Festive Treats

It may be a little late to show these, since the holiday baking is pretty much over, but maybe I'll show my goodies now and re-post it earlier next year.  :-)

I have this great little gingerbread tray that I made at a do-it-yourself ceramic studio a few years ago.  I love to make gingerbread men.  I've been doing it since my sons were little.  This year, I made my gingerbread from scratch, using the recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook.  Sometimes I just use a boxed mix.  It's all good.  The faces and buttons are just a little confectioners' sugar and a few drops of water.  I used a toothpick and dotted the icing on.

But the really fun things were the little marshmallow mugs!  I got the idea on Pinterest.  (Gotta love Pinterest!)

Here's the Gingerbread pan.  It's made by Wilton.  Mine is pretty old, but I think they still make it.

For the mugs, I broke off the top of little candy canes and stuck them in the side of large marshmallows.  Then I melted a few chocolate chips and spooned a little on top to be the hot chocolate.  For the tiny marshmallows, I had to get creative.  I snipped a large marshmallow into little pieces.  But I couldn't get them on the chocolate because they were so sticky, I couldn't get them to let go of my fingers.  So I rolled the little pieces in a bit of confectioners' sugar and poof!  They just dropped wherever I wanted them!

I make the gingerbread men every year.  We love them.  But the hot chocolate cups were new this year and were a big hit.  SO EASY, too!  Oh--- and the rest of the candy canes got smashed to use for chocolate peppermint bark.  I forgot to take a picture, but all you do is melt chocolate and sprinkle the chopped up peppermint on top.  When it's set, just break it into pieces.  Easy peasy!