarine
1 C sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
½ C thick sour cream
Sift flour, soda, salt, nutmeg and powder. In separate bowl cream butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, sour cream. Mix in dry ingredients. Chill in fridge for 3-4 hours roll out to 1/4 inch cut into shapes. Cook at 350 for 15 mins

Frosting
4 ½ C powder sugar
¼ C milk
1/3 C butter
1 ½ tsp vanilla
1 tsp peppermint extract
Food coloring (optional)
Mix butter, powdered sugar, milk, vanilla and peppermint add more milk if needed

The secret is in the thickness of the cookie's, don't be stingy when you roll them out. The dough can actually stay good in the freezer for months (if it last's that long without being eaten!). For icing flavors I've tried almond and been happy with it, and even substituted some of the milk for a flavored creamer and had success. So ENJOY! The decorating possibilities are endless.

8th birthday cake

One of the fun things about being here in UT again is that I get to see and visit lots of family and friends. Today was my college roommate's oldest daughters 8th birthday! It was fun to not only get to see her and her kids again (our kids are each just months apart!) but I got to make the cake! The design was all from the mind of this sweet little 8 year old, and she knew just what she wanted, mint cake for one layer and chocolate chip for the other.

For carving a Wonky cake it's best to have a nice dense cake, so I picked a peppermint pound cake, with mint ganache to hold it together. The pound cake was surprisingly good, but the mint ganache was a bit too much. The Chocolate chip cake gave me a major headache. I haven't been happy with my normal chocolate chip recipe, just too dry, so I decided to search around for something better. I found a great recipe, but after taking out the first batch it fell and was raw in the middle. But the taste was just great! So I made the same one again, cooking it longer, and it completely imploded in the oven! So I finally switched recipes, and actually forgot to try it. So I hope it was okay, the kids seemed to like it. And it was very similar to the first recipe, but I think a bit dry. I'll have to try a batch just for myself to see if it's truly a keeper or if the search goes on!