The Christmas Baking Continues...

Yesterday I wrapped some more presents and went to the store to get the missing ingredients I didn't have for my baking. Greg helped me out last night by doing step one of my peanut butter patty cookies so that was greatly appreciated. Today I went to town and got a lot of my baking done. First up was more pretzel buttons. Evan got in on the action today and helped me with those. He was such a hoot as we made them. The things he was saying cracked me up. I'll tell you some of them along the way. He was so excited to help so we started by peeling all the wrappers from the Hugs. That's probably the only bad part about making the pretzel buttons, but with Evan's help it went really fast. At first Evan says, "Unwrapping these is more fun than eating them." I was a little shocked by that, but about a minute later he says, "Mommy, touching this candy makes me want to eat them." I think this was his start to many lines to come in order to try to get some to eat. We unwrapped two bags of Hugs and as we neared the end there was a broken one. I gave the broken piece to Evan and he says, "These babies are soooo good." My response, "No Evan you're not having more." He was trying everything to eat the Hugs, believe me! Once we got the Hugs unwrapped Evan was a super big helper spreading the pretzels out and topping them with the Hugs. I put the M&M's on because that part kind of needs to be done fast. We ended up making about 160 pretzel buttons which makes a total of about 225 all together because I made about 65 the other day.

Next up was my peanut butter patties. About 10 years ago when I was doing a long term substitute teaching job in Grand Rapids, a teacher made these for the Christmas party and I was hooked. I've been making them ever since. They taste like the Girl Scout peanut butter patties, but after having them together I think these taste even better. They are so easy to make as well. Three ingredients once again... here's the recipe:

Peanut Butter Patties

Ingredients:

• 1 package chocolate Candi-quick ( I think the Meijer brand tastes best)
• Ritz crackers (about 60 if use a whole package of Candi-quick)
• peanut butter

Directions:

1. Peanut butter the bottom side of a Ritz cracker, top with a second Ritz cracker (so both bottom sides of crackers are touching the peanut butter and you basically have two Ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle- ).
   
2. Melt Candi-quick according to package directions.
3. Dip cracker in Candi-quick so completely covered.
4. Set on wax paper to harden.

Makes about 30 cookies.

You kind of have to work fast before the Candi-quick hardens. You may need to put tray of chocolate back in the microwave to soften as you're making this. I only do in 15 second intervals because after a couple times the chocolate can tend to get clumpy. Here's what they look like. I basically whip the chocolate on so they're not the prettiest cookie with smooth chocolate like the Girl Scout peanut butter patties, but they're soooo good!


The pretzels in the middle are Evan's own concoction. We had some pretzels left over from the "buttons" and a little chocolate from the cookies. He wanted to dip the pretzels and put teddy grahams in the middle. Pretty clever, huh? He had to make one for each of us! He also made a couple "buttons" with the Hug in the middle and a teddy graham on top instead of the M&M's.

I had to take a break from baking until this evening because I forgot the margarine had to soften for my "Holiday Snowball Cookies." I wasn't going to make these this year, but Greg requested them and I had a bag of the holiday morsels so I made them. I forgot that these too are pretty easy to make. A few more steps than the "pretzel buttons" and "peanut butter patties," but not too bad nonetheless. Here's what they look like:


I will post the recipe tomorrow for them. Because I'm tired and ready for bed soon. I was lucky to get the dough made for these because just as I finished mixing my hand mixer when on the fritz and pretty much burned up. Santa, I need a new hand mixer! So overall, I made 160 pretzel buttons, 31 peanut butter patties, and 43 holiday snowball cookies today. I don't think I'm done because I will probably make another batch of the peanut butter patties as they're being requested. I'm also still debating about making my Santa cookies. I usually make chocolate and white chocolate dipped pretzel rods, but since I discovered the pretzel buttons I think those are going to win over the pretzel rods from now on! Before I leave you, here's a picture of what the Candi-quick looks like if you're unfamiliar with Candi-quick and the holiday morsels for the snowball cookies. (Just a FYI- these can be hard to find sometimes so if you see them grab them. I usually see them at Meijer, but the closer to Christmas it gets they run out.)