Snicker Bites

I am using a photo of my rum balls because these look quite similar on the outside. This is another recipe for some quick and yummy no bake desserts.

What you will need to make Snickers bites:
- 200 g unsalted ground peanuts
- 100 g cornflakes 
- 100 g milk toffee, or soft chewy caramels 
- 200 ml heavy cream 
- 250 g of dark chocolate 
- 50 g of honey

How to make Snickers bites:
- Crumble the cornflakes, you can do this by putting them in a plastic bag and squishing with your hands or taking a hammer to them. 
- Mix the cornflakes and the ground up peanuts.
- Chop up the caramels into small pieces, pour the heavy cream in with them and melt on a low heat until you get a nice smooth cream.
- Pour the cream over the dry mixture and mix thoroughly.
- Leave the whole thing for about 15 to 20 minutes in the fridge to cool.
- After cooling form into balls, or if you want you can do a different shape and roll them into ground peanuts or sugar or sprinkles.

Photo Credits: My photo.

Tasty Rum Cookies recipe

These simple, yet delicious cookies are something that definitely doesn't get skipped in my household.

I think we all need a bit of alcohol in us from time to time, this goes for cookies too!

What you will need to make spiced rum cookies:
- 175g (6oz) of unsalted butter, softened and a bit extra for greasing
- 175g (6oz) dark muscovado sugar
- 225g (8oz) plain flour
- Pinch of salt
- 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 2 tbsp dark rum

How to make spiced rum cookies:

To see the full recipe please click HERE.

Inexpensive last minute gift!

For those of us tight on cash and with a lot of gift recipients this year here is a great gift to the rescue! Hot chocolate is a winter staple as far as drinks go. From plain to fancy shmancy everyone loves a cup one way or another. Once you set out to make this gift, making it in bulk is even easier so you can take care of all those teachers, neighbors or coworkers for which you need to get a gift. Read on for a quick "How to" for one hot chocolate gift mug.
What you will need for your homemade hot chocolate cup:

- One winter, holiday related cup. You can get them at a dollar store for a buck (like this lovely one I picked up).

- Two packets of hot chocolate mix. Any quality brand that you like will do, the brand won't be shown anyway.
- A handful of mini marshmallows.
- A handful of mini white chocolate chips.
- A handful of milk chocolate chips.
- Flavored powder coffee creamer. These do not have to be flavored, however it is a very nice touch if you know what the recipient likes.
- One peppermint candy cane. You don't need a lot at all, less than half of one.
- Two plastic spoons. Or if you see cheap fancy looking ones at a dollar store you can grab that too. Up to you.
- Festive ribbon.
- Plastic wrap usually used in the kitchen.
- Small clear cellophane gift bags. You can have them be decorated as well if you find ones fitting your theme.

- Cellophane wrap. You can usually find this at an arts and crafts store or amongst florist supplies. You can also use a cellophane gift bag providing that you find one big enough for your mug.
- Couple of sheets of card stock printer paper.
- A working color printer.
- Two small microwave safe bowls.

How to set up your homemade hot chocolate cup:
- Open up the small cellophane gift bag. Make sure the bottom is nice and flat as much as possible. To make it stay that way you could cut out a small piece of card stock and line the bottom with it.
- First we will put down the coffee creamer into the bottom of the bag, while doing this try to keep the edges of the bag clean.
- Now open up one of the packets of the hot chocolate mix and layer it over the powder coffee creamer.
- Once that is done put down a handful of mini marshmallows and over them the second bag of hot chocolate mix.
- On top of your second layer of chocolate mix do a thin layer of the mini white chocolate chips.
- Now take that peppermint candy cane and crush it into sprinkles. You can just crush a small portion as you will only need a pinch of the sprinkles to put over the white chips.
- Alright so this baggie is done. You need to tie it up tight, if you want you can use one of those trash bag ties and then tie a ribbon around it, also keep in mind when making this baggie that it needs to fit into the mug.
- Now melt the milk chocolate and dip one of the plastic spoons into it so you come out with the coated spoon head and a spoonful of chocolate. Do the same with the leftover white chocolate. Put in the freezer for a few minutes to chill and harden. Cut up some cellophane and wrap up the tops of the spoons in it, secure with ribbon.

