Month: December 2014

8 Minute Caramel Dipping Sauce

I love dipping Granny Smith and Honeycrisp apples into warm, gooey caramel. I was at an event recently (The Festival of Trees) and we bought some warm caramel sauce and cut up apples and enjoyed them sooo much. I thought I would look for a recipe and make some of the sauce tonight for New Year’s Eve. We have several parties to go to but this is just for us to enjoy at home. But it would also be a great treat to bring along with us to the parties.

My Easy Caramel Dipping Sauce.  It literally takes about 8 minutes to make, but it is so evil delicious!
For Easy Caramel Dipping Sauce I started with the cream, sugar and butter and let that all melt together on low. 
After you dump the butter in, add the vanilla and salt and let it get the Caramel Sauce up to a rolling boil, stirring as you go. 
Easy Caramel Dipping Sauce….. stir it while it bubbles for 5 to 7 minutes. It will look lucsious like this! Can you say….delightful deliciousness? Mmmmm…..
I put the Easy Caramel Dipping Sauce  on a tray with Granny Smith and Honeycrisp apples for a holiday treat. This would be so easy as a finger food for a New Year’s Eve Party! Or what a nice hostess gift in a pretty jar with a ribbon and a cute label? 

 Here is the recipe I used. All you need is butter, brown sugar, cream and vanilla and salt. It was super easy. I would boil the mixture for the full 7 minutes. It said 5 to 7 minutes so I went with 5. But I wished mine had been a little thicker. It thickens as it cools, but to make it even chewier and thicker, let it boil for the 7 minutes. This recipe is taken from The Pioneer Woman’s website, HERE.

Notice my 2 little granddaughters are standing right in front of the Easy caramel dipping sauce and apples? They are READY to dig in to this yummy stuff. 

You can use half and half OR cream, and I had cream on-hand from making Alfredo a few nights ago. So I used the rest of the pint. Bubbling boil it for 7 minutes to thicken it up. Or thinner sauce I’d go less, more toward the 5 minutes mark.

Now I’ve taken down more than half of the Christmas decorations and replaced them with January “Snowman and Winter themed” decorations. Don’t they look cute? 

It is always a little bit of a downer to change out all that Christmas gloriousness. So I have to replace it right away or my house looks very dull and depressing! To see more check out my
 Patties Place blog.

Here’s my kitchen table with some snowman decorations. It is starting to look a little bit wintery with the shades of blue. 

8 MINUTE CARAMEL DIPPING SAUCE

Ingredients

  • 1 cup Brown Sugar
  • 1/2 stick Butter (4 Tablespoons)
  • 1/2 cup Half-and-half Or Cream (cream Will Make It Thicker)
  • 1 Tablespoon Vanilla
  •  Pinch Of Salt

Preparation Instructions

Mix all ingredients in a medium saucepan over medium-low to medium heat. Cook while whisking gently for 5 to 7 minutes, until thicker. Turn off heat. Serve warm or refrigerate until cold.
If sauce is thin, just continue cooking for a few more minutes. This would also be so wonderful drizzled over cheesecake! Mmmm. The possibilities are endless!  
Good luck taking down all of your Christmas decs the next few days. And have a very Happy New Year Y’all!

Chocolate Fudge Icing

I love a good chocolate cake, don’t you? It’s one of the best dessert around! And one of my favorite ways to ice a chocolate cake is with a fudge glaze. This one is an easy and yummy cooked icing that is great for cupcakes, eclairs, donuts, cream puffs and cakes.

I have our Christmas Table Setting all done for Breakfast Christmas morning. We have grandma and Grandpa come for Brunch every year. 
I have 3 granddaughters who all like to sit at their own Kid’s Table setup with little plates and sippy cups and kiddie chairs too. Here is one of the dinner parties we had set up. I used snowmen plates and cups. 
My Kitchen is all festive with lots of Christmas doo dads too. 

I have Mrs. Santa in the kitchen with her cupcakes, and the Nutcracker playing on my under the counter CD player. It is on its last legs. The hubs has something coming from Amazon for me that is the newest thing. He had to be “Invited” to buy it. I guess it plays wireless music from somewhere I’ll never understand. The cool kids and their gadgets! 

This was my favorite area of the kitchen this holiday. I just loved it. The chalkboard said how many days left till Christmas with a snowman holding it. I cut his head off, great photog that I am! lol. 

This island wall just filled with crap the last week before and this whole week after Christmas. I am so full of junk food, breads, chocolates, cookies, marshmallow santas ( I ate 4 I think) and nuts and candy, chips and dips. When will it end I tell ya! 

