Holiday Baking

The week of December 9th I baked and baked and baked. Two cookie exchanges and some Christmas candy left our halls decked with chocolate, caramel and gluten free goodness. My late Aunt's fudge recipe was naturally gluten free--hurray, but it seems to have shrunk my pants. They are so tight now I can barely wear them. But that fudge was GOOD!

 I love to bake. In college I'd come home with a magazine I'd picked up because of it's neat snowman cake or intricate sugar cookie stocking with big plans to make what was on the cover. A few days before Christmas I'd make 4-5 different types of cookies and/or candies as Christmas music serenaded me and family members filed in and out, sampling my latest creation. The whole day I'd spend mixing, rolling, decorating.....Then, we'd plate up those cookies and deliver them around town to the less fortunate, and our friends. It was an awesome tradition that I hope to implement here soon.  Today everything I make has to be gluten free, and with kids, my uninterrupted time in the kitchen is non existent. This year, thanks to my momma, I was able to spend a few hours of (almost) uninterrupted time baking GF Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints (recipe below).

Audrey  believes more is more when it comes to  decorating.  She helped me dip and decorate chocolate covered GF pretzels. (we made lots of chex mix this season and we had some leftover pretzels.) Again, not wanting to stifle her creativity I let her sprinkle at her own free will, giving only helpful hints, such as " honey, you can't tell it's a pretzel when you put that much sugar on it" My girl loves to stir and add ingredients but not as much as she loves to fancy up a cupcake, or in this case, pretzels. I think she'd add sprinkles to almost anything.

Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints

Busted! Sneaking a bite

"What bite?" 

methodically sprinkling the pretzels with sugar and nonpareils

Chocolate-Caramel Thumbprints

1 stick butter, softened 

1/2 c sugar

2 (1oz) semisweet chocolate baking squares, melted

1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons

1 1/4 c gluten free flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 c chopped pecans

16 caramels

2 1/2 TBSP whipping cream

2/3 c semisweet chocolate chips

2 tsp shortening

Cream butter until creaming. Slowly add sugar. Add egg yolk, melted chocolate and vanilla. Stir flour, soda and salt together. Add to butter mixture. Mix well. Cover and chill for one hour. Shape into 1 inch balls. Roll in pecans. Place 1 inch apart on greased cookie sheets, press thumb in center. Bake 350 for 12 min or until set. combine caramels and cream in double boiler. cook over med-low heat, stirring constantly until caramels melt and mixture is smooth. Remove cookies from oven, press center of cookie again. quickly spoon 3/4 tsp caramel into each indention. cool. combine chocolate chips and shortening, melt. drizzle over cooled cookies. yield: 2.5 dozen

Sarah