- Assemble the baggie with the mix, the chocolate spoons and an optional peppermint steer stick. Wrap the mug with the ingredients into the cellophane gift wrap.

- Now take that card stock and either print out some gift tag designed templates or better yet paint and cut out your own by hand. Either punch or cut out a hole at the top, pull the ribbon through and then tie it at the top of the mug to hold the cellophane gift wrap in place.

How to make a wreath Advent Calendar

Not only Christmas, but the whole of December seems to be a time of rushing, gifts, joy and family time. The decorations start to spring up everywhere and you just cant wait for the day! And since there are all sorts of countdowns to special occasions, well why not create your own countdown to Christmas by making an Advent Calendar. It is a great gift, arts and crafts project as well as a festive decoration full of all sorts of treats, depending on how you wish to design yours. You can also tweak this idea to make an advent calendar for events other than Christmas, just make sure you decorate it according to the season, holiday or the celebration, everything else stays the same!

What you will need to create your own wreath  Christmas Advent Calendar:

- A few sheets of Holiday/ Christmas themed scrap booking paper. These sheets can be all the same or you can get different ones and make the colors work together.

- Gift wrap! Make it shiny, colorful and festive.

- Crafts glue.

- Paints, acrylic, water colors or even markers will do, the choice is up to you.

- Twenty five small boxes. You can use the small paper mache boxes from crafts stores like Joann's, Michael's, Hobby Lobby or any other that is close to you. They usually are quite cheap, however if you have match boxes lying around that will do great as well, and you can always mix and match.

- A Styrofoam wreath ring. Make sure it is big enough to fit all your boxes onto it.

- Wide ribbon, you can get the kind used for bows on gift-wrap or you can use the gift-wrap paper cut into strips to wrap around the Styrofoam wreath ring.

- A pair of scissors.

- Twenty five pieces of sweets, be it candies or chocolates it is up to you.

- Any other decorative accessories you might want to use such as glitter, various stickers, etc.

How to create your own Christmas Advent Calendar:

- First of all you will need to decorate your small boxes. You can either paint them or gift wrap them. If you use gift wrap (or scrap booking sheets) make sure you wrap the box and the lid separately so the lid can be taken off the box.

- Put one number on each lid until you have a lid for each of the twenty five days. The decorating part is really free style, so let your imagination roam and have fun.

- You might want to decorate the inside of your boxes (the bottom at least) also, as each day passes the lids are going to be taken off to remove a number so the inside of the box will be showing. Just keep that in mind.

- Once all of your boxes are done its time to work on the wreath ring. You want to wrap it up into ribbon or gift wrap so none of the foam is visible. Make sure that the ribbon is secured firmly in place as you will be gluing the boxes onto it!

- Now, you will glue the boxes in a circle onto the ring, you can put the numbers neatly in order or mix them up. The mix up works really good if you had different size and shape boxes. Use crafts glue to glue the back of the boxes down onto the wreath ring. Follow the instructions on the glue you use as far as the amount and drying times go.

- When your boxes are all down and your wreath is completed it is time to fill each box with a sweet. This actually doesn't have to be a candy. Depending on what you are going for it can be anything from chocolate, small message or a tiny gift.

- Put the lids on all of the boxes once they have filled up and your advent calendar is ready to go! Give it as a gift or hang it up as decor.

Ornament Cake Balls

Christmas, along with being a time of joy and giving is also a time when we try and out do one another (whether we like to admit it or not) in the sweets we bake and the crafts we make. And combining the two with the seasonal touch will make for a perfect gift, centerpiece or even a tree decoration. This very special treat is an adaptation of super popular cake balls. We will be using the same principles only we will tweak the shapes a little!

Photo by: http://www.cakecentral.com

While this project is not completely suitable for children to make they can definitely help out quite a bit as long as there is an adult around to help out and supervise. Cake balls are very, very versatile so you will have a lot of options to choose from as far as flavors go!