 I started putting all the Christmas junk away today. It is a little sad. I love decorating for the holidays so much. But I switched it all out for snowmen and snowflakes. So it isn’t too hard to bear. 😀

Kiddie table this year in red and green with snowmen. 

Grown up table setting was very pretty. I loved this table runner with red pointsettias made with red sequins. And the holly berry brocade placemats are some of my all time favorites. 

We make Gingerbread men and woman for Christmas Eve decorating fun. 

And some Sugar cookies too. 

We made this Cranberry Cilantro dip and pour it over a block of cream cheese to eat with crackers and Wheat Thins. It is delicious! Check it out HERE. It is fun for New Years Parties too! 

I’m getting my cinnamon rolls ready. We will add THIS MONKEY BREAD recipe to them. It just makes them more gooey and delicious with pecans too! Yummy. 

Some of my end tables in the living room all decorated cute. I also make this breakfast casserole that is traditional in our family. It has hash browns, Jimmy Dean sausage, eggs, cheese and it can be cut into 12 to 16 pieces for brunch or breakfast. Check it out HERE.

We have to leave out some cookies for Santa tonight while we watch his progress on Google Santa Tracker. It is fun to see what country he’s at every minute. 

Anyway, if you are making a chocolate cake, cupcakes, cream puffs or anything that would be made better by a fudgy, chocolate icing that really does taste like fudge, then this is the recipe for easy, fudgy icing. 

 Chocolate Fudge Icing 
1/2 slick real butter
2 Tbsp. cocoa
2 Tbsp. milk
2 cups powdered sugar ( I used a little less, just add it till desired consistency)

Put butter and cocoa into a medium saucepan. Add milk. Heat until melted, stirring constantly.

Slowly add 2 cups powdered sugar until melted and smooth.

Chocolate Cake with Fudgy Icing….. so, so good! 
Chocolate Bundt Cake – Is just as good with the chocolate fudge icing as the traditional cream cheese icing. So you just have to choose your poison! I love it on Christmas eve. It is also great for a New Year’s Party. Happy Holidays! 

Snickerdoodle Cookies for Coworker Gift Bags

Teachers have lots of coworkers. We have parent helpers. We have a boss and office staff. It can get crazy if you want to give gifts to lots of the people who help you do your job. I have found the most personal gift that won’t also break the budget, is a homemade box or bag of cookies or candy.

Holiday Snickerdoodle Cookie Giftbags for Coworker Christmas Gifts 

This year I am giving some yummy and easy Snickerdoodles to my people I visit, in the neighborhood, coworkers and school staff. I found these adorable bags at Walmart for $1.00 for 5 of them or 27 cents each for just a couple.

Gift bags from Walmart. They are very colorful and festive. I just added a cute gift tag, bagged the Snickerdoodle cookies in a holiday Ziplock baggie, and added bright, red, tissue paper.

I made a double batch of this SNICKERDOODLE recipe.

  • 1 cup Unsalted Butter (2 sticks)
  • 1 1/2 cup Sugar
  • 2 Eggs
  • 1 teaspoon Vanilla
  • 2 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
  • 2 teaspoons Cream of Tartar
  • 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon Salt
Mix together and then roll walnut sized balls in cinnamon sugar mixture. Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes. After 5 minutes open oven and sprinkle red or green or both sugars onto flat cookies. 
  • 1 tablespoon Cinnamon (mix together cinnamon and sugar and roll dough balls in before baking)
  • 3 tablespoons Sugar 

I rolled them very lightly in a 1 to 3 ratio of  cinnamon to sugar mixture and popped them in the oven. If you want your to turn out more rounded than flat chill dough for 45 minutes before rolling and baking.

Easy Snickerdoodles 

After the cookies had baked 5 minutes and were flat, I opened up the oven and sprinkled red and green decorating sugar on them lightly. They are crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside, with a hint of cinnamon.

Snickerdoodle Cookies with red and green sugars! Great Co-worker gift bag! 

The gift bags are cute with the tissue paper and the gifts took me a few hours to make but now I’m all done! I like how they turned out too. Yummy!

Snickerdoodle Cookies are always a yummy and inviting treat for a gift bag! 

I always love a good home-baked  bread or cookie as a gift. I have a friend who delivers caramels homemade and another who always makes English Toffee. And my good neighbor down the street brings over a homemade berry pie every year. I love the personal touch. And you can’t go wrong when it tastes yummy.