Peppermint Bark

I made this to give out to work for the holidays. The vice president's wife told me that it was the best homemade peppermint bark she ever had! So funny since it's only 3 ingredients. Super simple to make, I plan to do it every holiday to give out.

Ingredients

• 2 lbs high quality white chocolate, like Lindt’s (do not use chocolate chips)
• 1 cup of crushed candy canes
• 2 tablespoons peppermint extract

Directions

1. Place candy canes in a plastic bag and hammer into ¼-inch chunks or smaller.
2. Melt the chocolate in a double boiler.
3. Combine candy cane chunks with white chocolate (add peppermint extract at this point).
4. Pour mixture onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment or wax paper and let it set.

NOTE: Instead of white chocolate, you can use vanilla CandiQuik or Almond Bark (found only at Wal-mart in CA). Then you can skip the double boiler and follow the package instructions to melt it all in the oven. So much easier and just as delicious!

Royal Icing

This is just the recipe that comes with my Wilton meringue powder. It works and I added a little almond extract to give it that taste I'm familiar with growing up and eating these. Tina and Bao approves of the almond extract. Mike doesn't like it. I do, so it's staying in! The royal icing dried pretty quickly as is...maybe 30 minutes. The thinned out version I made for color flowing took a couple of hours to set.

Ingredients
1 tablespoon meringue powder
1 1/3 cup powdered sugar
2 tablespoons warm water
1/8 tsp almond extract

Mix with a stand mixer on low until stiff peaks (high on a handheld mixer).
Stir on low and mix almond extract and mix in almond extract at this point.
Pipe or spread onto cookies.

Makes 1 cup. Enough to cover 20 cookies.

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Chewy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

I made these for Mike and Tina last night and they said they were the best they ever had from me (I've been making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies since high school). These are chewy with the right amount of saltiness.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, soften
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cup quick cooking oats
• 1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325
2. In a large bowl, cream butter, brown and white sugar until smooth.
3. Beat egg then stir in vanilla extract.
4. Combine flour, baking soda and salt; add this flour mixture to creamed mixture and stir until just blended.
5. Mix in oats and chocolate chips by hand.
6. Use small disher to drop batter onto increased baking sheet.
7. Chill for at least 10 minutes in the refrigerator.
8. Bake for 15 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes. Transfer to cooling rack to cool completely.

Tip: I scooped the extra dough onto parchment and freezed them for 30 minutes before putting them all in a bag for the freezer.

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

Yes, this sounds funny, but it produces one of the most moist and rich chocolate cakes.

Ingredients

• 1-18 oz box Betty Crocker Super Moist Devil's food cake mix
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup of real mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip)

Follow directions on the box to bake, but use mayonnaise in place of oil.

Pumpkin Apple Bread

A yummy and easy recipe from a friend.

Great recipes are meant to passed around & this one is the best I've ever tasted - moist, etc. Will make your whole house smell like autumn!!!

I add about a cup of chopped walnuts to the batter cause I love walnuts w/ apples & pumpkin & also sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of "topping".

I double the topping. I pour 1/2 batter into the loaf pan -sprinkle one serving of topping & pour rest of batter & then put second serving of topping on top of that - killer!

For topping:
1 Tbs all-purpose flour
5 Tbs sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 Tbs unsalted butter, softened (I use "salted" just cause I don't have "unsalted" in my house usually)

For bread:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsps baking soda
1 1/2 tsps ground cinnamon
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1 (15-oz) can solid-pack pumpkin
3/4 cup vegetable oil (I use 3/4 cup butter instead - wonderful!!!)
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 Granny smith apples, peeled, cored, and chopped (2 cups)

MAKE THE TOPPING: Blend together flour, sugar, cinnamon. Melt the butter in the microwave and pour into the dry mixutre. Mix with a fork.

MAKE THE BREAD: Put a rack in the middle of oven and preheat oven to 350F. Butter two 9 X 5 inch loaf pans. (I just spray "PAM" into pans.)
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and allspice into a medium bowl. Then add oil(or butter), sugar, and eggs in a large bowl. Add the pumpkin. Add flour mixture, stirring until well combined. Fold in apples (and walnuts if using nuts).

Divide batter between buttered loaf pans. Sprinkle half of topping evenly over each loaf. *Remember, if you double the topping, do batter, topping, batter, topping. So yummy to have that topping the middle, too.

Bake until a wooden pick or skewer inserted in center of bread comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes.

Cool loaves in pans on a rack for 45 minutes, then turn out onto rack and cool completely, about 1 hour.

This bread is meant to be SHARED!!! Make for your neighbors, your coworkers, your family. The only downside to this is it will be requested every year!

You can bake and freeze, too. It freezes well. Just thaw in room temperature the day before.