Christmas Goodies

These are one of Martin's favorite holiday cookies! Since finding Paula Deen's recipe, I have made them for him every Christmas.

White Choocolate-Cherry Chunkies

1 stick Butter, softened

1 cup Brown Sugar

1 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 cups Flour (Possibly a bit more, if dough is not stiff)

1 tsp Baking Soda

½ tsp Salt

2 Tbs. Milk

1 cup chopped Macadamia Nuts

½ (to 1) cup candied Cherries

1 ½ cups White Chocolate Chips

*Preheat oven to 375.

*In medium bowl, cream butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Set aside.

*Sift together flour, soda and salt. Add milk to the butter mixture and then add the flour mixture. Mix just until combined. Batter should be stiff!!

*Add cherries, nuts and chips, stirring ONLY to blend. Drop by heaping tablespoons full onto a greased cookie sheet, 2 inches apart. Bake for 11-13 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

**We found it needed a bit more flour. Martin wanted more cherries.

**The baking time for us was more like 8 ½-9 minutes.

**Dependent on your weather, the dough needed to be refrigerated before baking and definitely in between batches, or it gets soft and sticky. At least it did in 2008, as it was HOT!!! This year, I had no trouble.

Pretzel logs dipped in various chocolates, caramels, etc... and then rolled or dipped in chopped peanuts, coconut, mini chocolate chips, white choc. chips, crushed Butterfinger bars, etc... then drizzled with more colorful candy making melts/chocolates. YUMMY!! We had these at our Christmas buffet, at our Family Christmas dinner 2 days later and finished them off at our New Year's eve party!


The is a Crescent Holiday Appetizer Tree (find it and the recipe at Kraftfoods.com) made for our family Christmas Buffet.
This tree is made from 2 rolls of Pillsbury Crescent dough (the recipe calls for 1, but it looked so small, so I doubled it. Impressive to see, but was WAY too much) Unwrap, but not unroll the dough. Slice into 16 thin slices. Arrange on a baking sheet in a triangle, with the final pc. being the trunk. Bake at 375 for about 10 minutes.
Spread with your choice of flavored cream cheese. Buy an 8 oz. sour cream and chive type or make your own blend. This one has a spicy chipotle mixture in it.
Decorate with strips of bell pepper for the garland and other chopped colorful veggies for the decorations/baubles. Such as broccoli, thin carrot slices, red or green onions, cauliflower, yellow bell pepper, etc...
I didn't have a tray large enough to serve iton, so I left it on the baking pan. Making it smaller next time!!

Pumpkin-Pecan Braid

Cake
3/4	cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1/3	cup packed brown sugar
1	teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8	teaspoon ground ginger
1/8	teaspoon ground nutmeg
1	egg, separated
1/2	cup chopped pecans
1	can (8 oz) Pillsbury® refrigerated crescent dinner rolls or crescent sheet
Glaze:
1/2	cup powdered sugar
2	to 3 teaspoons milk
1	tablespoon chopped pecans

*Heat oven to 350°F. Spray cookie sheet with cooking spray. In medium bowl, mix pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and egg yolk. Stir in 1/2 cup pecans.

*If using crescent rolls: Unroll dough onto cookie sheet; firmly press edges and perforations to seal. Press to form 13x7-inch rectangle. If using dough sheet: Unroll dough onto cookie sheet. Press to form 13x7-inch rectangle. Spread filling in 3 1/2-inch-wide strip lengthwise down center of dough rectangle to within 1 inch of ends.

*With scissors or sharp knife, make cuts 1 inch apart on long sides of dough rectangle just to edge of filling. Fold strips at an angle across filling, overlapping ends and alternating from side to side. Beat egg white in small bowl until foamy; brush over dough.

*Bake 20 to 30 minutes or until deep golden brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet; place on serving platter.

*In small bowl, mix powdered sugar and enough milk for desired drizzling consistency. Drizzle over warm coffee cake. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon pecans.

VERY VERY YUMMY!!
I made this for breakfast the first week of December.

Amish Friendship Bread

Here is the recipe that is circulating in Florida and probably other places as well. You can make your own "starter" by mixing 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar & 1 cup flour, place in a zip top bag and then follow the directions.

