Christmas Goodies....

**Rach75** · November 12th, 2007, 07:45 PM

Stained Glass Christmas Cookies
Ingredients:
250g butter, softened
2teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
½ teaspoon almond essence
¾ cup (165g) caster sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
2 1/4 cups (335g) plain flour
90g individually wrapped sugar-free fruit drops, assorted colours.

1. Preheat oven to moderate. Line two oven trays with baking paper.
2. Beat butter, rind, essence, sugar, egg, and the water in small bowl with electric mixer until smooth (do not overbeat). Transfer to large bowl; stir in flour. Knead dough on floured surface until smooth, cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate 30 minutes.
3. Meanwhile, using rolling pin, gently tap wrapped lollies to crush slightly.Unwrap lollies; separate by colour into small bowls.
4. Roll dough between sheets of baking paper until 4mm thick. Cut shapes from dough using medium-sized cookie cutters; use very small cookie cutters to cut the centre of each cookie.
5. Place cookies on prepared oven trays; bake, uncovered, in moderate oven (180-190 degrees celcius) for 5 minutes. Remove trays from oven; fill cut-out centre of each cookie with a different colour lolly. Return to oven for 5 minutes. Cool cookies on tray.

MG

hey MG what have I done wrong I followed your instructions but the dough is too soft to cut out shapes etc they fall to pieces when I try to move them

I have left the dough in fridge hoping you can tell me if it happens to you

I wanted to make them for mums group in the morning

**Snacks** · October 23rd, 2006, 03:53 PM

Melting moments are always a favourite with my family. I usually package them up in a 'tube' shaped package and tie a pretty ribbon at each end...
I have a recipe for triple chocolate fudge brownies, if that's not too much along with your evil fudge. They usually go down pretty well too.
Oh, and lemon butter is really nice as well if you have a double saucepan.
Those little mini christmas puddings that Kathryn was talking about look really effective as well. We used to cheat and buy ready-made puddings and just scoop it out and roll it into balls... Much easier.

**MrsFabuloso** · October 1st, 2009, 09:40 AM

Christmas is fast approaching....

**{sarah}** · November 13th, 2009, 06:08 AM

again!!

**Snacks** · November 13th, 2009, 06:24 AM

I'm going for peanut brittle this year! Read a recipe in Nigella's Christmas book and decided to give it a crack. The honeycomb recipe of three years ago is still fresh in my mind though, so who knows if I'll be able to pull it off, LOL!
What's everyone else's plans this year?

**~Kim~** · November 13th, 2009, 08:43 AM

ooh there's some great recipes in the BH&G for December. Thought I might give a few a go.

**MrsFabuloso** · December 19th, 2009, 06:14 PM

Some more yummy treats. The melting moments were seriously the most delicious things I have ever eaten, lol!! And sooo easy.

Passionfruit melting moments

Makes 30, cooking time 15mins

250g soft butter
1/2c pure icing sugar
1 1/2c plain flour
1/2c custard powder

1 Preheat oven to 160deg celcius or 140deg celcius fan forced. Line 2 baking trays with non stick baking paper.
2 Put butter and icing sugar into a bowl and use electric beaters to mix until combined well. Mix in flour and custard powder using the edge of a butter knife. Don't over mix the dough or the biscuites will be tough.
3 Roll teaspoons of the dough into small balls and place on the baking trays. Use the back of a fork to flatten them lightly and make a pattern on the top.
4 Bake for 15mins then cool on wire racks.

Filling:
60g butter
1/2cup pure icing sugar
1 tbsp passion fruit pulp

To make the filling:

1 Use electric beaters to mix the butter, icing sugar and passion fruit pulp.
2 Using a butter knife, spread some mixture onto one biscuit, then sandwich with another. Repeat until all biscuits are done.

**I also put a tiny bit extra of the passionfruit pulp into each bicky before I put on the icing because I didn't think there was enough flavour!

Spicy sugared nuts

Makes 4 cups

3/4c icing sugar mixture
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2tsp chilli powder
400g of nuts of your choice (I used almonds which were really yum!)
1 egg white lightly whisked

1 Preheat oven to 180deg celcius or 160 fan forced. Combine sugar cardamom, cinnamon, chilli, nuts and egg white in a bowl. Stir well to combine.
2 Line a baking tray with non stick baking paper. Spread nuts on the tray in one even layer.
3 Bake for 10mins or until golden brown. Cool completely on tray. Use a wooden spoon to break up and nuts that are stuck together.
4 Serve or store in an air tight container for up to 5 days.

