Homemade Christmas Cookie Trays

Recently I had to do 15 Christmas Cookie  Trays.  The pictures are taken with a cell phone, I did these at my daughters and we had to use her cell phone to take the pictures.  Nevertheless, these turned out very nice.  Client was happy and so was I with the results.  I will post the cookies and the recipes.

Ritz Dips!

Ritz Crackers

Peanut butter

Chocolate

Spread peanut butter between 2 Ritz crackers.  Dip crackers in melted chocolate and let sit until chocolate is dry.  Decorate top of cookie if desired.  Quick & Easy!

Christmas Tree Squares

Image by: Land O Lakes

Recipe by: Land O Lakes

Christmas Tree Squares

3/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup Land O Lakes® Butter, softened

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 Land O Lakes® All-Natural Egg

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

Frosting

4 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup Land O Lakes® Butter, softened

1 teaspoon almond extract

3 to 4 tablespoons Land O Lakes® Half & Half or Fat Free Half & Half or milk

Red and green food color

Directions

Heat oven to 375°F. Combine sugar, 2/3 cup butter, milk, vanilla and egg in large bowl. Beat at medium speed until creamy. Reduce speed to low; add flour, baking powder and salt; mix well. Spread mixture into ungreased 15x10x1-inch jelly-roll pan. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until set. Cool completely.

Combine powdered sugar, 1/2 cup butter and almond extract in medium bowl. Beat at medium speed, gradually adding enough half & half for desired spreading consistency. Reserve 1/2 cup frosting; set aside. Spread remaining frosting over cooled bars. Cut into 48 bars.

Tint half of reserved frosting with red food color and other half with green food color. Pipe tree design in center of each square, alternating red and green trees every other bar.

To pipe the Christmas tree design on each bar, use pastry bag and decorating tip #4 or place frosting in small resealable plastic food bag. Snip small hole in one corner of bag to pipe.

Peanut Butter Cup Cookies

From: Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup peanut butter
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 40 miniature chocolate covered peanut butter cups, unwrapped

Image By: Allrecipes.com

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda; set aside.
2. Cream together the butter, sugar, peanut butter and brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and milk. Add the flour mixture; mix well. Shape into 40 balls and place each into an ungreased mini muffin pan.
3. Bake at 375 degrees for about 8 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press a mini peanut butter cup into each ball. Cool and carefully remove from pan

We also put the Double Butterscotch Cookies that you can find here.  Come back tomorrow and I’ll give you the recipes for the Oreo, Oreo Cookies,  Butter Twists and the Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies. All cookies on the trays are delicious and one of our favorites! You can’t go wrong with these cookie recipes.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Bouquets for Mother’s Day

This weekend, my beautiful nieces came over on Saturday to create something for their Mother for Mother’s Day.  We baked, cooked, cut, shaped, molded, dipped, twisted, poured, split and built our Mother’s Day presents.   The Grand kids had a blast helping and making their mom a present too.  We all agreed that we would do this project again.  This was time consuming, and it was a trial by error, but the end results were worth all the fuss we made.

Chocolate Dipped Strawberry Vases

Materials needed:

Large Strawberries

Good Quality Chocolate

Wooden Skewers (Or heavy gauged Floral Wire Sticks)

Green Floral Tape

Red & Green Grapes

Plastic (or real) Greenery

Plastic (or real) Roses, assorted colors

1 Glass Vase

1 Roll of Ribbon, to tie around the vases and make a bow

Wash strawberries, and dry completely. (It is really important to make sure strawberries are completely dry. Any water on the strawberries will make the chocolate seize).  Thread Red and Green Grapes (We put 5 on each stick. Six if they were small grapes) on to the heavy floral sticks and refrigerate until needed.  Melt Chocolate (we used Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate) in the top of a double boiler, set over a pan of simmering water.  Add 2 Tbsp. (we used 36 oz. chocolate, dipping 48 strawberries for a dozen in each vase we made) of Vegetable Oil, and stir chocolate until chocolate is completely melted and the chocolate is smooth with no lumps remaining.  Thread Strawberries onto skewers and dip in chocolate. Swirl skewers to remove excess chocolate and stick the skewers into Styrofoam to set. (We used a salad spinner basket for this, using the slots in the basket of it to hold up the skewers, and it worked really well). In the meantime, while the strawberries are drying, put your greenery, roses (or any flowers you might like) in the vase.  If you were unable to find heavy duty floral sticks, you will need to wrap 2 skewers together (that’s what we had to do) with the green floral tape. Add the strawberries and grape sticks. Tie a ribbon around the vase, and their ready for gift giving.  Give to recipient as soon as possible. Strawberries need to be eaten within 48 hours. They will weep if they sit too long. My niece’s added a nice touch and added colored sand and colored glass stones to their vases.  We bought all supplies at Michaels Arts & Crafts.

The vases turned out beautiful and all Mom’s receiving these were very very happy.  I had a Great Mother’s Day. I hope you did too.  Happy Mother’s Day to All Mother’s I hope you all know just how much you are loved and appreciated.  Tomorrow, I will post the Tuxedo Cake we made for Mother’s Day for my sister. It’s a beautiful cake and tastes as good as it looks!