Holiday Baking - continued

Ok...I baked even more today! I spent all day in the kitchen except for when I ran to the gym and the grocery store.

The first thing I made is called Cherry Peanut Butter Balls. There's nothing in the world that tastes better than peanut butter and chocolate. Add cherries to that, and YUMM-O

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners' sugar
24-26 maraschino cherries with stems
Additional confectioners' sugar
2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup shortening

In small mixing bowl, cream the butter, PB and vanilla; mix well. Slowly add conf. sugar. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Pat cherries dry with paper towel. Dust hands with additional conf sugar. Wrap each cherry with a rounded tbsp of the PB mixture; shape into a ball. PB may need to be refrigerated while rolling cherries. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Melt choc chips and shortening. Dip PB balls, and place on wax paper. Put in fridge for at least 1 hour. NOTE - do not use reduced fat or generic PB!!! Eric taste tested these and said they were good!


Holiday Trees

2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c softened butter
3/4 sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 drops green food coloring
1 egg white
6 ounces white chocolate, melted with 1 tsp canola oil

Blend flour and salt in small bowl. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar. Beat in yolks, vanilla, and food coloring. Stir in flour mixture until dough comes together. Divide in half, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 2 hours.

Heat oven to 325. Roll out dough and cut tree shapes. Back for 10 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and brush with egg white. Return to oven and bake 4-5 minutes more, until shiny NOT BROWN. Transfer to rack, cool, and dip edges in white chocolate. Allow to set on waxed paper.

These were easy and not too time consuming. All cut out cookies take a while, but these weren't too bad.

I also made mint meringues, but they didn't turn out very good. They are WAY too minty and I don't think the egg whites were fluffy enough before I put them in the oven. They took 2 hours to cook...THOSE are time consuming. Time to go to bed...pooped!