Photo by: http://cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com

What you will need to create your treats:
- One package of cake mix along with the ingredients to make it (any flavor, or you can make it from scratch).
- One can of frosting, again any flavor you wish.
- A bag of white chocolate chips.
- Edible coloring pens.
- Food coloring.
- Decorating gel, as many tubes as you want in any colors.
- A pack of lolly-pop sticks.
- Wax paper.
- An assortment of sprinkles.

Photo by: http://www.cakecentral.com

How to make the treats:
- Bake the cake according to the instructions on the cake mix box.
- Once the cake has baked, let it cool off enough so you can handle it. Take a big plastic bowl and crumble your cake into it, then add the icing. Mix it all in good until you get a smushy weird mass.
- You should let the cake and icing mix chill for at least two hours before shaping the balls.
- Once your mixture has chilled shape the small bite size balls. A melon scoop helps if you want perfect shapes but is not necessary. You should freeze the balls at least six hours before dipping them, just make sure that they aren't frozen solid!
Alright now comes the decor part. You will want to work in small batches and quick.
What we will be creating is Christmas Ornaments.
- In a small bowl melt enough white chocolate chips for your batch of Christmas Ornament cake balls, add a couple of drops of your preferred food coloring until you get a color you are happy with. You might want to figure out your color scheme beforehand, this will be the base color of the ornaments.
- Using a toothpick or a fork dip the cake balls into the chocolate and then lay them down on wax paper covered plate. Repeat until all of them are finished.
- Let the balls sit so the chocolate can solidify. After the chocolate has set you can use the edible markers, the decorating gel, fondant and sprinkles to draw designs and decorate the ornaments.

Photo by: http://inspired-by-chocolate-and-cakes.com

Another thing you can do is melt the white chocolate chips once again and color them, then using a narrow tip squeeze bottle you can decorate the ornaments by drawing on them. If you wish you can also stick lolly-pop sticks into the cake balls.

Homemade holiday food gifts

Homemade holiday food gifts are not only great because, well everyone loves food, but also because food is so versatile. These gifts can be made to fit any holiday, with tons of colors, and all sorts of different themes. A holiday themed homemade food gift is fail-proof; everyone will just adore it!

One of the most important parts of food-based gift giving, next to a great tasting treat, is the personalization. Imagine the difference in getting a plain plate of cookies, or receiving a nicely packaged (don't worry it is not expensive, nor difficult) box or gift baggy of your favorite cookies, with maybe a note or a card attached, in the least. Quite a difference, is it not?!

Goodhousekeeping.com

There are many ways to package your home made food gifts. If, for instance, you are giving away things which are in jars maybe, such as home made jams or jellies, you could do a variety of gift baskets. If you are making home made candies, then the gift baggies are a nice choice to be considered. If you are giving a larger amount of candies, especially if there is a variety of flavours and types, then you could do gift baggies in the gift baskets. In case you are making cookies, cakes, fudges, or any other desserts similar to those, you could use some of the lovely and adorable paper boxes that you see in crafts stores. Either way you desire to wrap it the effect will be a lot greater than your plain packaging, and it is also budget friendly (very important in today's economy!).

Another way for you to personalize your homemade food gifts is to make sure you know what the person likes. You do not want to give a chocolate-lover the vanilla fudge! On top of that, keep the gift recipient in mind when decorating, especially if it is cookies that you are making. Icing is very versatile. You can write the person's name, greetings, an occasion related message, or draw something that relates to them.

When you get your gift baggies, baskets, or boxes from the arts and crafts store, make sure to grab a greeting card (finished or blank ones), or some blank tags. The tags are a wonderful way to show your artistic side and create a uniquely presented gift for your cherished ones. If you have time, and feel up to it, please don't shy away from making a hand made greeting card, or writing a cute note to the recipient.

You do not, by any means, have to make great elaborate creations, or be a chef or a baker such as the ones you see on the television these days. After all it is the thought that counts. Well... that and it still would be nice if it tasted yummy on top of that thought!