holiday baking – Barnwood and Baked Goods

Monkey Bread

One last holiday favorite before I retire for the night. My Mom first made monkey bread at Christmas when I was in high school and I remember everyone raved about it at our annual Christmas Eve party. I’ve used this recipe several times since then and it’s always a predictable hit!

My daughter doesn’t enjoy raisins so I only put mine on the top instead of throughout the bread so she can pick them off. But feel free to mix them right in!

Here’s what you need

2 cans of prepared biscuit dough

1/2c granulated sugar

2 Tbsp cinnamon

1 c. Light brown sugar

1/2 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup raisins

In a large bowl cut the biscuits into bite size pieces. Add granulated sugar and cinnamin. Coat the biscuits add raisins and set it aside. In a medium sauce pan melt the butter and brown sugar into a loose caramel. In a bundt pan add a small amount of raisins, and caramel sauce layer in biscuits and top with more caramel. Bake 350F for 20-30min. Turn out onto a serving plate. Pieces can be brokwn off by hand or you can cut and serve like a cake. Enjoy!

Red Velvet Truffles

If you need a last minute treat to share this holiday, I have you covered! Red velvet truffles look great, and taste amazing! Impress your friends this holiday season.

Here’s what you’ll need

4 md red velvet muffins crumbled

1 8oz. Cream cheese softened

1/2 c powdered sugar

1c mini chocolate chips

1 tsp vanilla

Chocolate candy melts

Blend together the cake, powdered sugar, chocolate chips, and vanilla form into balls and refrigerate

Melt chocolate candy and dip balls place back in the fridge to harden.

Cereal Treat Wreaths

As some of you are aware, my husband and I own a garden center and leading up to the holiday I hand make over 100 wreaths with a very small staff of fabulously hard working people! Well today I made my last wreaths of the season but they weren’t the fresh evergreen type.

Today I made cereal treat wreaths for our Christmas eve party tomorrow. I love these tasty and festive treats. Easy to make and a crowd pleaser every time.

A little tip for when you go to shape the treats into wreaths have a small bowl of water near by keep your finger tips a little wet to prevent the marshmallow from sticking to your hands as you work.

Here’s the recipe!

1 stick butter melted

1 bag mini marshmallows

Green food coloring

4 c. Corn flakes cereal

Red hot candy’s or sprinkles for decorations

In a large sauce pan melt the butter and marshmallows add the food coloring remove from heat and add the corn flakes stirring to coat. Spoon onto foil and shape into wreaths. Decorate and allow to cool.

Hand-piped Spritz Cookies

My final recipe from round one of my holiday baking are Spritz cookies. These light, crispy sweet short bread cookies are perfect when you want something sweet but no too sweet this holiday season.

Spritz cookies are traditional Christmas cookies in Scandinavian countries. They are simple butter cookies, shaped by putting the dough through a cookie press. The name comes from the German word spritzen, meaning “to squirt” because the soft dough is squirted or pushed through a cookie press to make fancy designs.

My great Grandma Reeves would make these every Christmas and they were always one of my favorites because although homemade they always looked so perfectly pretty. The collar for my cookie press was found to be broken this year when I went to make my cookies…probably from being moved all over the place during the kitchen renovation, accidents happen I guess… so I improvised and used a piping bag with a large star tip to hand pipe these pretty little cookies.

This is a simple recipe with common ingredients making it all that much better so here is my recipe for Hand-piped Spritz Cookies. Enjoy!

1c. butter

1/2c. granulated sugar

2 1/4 c. all purpose flour

1/4 tsp. salt

1 egg

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

colored sugar or sprinkles for decoration

Pre-heat oven to 350F

Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, salt, egg, and vanilla extract. Place dough in cookie press or piping bag. Form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet. top with decorations. Bake 5 to 8 minutes or until set but not brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. To decorate cookies after baking, use a drop of corn syrup to attach decorations to cookies.

Holiday baking part two coming up!

So tonight and tomorrow morning I will be wrapping up my holiday baking and I have a few more delicious recipes to share with you as we go!

I am hosting my family for Christmas Eve this year which is nice because I can cook like crazy and don’t have to find ways to transport everything lol! We’re having a pretty traditional meal this year, ham, potatoes, shrimp, and some delicious sides. I will have a few goodies out the fudge, haystacks, and spritz cookies that I made earlier this week, and tonight we’re putting together traditional Christmas cookies, red velvet truffles, marshmallow treat wreaths, and I have to make some more chex mix because we might have already eaten up the first batch hahaha!

Tomorrow morning I’m making monkey bread, dill rolls, and corn casserole. I’ll have all of these great recipes ready to share soon! Merry Christmas!

Cookie dough dip!

My mother in law Meri Beth had a wonderful idea this Christmas to host a pot luck dip party for this years family get together. Everyone made something a little different from sweet to savory there was something for every palette.

I made two dips for the party the first was cobb salad dip you can find that recipe in one of my earlier posts. The other was a variation of my cousin Terra’s famous cookie dough dip! My kids love this dip, and it’s so easy to make!

Here’s what you’ll need

2 Tbsp butter

1 8oz. Package of cream cheese

1/4c. Light brown sugar

Pinch of salt

1/2c. Powered sugar

1 c. Mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Graham crackers

Blend together all of the ingredients and fold in the chocolate chips. Chill for about 20-30min. Serve with graham crackers for dipping. Enjoy!

Creamy Peanut Butter Fudge

Growing up my Grandma Sammie always made peanut butter fudge during the holidays. I remember sitting on her kitchen counter watching her work on the fudge while we worked on other treats, she would give us tasks to measure mix and pour always making us feel like we were the best helpers and that she couldn’t do it witout us! I truly miss her so much especially this time of year. But I made sure to prepare a batch of creamy peanut butter fudge in her honor. Just the smell of it brought back so many great memories.

Fudge was developed in the United states more than 100 years ago. It’s origins are disputed but a popular story states that the orginal recipe came from a bad batch or “fudged” batch or caramel in the late 1800’s. Many subsequent flavors have come about since then! Here in Michigan fudge shops are found in many of our major tourest destinations. It can be quick and easy to make for all of your special occasions. Here is my recipe for creamy peanut butter fudge! Enjoy!

1 c. Softened butter

1 c. Creamy peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp. Salt

1lb. Or approximately 3c. Powdered sugar

Line an 8×8 glass pan with foil set aside.

In a medium sauce pan melt the butter and peanut butter together over med-high heat stirring constantly. Remove from heat and Add the vanilla and salt till well combined. Add sugar a little at time it will thicken quickly when it is easily pulling away from the sides of the pan it’s ready to pour into your pan. Smooth out the surface with a spatula and refrigerate for 1-2 hours before cutting into squares. Enjoy!