Even more Holiday Baking!

Next on my Holiday To Do List was making goodies for my staff members.  I've been doing this for a few years now, and this year, I decided to make Egg Nog Brownies (a favorite of mine), peppermint chocolate bark and hazelnut chocolate bark.

Egg Nog Brownies

This is a recipe from The Cookie Book.  This book was given to my mom by my grandmother, and then my mom gave it to me.  This book is full of delicious recipes for both sweet and savory applications of cookies.  These brownies are in the "bar cookie" section of the book.

Melt 1 stick of butter with 4 ounces of unsweetened chocolate.

Remove from heat and mix in 1 cup white sugar, 1 1/3 cups brown sugar, 1 1/4 cups flour.

In a separate bowl beat 2 eggs with 1 tsp vanilla, and 1 Tbsp brandy.

Pour into pan and mix.

Stir in nuts, I chose hazelnuts.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes.

Cool, cut and serve!  These also taste great 2-3 days later.

Chocolate Bark.

This is something that's so easy to make, and it looks super fancy.  I made two types, peppermint, and hazelnut.

First melt a bowl of dark chocolate.

Pour and spread out on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. Next, sprinkle crushed peppermint candy, or nuts, or both onto the melted chocolate.

Melt 1 bowl of white chocolate, and pour over the dark.

Swirl with a fork.

Refrigerate until hard, then remove and break apart.

Enjoy these recipes for either giving, or devouring this holiday season!  More holiday recipes to follow!

Christmas Cupcakes!

Tis the season for Holiday baking, and during this time of year I bake a lot!  Yes, it is mostly cookies of varying shapes, but that will be another blog post.

Today, I'll be telling you about Christmas Cupcakes.  I have in the past, mentioned the lovely Nigella Lawson, and in particular, her book "How to be a Domestic Goddess."  One recipe I love to use over the holidays are her Christmas cupcakes.  They have spice to them that reminds one of gingerbread, or mulled wine, and they have bitterness and sweetness of chocolate.  I tend to make these for parties, rather than part of a gift, but they can be enjoyed as gifts as well.

I had to double to recipe since these were intended for a party, so I started off with 2 sticks of butter.

Next I beat them with 1 cup of brown sugar plus 6 Tbsp.

In a separate bowl I combined 2 cups of flour, plus 2 tsp of baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, a pinch of salt, and I used 2 tsps of pumpkin pie spice.

Back to the wet mixture.  Beat in 4 eggs individually.

After this, it's time to combine dry and wet, but there's one more ingredient.  Sour Cream, 6 Tbsp of it. Now I didn't have enough sour cream, so I substituted a fat free thick plain yogurt.  Worked in a pinch.

Add a third of the flour mix and combine.  Then combine 2 Tbsp of yogurt, repeat until all of the flour is mixed in, and 6 Tbsp of yogurt have been added.

Next comes the chocolate element.  Boil 1 cup of water with 2 tsp of espresso and 6 ounces of chocolate.

Pour the chocolate mixture into the batter, and mix.  It will be watery.

Pour into cupcake flutes and bake in a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.

Once cooled, decorate in a festive manner.  The book recommended using fondant, but I didn't have any, so I used sprinkles with my icing.

Hope this recipe is a good start to the Christmas season!  I'll be back later in the week with cookie recipes and more ways to spread holiday cheer!