Merry Christmas!
What a whirlwind of a week!
We started off the week with a cookie decorating party with the cousins! Speaking of a whirlwind… 😉
The kids had so much fun!
Next came the Small Group Christmas Party. For that I prepped homemade vanillas for the adults, and M&M jars with the Christmas poem from U Create on them for the babysitters.
For the kids I got the idea for snowman building kits from Magically Made: 3 marshmallows, 2 pretzels, and some raisins!
I also set up a hot cocoa bar—delicious!
So unfortunately my second batch of microwave caramels didn’t turn out as good as the first batch. I think I let them sit in the pan too long (4 days) before wrapping them. But that’s ok! They still tastes good, just more like a spoonful of sugar than a caramel (all the sugar had crystallized and settled to the bottom of the pan). I didn’t want to throw them away—I absolutely hate wasting perfectly good ingredients like that—so instead I remelted them and stirred in crunched up Rice Chex (because I didn’t have Rice Krispies). I added green food coloring to make them more festive. Then I pressed them into Pam-sprayed tree plates.
For the final touch I popped them out of the plates once they’d cooled, drizzled chocolate across the tops, and let the kids decorate them with sprinkles! They turned out amazingly delicious!
This week’s neighbor gifts included mugs with collected small ornaments. Forgot to get a picture before I gave them away!
I did get pictures of Bean and Bird enjoying the fantastic dump of snow we got, though, before it dipped into the single digits!
Daddy and Bean even had fun shoveling!
For baking this week we made our ultimate fudge recipe! (See bottom of post.) This is hands-down the best fudge recipe in the world. It tastes like the inside of a 3 Musketeers bar—you know, the part you peel away from the chocolate coating, then ball up to eat last? (Does anyone else eat their 3 Musketeers this way?!)
What are you baking this year?
- 4 c sugar
- 1 12 oz. can evaporated milk
- 12 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 22 oz. milk chocolate chips
- 2 7 oz. jars marshmallow creme
- fillings: pecans, walnuts, candied bacon, candied ginger
- Line an 8x12 pan with plastic wrap.
- In a large pot (it'll boil up high so use something you'd cook noodles in), heat the can of evaporated milk and sugar. Heat on LOW, stirring every once in awhile.
- Bring to a roil. Let it roil for a full 8 minutes, no longer. Only stir a couple times at this stage.
- Remove from heat and immediately stir in all at once the marshmallow creme and both kinds of chocolate chips.
- Stir and stir until it's totally smooth.
- Pour into the pan and let cool. Once completely cool, you can pop it out of the pan and pull the plastic wrap off, then cut it into delicious chunks for sharing.
- Store in plastic wrap or a zip lock bag without air.