Holiday Baking

Monday I decided I wanted to bake some holiday goodies and when I say bake I mean BAKE, baking is not taken lightly around here. When I get in the mood it's a marathon event.  Want to see what I was inspired to make?

I first started off with cookies: Cherry Oatmeal Bars by Cooking Light, followed by Mocha Toffee Truffle Cookies and Ricotta Cookies both by Twillypop.

I forgot to take a pic of the cookies before packaging, please use your imagination

Then I moved on to candies. YUM! With a little help from Pinterest I made these Almond Toffee Bites by Shugary Sweets, Caramels by Better Homes and Gardens, my famous Peppermint Bark which is a modified version of Paula Deen's recipe. I then felt like experimenting a bit more and tried a Butter Toffee Crunch recipe I found in my Better Homes and Gardens red plaid cookbook.

Peppermint Bark via Paula Dee and Almond Toffee Bites via Shugary Sweets

Now here is what I learned from making these candies, as the toffees and caramel was new to me.
1. Caramel takes patience, lots and lots of patience especially if you don't read the whole recipe before starting to catch that there is a short cut available. Yeah sitting at a stove stirring caramel for over an hour not that much fun, sorry to say.
2. DO NOT think its smart to add almonds into the toffee, its ruins the mix and its a big useless waste of money :( Yeah still not happy about that "genius" idea
3. Silicone is your friend, seriously find a coupon to your local craft store and buy some! I loved my mini square bites for the Almond Toffee Bites, soo sooo easy.
4. The ingredients you put in really do make a world of difference. I splurged and used my homemade vanilla extract in all the goodies and let me tell you, you CAN taste the difference. I don't think I will ever go back to store bought vanilla extract again.
5. MEASURE. I am not a big measurer, even in baking but with candy making it is a MUST! I kid you not that me and my kitchen scale are BFFs when it comes to candy making.

I am thinking next year I'll try and do all the baking during the weekend, package up Sunday night and mail off goodie boxes on Monday. That's right I am mailing off 6 lovely packages to close family and friends.

And with that I bid you a Merry Christmas!