**MrsFabuloso** · December 19th, 2009, 06:45 PM

Another packaging idea is to use the little chinese boxes with handles. You can get them from $2 shops cheaply. I got some for DD's bday for party bags.
Or how about using some decent quality plastic plates (like bbq/throwaway plates) and just pretty them up with cellophane and ribbons. I got some melomine (sp) plates from my local $2 shop for $1.50each to serve up my gift biscuits. I put some into little christmassy patty pans and put them onto the plates and wrapped them in clear callophane with a ribbon around it. Looked great!

Ohhh, another recipe for you all that I made the other day too...

Triple dipped choc strawberries

**This is just something I have made up so if I miss something in the 'recipe' or preparation just ask me!

I got two punnets of fresh strawberries. Chill them for at least an hour or so in the fridge.
Melt about 250g of white choc, dark choc and milk choc in large mugs(one at a time) in a big pot of lightly simmering hot water, filled enough to reach about 3/4 up the mugs. Be careful not to burn any of the chocolate!
Wash the strawberries and trim if you wish. Put the strawberries onto the end of skewers (one each).
Dip each strawberry into the dark choc, chill, dip into the milk choc, chill, dip into the white choc, chill. You have to chill them or the chocolate will all just drip off.
Make sure you have a large plate or something to stand the strawberries in in the fridge. I used some styrofoam that I had let here from packaging form our new airconditioner to stick the skewers into. Or I was also going to put them into a large gift box with the lid on and hole in it for the skewers.
These were soooo yummmy!!!!!! **DROOOOOLLLL**

**tk1999** · December 19th, 2009, 07:21 PM

I have started making my chrissie goodies... well the dough for the cookies at least LOL

**briggsy's girl** · December 20th, 2009, 09:08 AM

just wanted to post an observation on the peppermint bark - it was delish but the centre milk/bittersweet choc layer didn't set very well - i think it just has too much cream in that recipe. i'm going to make it again for christmas with no cream at all - i think it will work better...

**~Jayne~** · November 26th, 2010, 03:06 PM

Sarah, I don't know if anybody has mentioned this, as I'm on the fly & haven't had a chance to read through all the replies. But last night I tried Pumpkin Pie for the very first time. We are living in China atm & there is a huge American population where we are & being Thanksgiving yesterday, a lot of hotels put on wonderful buffet dinners - so we went along. I have never heard of pumpkin pie, nor ever tasted it but OH MY GOODNESS I have already googled & saved the recipe into my favourites to make when we are in Aus for Christmas! HTH!

**Jaycee** · December 16th, 2010, 02:48 PM

Does anyone have any idea how long the evil bb fudge will keep in the fridge for?

I've got a lot of baking to do and I'm trying to make a baking plan so I'm not in the kitchen for 24 hours straight

**Kazbah** · December 16th, 2010, 03:01 PM

Jaycee - for the stained glass cookies, you just use your favourite sugar cookie recipe, then cut out a hole or pattern in the middle of the biscuit before baking.

Buy some boiled lollies, seperate the colours and smash them to smithereens with a rolling pin in a plastic bag. Heap them in the cut-out of the biscuit and they will melt into the hole.

**Snacks** · December 19th, 2010, 07:11 PM

Does anyone have any idea how long the evil bb fudge will keep in the fridge for?

If it's in a covered container, it keeps for aaaaaages. I tend to make mine about 4-7 days in advance, mainly so that the shelf life is longer for the person who's getting it. But I've had fudge in my fridge for weeks and it's been lovely. (In an airtight container.)

I made Irish cream this year...

1C cream
1 tin condensed milk
1 and a bit C Irish Whiskey
1t vanilla
1t instant coffee (dissolved in a tiny amount of boiling water)
2T chocolate syrup.

It is really yummy and looks lovely in a pretty bottle.

**{sarah}** · October 23rd, 2006, 03:57 PM

Yes I think you are right there Cai. Sorry Mel. Should have known, she was the one in that thread all the time

**Lisa** · October 23rd, 2006, 04:08 PM

I have an easy fudge recipe;
3 Cups choc melts
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
40g unsalted butter
1x 395g can sweetened condensed milk

place choc melts, vanilla essence, butter and condensed milk in a pan, stir over low heat until melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
pour into a prepared 20cm tin, cover and refrigerate until firm.

My kids love this !!! and, they love helping to make it too.