I do not bake. I do not bake. I shall not bake. But, Christmas tends to lend its hand towards baking! Ugh. So, to make sure I follow the trend (somewhat) I did do a few treats to give out as gifts. You still have time to do these. They take no time, as well as they don't require much measuring! Get stocked on containers, bags, festive ziplocs and such at the Dollar Store and you are ready to go.
Ok, you can find the recipe for Bridge Mix Bark HERE. Peanuts, pretzels and raisins in a milk chocolate layer. After that hardens for about an hour, then you top it off with a bittersweet chocolate layer. Cut into squares, bag up, and you are done!
Here is the milk chocolate layer, ready to go into the fridge to harden up a bit.
After it is done, put squares in Christmas cupcake liners and then add to a small Christmas box. Seal up and give a box of homemade chocolate bark!
Next, I did two different white chocolate barks. I did a white chocolate/peppermint/mini-marshmallow bark, which you can check out HERE.
Here is the bark, after assembled, but before cracked. It hardens up quite nicely at room temperature! The marshmallows are a little sticky and they tend to want to pull apart when you try to break up the recipe. So, just make sure you break around the marshmallows.
And here it is at the beginning of the "breaking" process. Have fun with it. No piece is the same size, same cut, etc. This is totally not supposed to be uniform.
Ok, for the second white chocolate bark; I made a white chocolate, craisins, pistachio, candied orange peel bark. You can see that recipe HERE. It's prepared the same way as the peppermint bark, but with different toppings...obviously. ;)
And, again, break apart very leisurely! No right or wrong way to do it! Yay! My kind of recipe!
I know you see cakes up in the first picture. Yes, I did try my hand at some more challenging treats. Those cakes up there? Yeah. FRUITCAKES!!! My mother-in-law enjoys fruitcakes, so I made Alton Brown's recipe. That can be found HERE. This is not your run-of-the-mill neon green & red fruit (what is that crap anyway?) fruitcake. This is made with real, dried fruits that are macerated in gold rum overnight. Then, I have been spritzing them with brandy every two days. For this recipe you probably don't have enough time to do these right since you have to spritz or baste them every two days, but I will show you some pictures of my preparations. This has dried cranberries, dried cherries, dried blueberries, dried apricots, golden raisins, lemon zest, orange zest, and candied ginger. Supposedly fruitcakes last forever.
It wasn't too bad. I am not a "fruity" person, but the ginger and the other spices that were added, gave the cake a great flavor. It's not an overly sweet cake and the brandy makes sure of that! Make it and slice it up to take to a party! I think people would enjoy this as a slice or two with coffee or a snifter of brandy! So, it really would be perfect to slice up and take to a Christmas Eve gathering! It definitely tastes better if warmed up a bit, too.
The fruit macerating:
Boiling the fruit with sugar, the macerated liquid, butter, apple cider, and spices:
All thickened up!:
I doubled the recipe and then split into three 8-inch pans...buttered and slightly floured:
Toasted, chopped pecans ready to go in!:
Batter spooned into pans, ready to bake:
And, the final product! Real fruitcake...no neon fruit added!:
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