Choco-Cherry Christmas Mice

Kids, and adults will squeal with delight when they bite into these merry little mice!  

I borrowed this recipe from another room-mother at the kids school, years ago.  They're Christmas mice, made from Hershey's Kisses, and maraschino cherries dipped in melted chocolate chips.  I must thank the folks in Hershey for their Cherry Cordial Kisses.  What an awesome mouthful!


You'll need:
1 bag of Kisses (we use the Cherry Cordials, but you can use whatever variety you'd like)
1 jar of maraschino cherries, with stems
1 small bag of sliced almonds (for ears)
1 tube of red gel frosting (we like Wilton's glitter gel)
1 cup of Nestle's milk chocolate chips

Drain cherries, and wrap them in paper towel to absorb the remaining cherry juice.  You want your cherries as dry as possible.  Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.  Measure a cup of chips into a small glass bowl, and microwave at 70% power for 60 seconds.  Stir, and microwave a few seconds more to completely melt chips.  Don't overcook or the chocolate with burn.

Hold each cherry by the stem, and dip into the melted chocolate.  Quickly attach the free end of the cherry to the flat bottom of a Kiss, and place on the cookie sheet.  Continue until you've matched all the cherries and chocolates.


Pick through the almonds to find the pieces that look most like mouse ears.  Simply slip them into the tacky chocolate between the cherry and the Kiss.  Finally, use the gel to apply two eyes and a nose (the gel never really sets, so be careful when handling your finished mice).  Refrigerate to set.

To dispose of the mice, grab 'em by the tail, dangle over your tongue, bite and swallow!  Yummy in the tummy!


Note:  If you'd like, make white mice with white chocolate chips, and white chocolate Kisses.

Eggnog Trifle

I love serving a trifle at Christmas to cap off our traditional English menu of roast prime rib of beef and Yorkshire pudding.  If we've a big crowd, I make enough to fill my footed trifle dish.  When there's only a few of us, I think its fun to serve individual trifles in pretty crystal or vintage glasses. I even have a few special child-friendly glasses for the children!

To add a bit of extra flare, sprinkle in a variety of berries (fresh or frozen).  Another fun idea I've run across, is to bake the cake in a 13 x 9 dish, then slice sections vertically to about 1 inch thickness.  Use a cookie cutter to cut enough cake shapes to line the outside of a large glass trifle dish.  Proceed with cubing and layering as directed.  The cut shapes look so pretty from the outside.

Ingredient amounts vary according to how many you'll be serving.  The following will make six individual trifles.

1 box vanilla pudding mix (the cheesecake pudding works well too)
2 cups eggnog
1/2 pint heavy whipping cream
powdered sugar to taste
2 - 3 cups fresh berries, or frozen berries, thawed and drained

1/2 recipe of Eggnog-Spice Bundt Cake (2 - 3 cups cubed cake)

port wine, sweet sherry, madeira, or apricot brandy

Prepare pudding according to package directions, using eggnog instead of milk. Place plastic wrap directly on the pudding, and set aside.





Beat the whipping cream until stiff.  Add powdered sugar to taste.




Traditionally, a trifle is made by first soaking the cake with a sweet liquor, and then layering as follows: cake, fruit, pudding and whipped cream.  Dividing the ingredients into more layers, makes a more interesting and better tasting overall dessert.  Be creative!


For the above trifles, I started with a dollop of whipped cream, a large berry, a dollop of pudding, a few cubes of cake - sprinkled with your choice of suggested liquor (omit for the kids) - a spoonful of berries, pudding, more berries, whipped cream, cake (sprinkled with liquor), pudding and whipped cream.  I finished each trifle off with a blueberry on top!

For the children in the family, I make alcohol-free trifles in special holiday glasses (plastic, in this case)!

Chocolate-Covered-Cherry Cookies

Rich and gooey, chocolate goodness

I found this recipe while looking through my Aunt Lynn's recipe boxes, and was instantly intrigued.  My kids and younger cousins remembered them well as a staple at Christmas-time.  They're fun, and easy to make.  I was a bit daunted at the idea of putting frosting on an unbaked cookie, but the frosting seeps into the cookie during baking, giving the final product a fudge-like center.

2 (10 ounce) jars of maraschino cherries

1 cup butter, softened

2 cup sugar

2 large eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup cocoa

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups semisweet chocolate morsels

1 cup sweetened condensed milk

Drain cherries, reserving 3 teaspoons of juice.  Cut cherries in half, and set aside on paper towel lined plate.

In saucepan, melt chocolate chips in milk, over low heat, stirring occasionally.  Stir in 1 teaspoon cherry juice.  Remove from burner, but keep mixture warm. 

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy; add egg, vanilla, and 2 teaspoons of cherry juice, beating until well blended.  Combine remaining dry ingredients; gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture, beating after each addition, until well blended.  Dough will be heavy, but sticky. 

