Christmas Cooking

This is a crazy time for our little kitchen. This year I, Jon, have done the vast majority of the Christmas cooking. The 3 things that I made A LOT of was Shortbread, Caramels and Peanut Butter Fudge. We had a very hard time finding the right packaging for our treats but we found a wonderful place online that had everything we needed at a very reasonable price. The is the Layer Cake Shop and you can find it here:
The Layer Cake Shop
Here we found the little wrappers of foil with tissue that are 4" square and just perfect for wrapping the fudge. The other item we needed to find was little candy cups, you know the kind that look like miniature cupcake papers? Only they are just less than an inch round so they were perfect for the caramels. My daughter Beth gave us the recipe for the caramels and it is so easy and delicious it is surprising that we don't do this more often. I also added a few twists to her recipe that came out very well.
The Shortbread recipe we found on the Food Network and you can find it at: The Food Network and do a search for Shortbread Hearts. These are wonderful and I received rave reviews form everyone I gave them to. Here are the recipes:

Shortbread
Ingredients:
3/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla
3-1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Preheating for this is important
In a mixer, cream together the butter and sugar, using the paddle attachment, until the are just combined well.
Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl sift together the flour and salt; then add them to the butter-sugar mixture. Mix on low until speed until the dough starts to come together. Dump on a surface dusted with flour and roll into a round disc. Wrap in plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

The original recipe says to roll out to 1/2" thick but I did it to about 3/8" instead. Use a cookie cutter to cut pieces. I used a cookie stamp on the rolled dough and then cut with a knife so that the shape looked like the stamp impression was framed. This was about 3" square. Poke some holes with a fork and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for about 20 - 25 minutes, Until the edges begin to brown and the bottoms look done. I found that I needed to turn the baking pan around half way through the baking so that they cooked evenly.
Cool on a rack. Make a cup of coffee when they are cool and try one. You probably will not want to give any away unless you like the comments you will get.  GOOD LUCK and Merry Christmas.

Delicious Caramels:

 Ingredients:
1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla(added at the very end)

Directions:
The timing in the microwave is VERY important and you may have to test a little bit with your microwave as units do vary.
Add the butter, sugars and corn syrup in a microwave safe bowl. Heat in the microwave for 2 minutes 30 seconds. Remove and stir the ingredients until smooth. Put back in the microwave for 2 minutes 20 seconds. Remove and add the vanilla. Using a whisk mix until very smooth. Pour into an 8 X 8 glass baking dish that has been well buttered or sprayed with PAM(or generic). I used the small candy cups and poured directly into them. You have to work quickly as it will start to harden and not pour by the time you reach the end. Fill the cups about 3/4 full. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt. Cool for a couple hours. This should give you a caramel that is very firm at room temperature.
For a caramel that is the same consistancy as an old time Sugar Daddy bar increase the second cooking time to 3 minutes. For caramel that is hard and crunchy like toffee is increas the second cooking time to 3 minutes 30 seconds.

I melted some white chocolate chips and poured onto the caramels to the top of the candy cups. This is a nice switch so do them half plain and half with chocolate.

Peanut Butter Fudge:
1 cup creamey peanut butter
2 sticks butter (must be butter)
2 teasp. vanilla
1 1lb. confectionary sugar ( I like Domino sugar as it is less lumpy and worth the extra because of that)
mix the butter and peanut butter together and microwave for 2 minutes
stir and then microwave for 2 more minutes use a good sized microwave bowl for this
then add the vanilla and stir in the confectionary sugar
place in an 8x8 pan that is lined with wax paper or plastic wrap that you sprayed with pam
refrigerate for a couple hours
Now hand out as presents and reap the appreciation! Merry Christmas and good eating!!

Jon and Heidi