Christmas Baking

Robin came over last night and we did some Christmas baking.

I think I've sold her on the Kitchen Aid. She was even able to talk on the phone while mixing :)

We made peanut butter fudge, pretzel M&M kisses, and peppermint pinwheel cookies (… that didn't turn out great. We didn't like the "peppermint" extract that was required… reminded me of a toothpaste flavored cookie. Yuck. And they were the hardest, most time consuming thing we made all night… isn't that the way it goes!!)

Ingredients for peanut butter fudge:

1/2 c. butter

2 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. milk

1 c. peanut butter

1 tsp. vanilla

3 c. powdered sugar

Directions for peanut butter fudge:

Melt butter in sauce pan.

Stir in brown sugar and milk.

Bring to a boil and boil for 2 minutes--stirring constantly

Remove from heat and stir in pb and vanilla.

In mixer, mix in powdered sugar until smooth.

When finished, press into dish-lined with wax paper.

Put in refrigerator to chill.

Remove fudge by pulling up wax paper and cut fudge in squares.

Ingredients for pretzels:

bag of square pretzels (not butter flavored)

bag of Hershey's kisses--the recipe called for Hugs but I couldn't find them, so we used cookies 'n cream kisses instead

bag of milk chocolate M&M's, red and green for Christmas! :)

Directions for pretzels:

Preheat oven to 200 degrees.

Line a cookie sheet with wax paper.

Align pretzels on cookie sheet in a single layer then top each pretzel with one Hershey's Hug chocolate. Bake in preheated oven for 4 - 5 minutes, until the chocolate is shiny and soft (but NOT melting, the chocolates should still hold their shape).

Remove from oven and carefully place one M&M in the center of each soft Hug and press down on M&M to spread the chocolate. Place in refrigerator and allow to rest until chocolate has set, about 5 minutes.