Using a 1 teaspoon measure, scoop dough and roll into a ball, using your hands.  Place on parchment lined cookie sheets, about an inch apart.  Press center of each ball with thumb, and place one cherry half in indentation.  They look so cute!

Spoon one teaspoonful of chocolate mixture, over each cherry half.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.  

Frosty, Pink Arctic Freeze

As festive as it is frosty!  

A good friend from Cleveland, gave me this festive recipe years ago, when my children were small.  It makes a lovely salad accompaniment to a holiday dinner, or serve it as dessert.  Either way, the kids will love it.

8 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sugar
1 can whole cranberry sauce
9 ounces crushed pineapple (I used a 15 oz can), drained
1 cup pecans, finely chopped (optional)
1/2 - 1  cup mini marshmallows
1 regular size container Cool Whip, thawed

Beat together the cream cheese, mayo and sugar.  Blend in the next four ingredients.  Fold in the Cool Whip.

Line a loaf pan (I use two small pans so I don't have to handle all at once) with large sheets of plastic wrap so the plastic drapes well over the outside of the pan.  Pat the mixture firmly into the corners of the loaf pan and level off the top.  Fold the wrap over the top (like a present).  Freeze overnight.  When ready to serve, carefully remove the frozen loaf from the pan by uncovering the top and pulling up on the plastic so the loaf slides out with the plastic (if you have trouble, quickly wipe the bottom and sides of the pan with a hot kitchen wash cloth, to loosen).

Remove plastic wrap and cut into 1/2 to 1 inch slices.  Serve on a lettuce leaf with a small dollop of whipped cream and a piece of maraschino cherry.

Thumbprint Cookies

Everyone loves a thumbprint cookie!  My mother's recipe calls for putting a dollop of buttercream in the center of a tender little butter cookie, rolled in pecans.  The size of the frosting dollop is dependent upon the baker and her sweet-tooth.


The best thing about thumbprints, is that the kids can help make them, as well as eat them!  Another 'quick and easy' baking project for kids.

Cookie Dough:
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups butter, softened
4 eggs, separated
4 cups flour
3 cups finely chopped pecans

Buttercream Frosting:
powdered sugar
butter, softened
few drops milk
1/4 teaspoon vanilla or almond extract

Cream together sugar, butter and egg yolks.  Add flour.  If dough is too soft to handle, chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Using a rounded teaspoonful of dough, form balls by rolling between the palms of your hands.  Dip each dough-ball into beaten egg-white.  Roll in pecans, and place on cookie sheet.

Make a thumbprint in the center of each dough-ball, being careful not to press too hard.  Bake for 8 minutes.  Remove from oven, and carefully reset the thumbprint if needed.  Bake 8 minutes longer, or until the pecans just begin to toast.  Don't let them cook too long, or the cookie will be dry.

When completely cool, fill centers with buttercream frosting.  I always tint the frosting with food color or the holiday.  These can be frozen, but flash freeze on a cookie sheet first to protect frosting.

Christmas Stars - Pinwheels

Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without these tender little fruit-filled pastries.

Traditionally, these Austrian pastries were made without any sugar at all.  Our family recipe was altered years ago, and today, each cookie is encased in a coating of crispy caramelized sugar.  Cut into the shape of pinwheels, my children always referred to them as Christmas-stars, as they made an appearance in our house only once a year, to celebrate the birth of Christ.


7 cups flour
4 teaspoons salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup Crisco shortening
1 package dry yeast
1 cup very warm (not hot) milk
4 eggs
3 cans Solo (or Bakers brand) apricot, plum, raspberry or strawberry pastry filling
lots and lots and lots of sugar
ground pecans

In a large bowl, combine flour, salt and baking powder.  Cut in the butter and shortening with a pastry blender (see Gadgets page) until mixture resembles meal (if you have a heavy-duty Kitchen-Aid Stand-Mixer, use it).

Heat milk until very warm "to the touch" but, not hot (liquid must be hot enough to activate the yeast, but not too hot, or it will kill it).   Add yeast, and stir until it is dissolved.

Pour yeast mixture into a small bowl, and add eggs, one at a time, beating after each.  Make a well in the center of the flour mixture, and pour the yeast-egg mixture into the center of the well.  Using a wooden spoon, or dough hook on a stand mixer, beat thoroughly until a heavy dough forms.

Coat a 13 x 9 glass dish with butter or shortening.  Pack the pastry dough into the dish and smooth over the top, so all is even.  Cover well with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.  When ready to use, cut the dough into even slices about two inches wide.  Remove a single slice for each batch of pastries, and return remaining dough to the refrigerator.

Line several large cookie trays with parchment paper.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cover a large pastry cloth with about 2 cups of sugar (dough will stick if you don't use enough).  Place a slice of dough in center and pat it into a rough rectangle.  Using a rolling pin, roll the dough (start from the center and roll outward, toward the ends) into a very thin sheet of pastry, maintaining the rectangular shape.

