December 17, 2009

We still have donations coming in following Monday's SPCA of Texas Bake Sale, so I'm not telling you yet how much money we were blessed to collect!  Maybe by the weekend I can let the cat out of the bag.  Not that I would ever put a cat in a bag; that wouldn't be very humane.  Unless I had to do that to get the cat out of a dangerous situation and couldn't do it any other way.  ^..^  Do I have a touch of rambling Christmas delirium?  Think so.

I also have some recipes that you have to make if you're trying to figure out what to bake for Christmas!  These were my favorite things to make for the bake sale, but it occurred to me that they are also awesome things to make for Christmas gifts.  I'm not burned out on baking yet – weird, I know – so I may make more of these before we hit the new year since we had nothing left after Monday's sale!  I would feel comfortable mailing all of these except for the Snowballs.  They're a little fragile so keep them at home.

• Barefoot Contessa's Outrageous Brownies: plain, with mint Oreos, or with chocolate chips and walnuts.  I know I talk about these ALL of the time, but they're my favorite brownies and I love them.  We sell the HECK out of them at bake sales.  Not because of my baking prowess, but because it's an awesome recipe!

• Vegan Pumpkin Bread: no one believes there are no eggs or dairy in this bread.  It's moist and flavorful, and absolutely one of my favorites.  I have to add walnuts.  Have to.

• Fudge: chocolate, cinnamon and peanut butter.  Just use the regular fudge recipe on the marshmallow cream jar, and substitute cinnamon chips and peanut butter chips for the semi-sweet chocolate chips.  I like to pour the fudge into little silicone molds with Christmas shapes.  When they're cool and set, you can easily unmold them, sprinkle with sparkling sugar (brown on gingerbread boys, green on Christmas trees, and red on stockings).  For a final touch, add some royal icing accents here and there.  For the sale, I packaged them two different shapes to a treat bag: one chocolate and one cinnamon or PB.

• Pecan Pie Bars with Chocolate and Bourbon from the Pastry Queen: these got a little oozy, but they were fudgey and boozy, so who the heck cared?  Nobody!  I love the original flavor of these, and was shocked that I loved this over-the-top variation even more.  Wicked!

• Chocolate Mint Snowballs: based on RecipeGirl's Snowballs. I used mint chips and pecans instead of peanut butter chips and peanuts.  Roll these in green sugar and powdered sugar, and pack in a cute treat bag with a ribbon, or a box with a window so you can peek at them.

Happy baking, little kitchen elves!

~BigSis