This is my mom’s recipe for pecan toffee, which she thinks came from Better Homes and Gardens several years ago. It’s another one of those things that’s special because we only make it at Christmas. Like the Date Rock Cookies, I’m not putting a picture, but they’re on the platter with the Nutty Fingers on that post.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c chopped pecans, divided
1 c sugar
1 c butter, softened
1/3 c water
5 1.55 ounce milk or dark chocolate bars, chopped into small pieces (I prefer dark. And of course, the better the chocolate you use, the better the toffee)

Special Equipment:

Candy thermometer

Line a 15″x10″ jellyroll pan with heavy duty aluminum foil.l Lightly grease the foil. Sprinkle 1 c of the chopped pecans to within 1″ of the edge.

Bring sugar, butter, and 1/3 c water to a boil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Stir constantly about 12 minutes, or until a candy thermometer reads 300 degrees. This is the “hard crack stage.” You can also check this by dropping a few threads of the candy into a glass of ice water to cool. The threads should then crack when you bend them rather than stretching.

Pour over pecans. Quickly sprinkle with chocolate pieces (so they melt). Let stand 30 s. sprinkle with remaining 1/2 c of pecans. Chill 30 minutes (or until hard) and then break up the toffee into bite size pieces. Store in an airtight container.

This recipe comes from my grandmother Pat, who I think got it from her mother as well. I’m not putting in a picture, as the only one I have is also in the Nutty Finger post. Mom and I often make them for Christmas, although this year we had some that Pat made instead. They are one of Matt’s favorites, and another that we only have at Christmastime. It makes a bunch of cookies, but you can keep the dough in the fridge if you don’t have time to make them all at once. They are a dense chewy cookie with lots of dates, nuts and raisins — delicious!

Ingredients:

1 c butter
1 1/2 c brown sugar
3 eggs
3 c flour
1 t baking soda in 3 T boiling water
1 t cinnamon
1 lb chopped dates
1 lb chopped pecans
1 lb raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix all ingredients together. This will give you mixer a real workout! Drop by teaspoons on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for about 9 minutes.

Growing up I often asked for a Red Velvet cake for my birthday. One year I remember mom making a version with pepperming icing, with a recipe I think came from Southern Living. I decided to try something like that on my birthday this year, but in miniature form. I made these cupcakes for the “Biochemistry Bake-Off” at work. I didn’t win anything, but I still had fun making them and they turned out pretty well — or at least half of them did. I baked half of them in new silicone muffin tins, and those collapsed to about half the size and pulled away from the edges as soon as I took them out of the oven. So I’m not using silicone muffin tins again! The other ones turned out pretty nicely though. I made a peppermint cream cheese frosting and garnished some of them with grated chocolate and crushed candy canes, and the others with a little bit of chopped peppermint bark I still had left from earlier in the week.

Red Velvet Cake:

1 c butter (softened)
2 c sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
1 T cocoa
1 T vinegar
2 1/2 c cake flour
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1 c buttermilk
1 t vanilla
1 oz red food coloring

1. Cream butter and sugar.
2. Add eggs and beat until fluffy.
3. Add cocoa to vinegar, and add to creamed mixture.
4. Sift remaining dry ingredients and gradually add to batter.
5. Add buttermilk, vanilla, and food coloring.
6. Bake in cupcake wrappers (makes a little more than 2 dozen) or bake in three greased and floured 9″ round cake pans, either way at 350 F for 25 minutes.
7. Let cool completely before icing.

Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting:

1/2 package of cream cheese (4 oz) (softened)
1/2 cup butter (softened)
1 1-lb. box of powdered sugar
1 t peppermint extract

1. Beat cream cheese and butter.
2. Gradually add sugar, beating until smooth.
3. Add extract and beat until blended.

Ice cupcakes with the peppermint cream cheese frosting. Garnish with grated chocolate and crushed peppermint candy canes, if desired.

As I said before, I’ve been dying to make peppermint bark cookies, inspired by 101cookbooks. I’m also continuing to search for the perfect double chocolate cookie. These Double-Chocolate Espresso Cookies from Cheryl St. John’s blog seemed worth trying, so I made them with chopped peppermint bark instead of the chocolate chips (the ones added whole; I still used semisweet for the ones melted at the beginning of the recipe). I also used 1 tsp of espresso instead of 1 T of instant coffee, since I didn’t want to buy instant coffee.

They turned out pretty well. The cookies are pretty chewy and brownie like, and very rich. They were delicious, but I’m still going for something chewy in the middle like that but a little crispy on the edges and top. Also, I wanted them to be a little bit more peppermint-y. Next time I’ll add a few drops of peppermint extract. I garnished them with little bits of chopped peppermint bark, but they were too small, so they don’t really give a hint to the cookie’s contents like I wanted. Next time, I’ll reserve some of the peppermint bark and press in a few larger pieces into each cookie before baking. The peppermint bark is a little unusual in a cookie, and I liked the way it turned out a lot. The candy cane pieces add a pleasant chewy-crunch, adding more texture than a normal cookie. These are definitely something I will make again.

Matt and I bought a Christmas tree this weekend, and I decorated it last night, so I seem to have gotten in my holiday mood early this year. So of course I wanted to bake something festive. Inspired by an old recipe from Heidi of 101cookbooks, I decided to make some chocolate peppermint bark cookies. Not wanting to pay $20 a pound for peppermint bark, I first had to make my own. Here’s my “recipe”, though you can barely call it that. Next time, I think I’ll change the ratio to have a little more semisweet chocolate than white, and add a few drops of peppermint extract to the white chocolate.

Ingredients:
12 oz semisweet chocolate
12 oz white chocolate chips
6 peppermint candy canes or about 25 (I’m guessing) peppermint candies

Instructions:

First line a jelly roll pan with parchment paper.

Melt the semisweet chocolate. I used a double boiler, but mostly just because I wanted to take a picture of something melting that hopefully will eventually be added to the header here. The microwave (on low heat) would work fine too. Spread the melted chocolate in the jelly roll pan. I didn’t want it too thin, so mine just covered about 3/4 of the bottom of the pan. Place in the fridge to harden. I left it in the fridge for about 15 minutes, and it felt hard, but kind of made a mess in the next step, so I’d probably recommend leaving it at least 25 minutes or so, so it can get really cold. It might even be good to put it in the freezer at the end for a couple minutes, though not long enough to really get frozen or the chocolate might get that white film on it that frozen chocolate gets.

While you’re waiting for the semisweet chocolate to harden, crush the candy canes. I didn’t find a great way to do this — they poked holes in my plastic bag when I tried to crush them in a bag, so then I tried the food processor which grated the already small pieces really small but didn’t do much for the big ones. Overall, I think a heavy duty plastic bag is probably the best option, and next time I’ll probably use the smaller peppermint candies instead of candy canes. Then melt the white chocolate. Spread the white chocolate on top of the semisweet chocolate. This is where I got into trouble — the white chocolate melted the semisweet, so they got a little swirled together when I tried to spread it. You can’t really tell with the peppermint pieces on top though, and it doesn’t much matter anyway.

While the white chocolate is still hot, sprinkle the peppermint pieces over the top. I then used a piece of parchment paper to very gently press in the peppermint pieces. Put back in the fridge. When good and hard, break into pieces.

We’ll see tomorrow how the cookies go!