With a sharp knife or pastry cutter, cut away the jagged ends (throw these back into the casserole and refrigerate for later use) so you have a full rectangle. Carefully cut dough into 1 or 1 1/2 inch squares, by scoring in one direction, and then the other (forming a grid).

Put one dollop of pastry filling in the center of each little dough square.  Pull a fruit filled square from the rectangle, toward yourself, into a small mound of additional sugar (replenish sugar-mound as needed).  From the corners, cut into each square, towards the center of the filling - but not through the center.  Fold alternating corners into the center, pressing with the tip of the knife to seal (if you don't do this correctly, the points will pop up from the center while baking).

Place each little pinwheel on a parchment lined cookie sheet about 1/2 inch apart (cookies will rise slightly when baking).  Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes (depending upon size).  These burn easily, so watch and adjust time as needed.  Carefully remove individual cookies from parchment, to a cooling station, or carefully slide the parchment off of the cookie sheet (best accomplished with an extra set of hands) to the cooling station.

These delicate little pastries can be frozen.  Its best to place waxed paper between pastry layers.

From the scraps:  combine the scraps into one big sugary ball.  Roll out in more sugar (to prevent sticking), to form a rectangle.  Do not cut into squares.

Mix pecans, a little sugar and enough milk to form a paste.  Spread the pecan mixture over the rectangle.  Carefully roll the rectangle into a cylinder (from the long side).  Pinch open seam to seal.  Cut the cylinder into very thin slices (1/8 to 1/4 inch wide).  Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet, and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.  Watch carefully so they don't burn.

Cran-Raspberry Jello Salad with Mandarin Oranges

This is another pretty salad option for the holiday dinner table.  The jello adds just enough sweetness to offset the cranberries.

1 (6 ounce) package raspberry jello
2 cups boiling water
1 cup cold water
1 (16 ounce) can whole cranberry sauce
2 (12 ounce) cans mandarin oranges, drained (reserve liquid)

Stir gelatin into 2 cups boiling water.  Stir until gelatin is dissolved. Using a flat whisk blend cranberry sauce into hot gelatin, breaking up larger pieces with spoon.  Measure reserved liquid from oranges, and add cold water to measure one cup of liquid.  Add to gelatin/fruit mixture (the fruit juice adds a little extra flavor).  Add oranges.

Pour all into a jello mold, or an 8 x 8 dish, and stir so the fruit is well distributed.  Chill four hours, or until set.  Cut into serving size pieces, and garnish with whipped cream.

Tomato Pudding

Years ago, I had the pleasure of knowing a little British lady that was an English war bride. She'd immigrated to the United States with her Yankee husband after the Second World War, and brought with her, some wonderful old-world recipes.  This tomato pudding, traditionally served with a roast beef, is a wonderful addition to a Christmas dinner table.


1 cup brown sugar
1 cup tomato puree
1/4 cup water
2 cups dried bread cubes, crusts removed
1/2 cup melted butter

Keep an eye on your pudding while baking, as the high sugar content may cause it to burn.  Tent the casserole loosely with a piece of tin-foil, if you feel the pudding is getting to dark.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large saucepan, combine sugar, tomato puree and water.  Boil for one minute; reduce heat and simmer for five minutes.  Grease an 8 x 8 inch baking dish (or similar), and fill with the bread cubes.  Bake on middle rack for 45 minutes, or until the top is puffed and browned.

Cranberry Bliss Bars

Just looking at these blissful little bar cookies puts a smile on my face.  

I was feeling a bit blue, one warm December day in San Diego, when I stumbled upon these lightly spiced bar cookies in a Starbucks.  Their red-and-white color scheme caught my eye, and reminded me of Christmas.  I thought they were so festive and pretty, and was surprised that they tasted as good as they looked.  Apparently, I wasn't the only one that liked them.  I found this mock-recipe in the San Diego Union Tribune, a few years later.  I make them every year now, and they never fail to lift my spirits. 

Bars:
1 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 tsps orange extract
2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup white chocolate chips

Frosting:
6 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
4 cups confectioners sugar
1 tsp orange extract

Garnish:
1/3 cup dried cranberries, chopped
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
grated orange peel

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a jelly-roll pan (15 x10) with parchment paper.  Coat with cooking spray.

In a bowl, combine butter, sugars, eggs, and orange extract.  Cream well.  Add the dry ingredients, and stir to combine (don't over-mix).  Fold in the cranberries and white chocolate chips.  Spoon batter evenly, into the prepared pan.  Bake for 15- 17 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

In large bowl, beat cream cheese, butter, sugar and orange oil for frosting.  If needed, add a few drops of milk to thin.  Spread completely over the cooled bars.

Sprinkle garnish evenly over the frosted cookie, and cut into squares (about 40).  These freeze well.