Holiday Treats
// March 24th, 2010 // View Comments // Recipes
Many people relish in giving the perfect Holiday gift or bringing a delicious treat to their holiday festivities. We love giving gifts because we get to be creative, loving, thoughtful, and sometimes unexpected. It’s always fun to share these tasty creations during the holiday season but sometimes it’s hard to find the time to make them. Here are four recipes that vary in time that you can use to bless people’s palette, delight their tastebuds, and have fun creating Holiday Traditional Candies!
The quickest to make was Walnut Fudge. The total time you spend working on this is around 20 minutes. It also needs to cool in the fridge for at least an hour.
FAST WALNUT FUDGE
Total Time: 20 minutes
Ingredients:
¾ cup evaporated milk
1 ¾ cups sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 cups marshmallows (mini melts fastest)
1 ½ cups semisweet chocolate chips
2/3 cup walnuts or pecans (chopped)
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
Directions:
First, lightly butter a 9in square pan. Then in a medium saucepan combine evaporated milk, sugar, and salt over medium-high heat, stir constantly. Bring this mixture to a boil and let it boil for five minutes, stirring steadily the whole time. Remove from the heat, add marshmallows and chocolate chips, and stir rapidly until all marshmallows are incorporated (melted). Quickly add walnuts and vanilla. Continue stirring. Pour mixture into the 9inch square pan. Let cool in fridge for around an hour then cut into squares. This will make around 2 pounds of delicious rich & silky fudge.
Another great gift or side dish is Spiced Nuts. The total time you can set aside for this recipe is around 30 minutes. It’s a good idea to use a candy thermometer on this recipe. I found one at Hobby Lobby for around $5.00.
SPICED NUTS
Total Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
1 lb. Walnut or pecan halves (I used both)
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
¼ cup butter
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon real vanilla extract
Directions:
Toast your walnuts/pecans for 8-10 minutes at 350*f and set aside. In a medium saucepan mix sugar, water, butter, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and salt. Over medium-high heat continue to cook and stir these ingredients until they reach soft ball stage(when dropped into cool water forms a soft ball) or around 240*f. Once the mixture reaches soft ball stage remove it from the heat, add vanilla and add the nuts into the syrup. Stir until all the nuts are covered with the syrup then pour onto waxed paper and let cool. Once they are cooled you can break them apart and package to give as gifts!
Toffee is a great treat especially when it’s homemade and fresh. My husband likes this one because it doesn’t stick in his teeth!
CAST IRON SKILLET TOFFEE
Total Time: 30 Minutes
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1 cup butter (2 sticks)
1 cup chopped roasted pecans
½ cup chocolate chips or 5 milk choc. Candy bars
Directions:
Spread your roasted chopped pecans into a 9” cookie sheet or cake pan and set aside. Cook sugar and butter in a cast iron skillet to hard boil stage (thick ropy threads form when dropped in cool water) stirring constantly (250-265*f). The key to toffee is too cook it to the nice amber color. The cast iron skillet helps to keep a nice consistent heat while your rapidly stirring. Once it’s a dark amber color pour over pecans. Then sprinkle or lay candy bars over the hot toffee mixture and using the back of a spoon spread the chocolate so that it’s even. Let cool, remove from pan, and break into pieces.
*The key is to make sure this gets to that dark amber color, I had many error runs because I didn’t let this cook enough and my toffee came out white and greasy.
The last candy I attempted was caramel. I thought it would be easy and it’s not! It takes a lot of time, but it is delicious and makes quite a lot of bite size treasures. Total time for caramel is around 1-2 hours.
CARAMELS
Total Time: 2 hours
Ingredients:
3 cups sugar
2 cups white corn syrup
1 cup butter
1 (12oz) can evaporated milk
Directions:
Butter a large cookie sheet that has sides and cut around 50 wax paper 3×3 squares, set aside. In large pot over medium heat melt butter. Stir in sugar and corn syrup. Slowly incorporate the evaporated milk into your mixture. Add around 1/5 of the can each time. Make sure to keep stirring your mixture especially the bottom of the pan. Cook your caramel until it reaches 230-240*f and like the other candies keep stirring the whole time, mine cooked around 25 minutes so wait until it’s a nice amber color. Pour onto greased cookie sheet with sides. Let it cool completely. Once fully cooled cut with clean scissors and wrap with wax paper squares.
So remember, your holiday gift giving can be homemade and delicious with any one of these recipes. I am sure your family, friends, and co-workers would be thrilled to try your creations.
*If you want more holiday candy recipes like these check out: www.recipezaar.com, www.cooks.com, www.bettycrocker.com, www.foodnetwork.com
Andrea Peters is a local Stillwater resident, wife, mother, and OSU Alumni. She currently is a SAHM (stay at home mom) working to become a WAHM(work at home mom)! All these recipes can be found online or if you have any questions contact: andrea@littlesquigglers.com
Reason I call this Freckles Fixin’s is because my twitter name is heyfreckles and my hubby calls me Freckles, and I have lots of freckles!