**Do NOT use metal spoon, whisk or bowls!
**Do NOT refrigerate starter.
**If air gets in the bag, let it out.
**It is normal for the batter to thicken, ferment & bubble.

___Day 1 This is the day you may receive that starter. Do nothing.
___Day 2 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 3 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 4 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 5 Squish/squeeze the bag.

___Day 6 Add 1 cup sugar, 1 cup flour and 1 cup milk (not skim). Put in a larger ziptop bag and squish the bag to mix.

___Day 7 Squish/Squeeze the bag.
___Day 8 Squish/squeeze the bag.

___Day 9 Squish/squeeze the bag.
___Day 10 In your large ziptop bag, add 1 ½ cups flour, 1 ½ cups sugar and 1 ½ cups milk and squish/mix well. Pour (4) 1 cup starters into 4 ziptop bags. Keep one for yourself and give the other three to friends along with the instructions. It is helpful to mark what day is DAY 1 on the bag.
*****************************************************
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 2 large loaf pans (or muffin tins-makes 2 dozen).

1 cup vegetable oil
½ cup milk
3 eggs, whisked
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
½ tsp baking soda
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 Tbs cinnamon
1 large box instant vanilla pudding

*You will want to use 2 mixing bowls ( I use a large one for the dry and my large 4 cup glass measuring cup for the wet)
*Mix your wet ingredients together very well. Sift your dry ingredients together in a seperate bowl. Slowly add the wet batter into the dry, stirring as you pour. Do not overmix, as your bread/muffins will not rise well (you create gluten).


*Mix an additional 2 Tbs cinnamon and ½ cup sugar in a separate bowl and sprinkle half of it into the bottom of your pans, then pour batter into pans. Sprinkle remaining sugar mixture over the top of each loaf.
*Bake at 325 degrees for 45-50 minutes (bread) and 23 minutes for muffins; or until toothpick comes out clean. Serve warm or cool.

*Options: add 1 cup chopped pecans, &/or raisins or dried cranberries.
*******************************************************************************

Just a few tips & hints for the Friendship bread, after we have made it for about 2 months now:

*You can add 1/2 cup of milk, sugar & flour on days 6 & day 10 (instead of the larger amounts) which will keep the amount of starter down if you don't have any more friends to pass it on to.

*You can replace the sugar with Splenda.

*You can use the sugar-free pudding.

*It calls for 1 cup oil. Applesauce is a good replacement for oil in baking, if you want to keep the calories/fat lower. I use 1/2 cup applesauce & 1/2 cup oil. Haven't been brave enough yet to just do all applesauce, as I think it might be too dry.

*I use silicone pans and you don't really need the sugar & cinnamon mixture in the bottom of the pan. It makes them sticky if not eaten asap.

*I make them as muffins rather than a loaf of bread. It makes 2 dozen. It takes them about 23 minutes to bake.

*You can use just about any "add-ins" that you like. Here are some I've tried:
*2 Mashed, really ripe bananas, walnuts and replace the vanilla pudding with Banana pudding.
*Craisins & pecans.
*Macadamia nuts, golden raisins, candied cherries & dried apricots. (I had leftover fruits from fruitcake at Christmas) Really yummy!
*Pistachio nuts, coconut & dried pineapple. DELISH! (I left out the cinnamon) (Tasted tropical)
*Chocolate chips, walnuts, replaced the vanilla pudding w/ chocolate and replaced the 2 tbs.
of cinnamon with 2 tbs. of cocoa powder. (We just made these today and they are really tasty. Chocolaty without being fudgy and heavy. Just needed 1 cup of chips and 1 cups of nuts and we used 1/2 cup of each) If made again, I would double the cocoa used.
*Fresh blueberries.

*Can be frozen. I usually freeze a dozen muffins and save for later. If they are all left out, a certain someone who I am married to would eat them all NOW.

My original recipe left me with some questions. I guess the way it was written out. So, I had to call my Mom and verify some things. Then, I retyped it. One thing that bugged me to death was how lumpy it gets when you add all of the dry & wet ingredients into the same bowl AND then can't use a metal whisk or mixer. I wore out my arm trying to get those stupid big lumps out! Finally after about 3 or 4 times of making it, I remembered to put my dry ingredients in one bowl and my wet in another and slowly add them/mix them together. TAH DAH! No lumps!