It is the weekend before Christmas and I have been busy baking for us and the Bumpus Hounds. Dreamy Eyes did me a solid yesterday by taking the boys out of the house for part of the day. I took that opportunity to make my work team their gifts of chocolate covered pretzels in festive Mason Jars, peanut butter kisses for the family and wrapped a few gifts. Today I made some dog treats in Christmas shapes for our hounds as well as for our friends dogs too.
This weekend was perfect for baking. The weather has been wet and gloomy making it almost mandatory to fire up the oven and warm the house with scents of memories past. The first thing I worked on was the gifts for my team. Here are the ingredients:
The ingredients are simple: white and chocolate almond bark, pretzels, mason jars (any size) and holiday fabric
I figured out how many pretzels I wanted per jar, then measured out that many pretzels. I always want to end up with more than I need. The next step was to melt the almond bark. I prefer this brand, I find it melts well, is not too thick and is a bit more forgiving with the temperature. Once it is melted I dropped several pretzels in, coating them, draining excess and placing on wax paper. Repeat over and over until you are done with one flavor, then move onto the next flavor or Almond Bark and repeat. I put sprinkles on a few of them to make them extra festive.
While the pretzels were cooling and setting up I went to work on the jars. I washed and dried the jars and lids, then I cut fabric squares to cover the lids and add a festive touch. I am not sure what size I cut, it really is up to you, I don’t think you can do it wrong.
Next I put the pretzels in the jars, layering milk chocolate, then white chocolate, the milk again. When that was complete I added inner lid, centered the fabric over it, the added the outer ring. They turned out very fun and festive.
This is a fun way to give a gift from the heart
Next I made Peanut Butter Kisses. My mom makes these every year during the holidays. This was my first time making these cookies, though they really are so easy, I should have tried this years ago. I went to Google for the recipe and came across a traditional one from Betty Crocker called Peanut Butter Blossoms. Essentially it is a peanut butter cookie rolled in granulated sugar with a Hershey Kiss in the center. They are wonderful little morsels of happiness.
Peanut Butter Kisses!
Today I made some treats for our Bumpus hounds. I have been wanting to make some home baked dog treats for awhile. Pinterest became my friend in this search. I read several recipes and settled on this one by The Cookie Rookie: http://www.thecookierookie.com/pb-dog-treats/. This was so very simple, it is peanut butter, flour, honey, egg, baking powder, and water. I cut them out with my Christmas cookie cutters. Once they were baked and cooled I started bundling them and tying them with rafia ribbon. I love how these turned out and am excited to start handing these goodies out!
These treats are Bumpus Hound approved. Both dogs went ga-ga over them!
Overall it was a really productive weekend, besides the baking I made a couple of great meals, wrapped gifts, watched some Christmas movies with the family and spent some good time with my little munchkin Brax. Thank you for stopping by to check out my post. Remember to be grateful and have goodwill towards others.
jennscountryweekends 