Category Archives: Treats

by | December 18, 2012 · 10:17 pm

Karl’s Black and White Peppermint Bark

Adapted from Joy of Baking

Peppermint Bark is something I always look forward to during the Holidays. I never made it myself, because it was the Christmas specialty of one of my wife’s coworkers and it seemed like trespassing to make it. Jan has different job now, so this year we decided to have a go at it. My goal was to make peppermint chocolate bark, not peppermint and chocolate.

Peppermint Bark

I knew that I wanted to make two layered bark, because that is what Jan prefers. But for a seemingly simple recipe (melt chocolate, sprinkle on peppermint chunks), I did find variations and techniques on the internet that I decided to include. Stephanie Jaworski’s blog (Joy of Baking) includes a good video of the process of making two layered peppermint bark.

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by | December 18, 2012 · 8:19 pm

Karl’s Christmas Marmalade

Originally adapted from Joy of Cooking

Many moons ago we moved into the house across the street to be near our friends, Peg and Russ. In the back yard was an orange tree, a grapefruit tree, and three lemon trees (there was also an apple tree, three unproductive plum trees and we planted a fig and a mandarin orange tree in the 10 years we lived there). These trees produced a massive amount of fruit every year, far more than a small family could eat as just fruit. My solution to just throwing out all of the excess was to made marmalade to give away as Christmas gifts. Thus a tradition was born.
marmalade
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by | December 18, 2012 · 8:17 pm

Jan’s Christmas Rum Balls

Adapted from Joy of Cooking

Every Christmas Jan, Myr and Eilene make Rum Balls to give to our friends. Originally they followed the recipe in Joy of Cooking, but a few years ago they started to make changes (adding a little instant coffee, rolling them in cocoa powder rather than sugar, using other liquors rather than rum).

Rum Balls

This year they went a little over the top, but to wild success. They still maintained most of the proportions of the original recipe, but they did strange things to the ordinarily plain ingredients, like rum infused with coffee or spices, and adding crystallized orange peel.

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by | November 23, 2012 · 1:38 am

Eilene’s Fresh Butter

This is not really a recipe in the strictest sense or original in any way. Eilene has made this the last two years and it really is better than stick butter. This is a good task for young children who want to be part of the Thanksgiving cooking process, but that you do not want handling sharp knives.

Ingredients and Equipment

1 pint whipping cream

1 qt. jar, clean with a tight fitting lid

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