Now that the Christmas Cookies are done, I’m focusing on making some other treats for Christmas. Up this time: Holiday Chocolate Peppermint Bark. “Bark” is such a strange term for this type of candy. Then again, so are “brittles”. Historically it comes from chocolate barks looking like yes, the bark of a tree. Peppermint and white chocolate really don’t, but I am going to go with it anyway. And no matter what it is called, it is delicious.
As we get closer to Thanksgiving, I usually find myself wanted to make a variation on the “cranberry sauce” theme, and this is the 5th variation of a “sauce”, “preserve” or”chutney” that I have made. It’s not really like “the stuff from the can” but is very fresh, very flavorful and is a great combo of cranberries, apples and rhubarb. Yes, rhubarb. It’s nearly impossible to find right now and definitely not “in season” but I had stashed some in my freezer, for occasions just like this. It’s got a little bit of a kick with hot pepper flakes and a little bit of warmth from just a smidge of clove. Quite nice, actually. Will keep in the fridge probably through Christmas.
This is a trend that I’ve been seeing recently on some of the bread-baking sites that I follow: shaping a regular loaf of bread (a standard boule) into a pumpkin loaf. There is nothing pumpkin or pumpkin-spice flavored about this bread: it is just a regular loaf of my standard artisan sourdough bread. But to make it a little festive, you can imprint the loaf by loosely tying cooking twine around it before baking. I used a cinnamon stick as the “stem” just to complete the look. Makes a nice presentation for a harvest / autumn / Thanksgiving meal.
I’ve been meaning to make these Cocoa Krispies Bar Mummies for a couple of years now, but somehow Halloween has rolled around and either I’ve forgotten or I was already working on the Cookies and didn’t have time to run to the shops for the ingredients. But here we are: meltingly soft cocoa krispies bars (the trick is adding a bit of condensed milk) with white chocolate coating, cute little eyeballs.
Back in 2013, I made these little Sugar Cookie Kiss “Acorns” and somehow was reminded of that over the weekend, so I updated the recipe and here we go again. It’s a simple, and not too time consuming way to make little treats for autumn and might be cute for Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving. I used the Hershey’s Special Dark Kisses, but you could also use the Almond or Caramel Filled ones!
A note about the photo: before anyone gets all pedantic on me, I know that “acorns” don’t come from maple trees, but maple leaves are prettier than oak leaves, so deal with it! 🙂