Windowpane Hearts--or whatevers

My oldest son wanted to make these Windowpane Heart cookies from Family Fun for Valentine's Day. I told him we would, but with the school Valentine's Day party and his grandparents visiting last weekend, we made them after Valentine's Day. Consequently, we decided not to make them heart-shaped, but used different cookie cutters instead.

I mixed them up on Saturday thinking that they would be fun to make with Grammy, but the weekend got busy, and we didn't get to it. The dough was in the fridge waiting for us, so we made them this afternoon after the grandparents left to go home. We were stuck indoors watching it snow, so it was a good snowy day activity.

The boys had fun helping to roll out the dough, and it wasn't messy, because the recipe tells you to roll it between two layers of waxed paper. I DO NOT enjoy making cut out cookies, but this was the best cut out cookie recipe I have used to date. I am pretty sure I will use it again to make normal cut out cookies to decorate with icing.

What makes this recipe special is that you bake the cookies on aluminum foil and fill the cut out centers with hard candy. Similar to the Family Fun recipe, we used Jolly Ranchers. The pieces were too big for our small openings, so I used a heavy knife to "whack" the pieces into halves on a cutting board. The boys liked dropping the pieces of candy into the little holes in the cookies too.

I can not even begin to tell you how pleased I am with the way these turned out. I did not have high hopes for them turning out anywhere near as pretty as the Family Fun shows them, but ours did! Yay! It's the little things in life, isn't it? The boys had fun and were so surprised at what they looked like when they came out of the oven. It was a fun baking day with the boys. Thanks for stopping by!

Kindergarten Valentine Party Crafts

These will be posted over on my stamping blog tomorrow, because these are craft-related.  However, they use food, so I decided to share them here on the cooking blog too, even though they're not cooked or baked.  Enjoy!

I planned the crafts for last week's kindergarten Valentine's Day party, and I wanted to share them with you.  It makes me happy.

 

The first project was a Jolly Lolly from the Family Fun website.  I made lots of mustaches and kissing lips out of craft foam for the kiddos to choose from.  Of course, there were black, brown and blonde mustaches along with bright red, pink and fuschia lips for all tastes.  I had them all cut out with the holes punched so the kids just chose the "mask" and slid it onto a lollipop stick.  Then, I printed mailing labels, one for each child, that said, "Happy Valentine's Day! Love, (insert name here)"  That also made it easy to tell who had made the craft and who hadn't based on whose names were still left on the sheet of labels.

Next, the kids made these little Candy Airplanes, also from Family Fun. I bought cheap valentines stickers for the kids to use to decorate the stick of gum. Then, they assembled the biplane with help from the parents and aides at the party. I had the candy and rubberband in individual baggies for each child. Once they built the plane, they put it back in the baggie and affixed another mailing label that I printed to say, "Valentine, you make my heart soar!" with little biplane cliparts on each side.

The kids all seemed like they had lots of fun making these cute valentines to take home and give to parents, siblings, grandparents, whoever. Thanks for stopping by!

Quick and Easy Fudge

Jim's dad's birthday was over the weekend. He likes fudge, so last week I whipped up a batch of this easy fudge for him. Believe it or not, this recipe is from my high school freshman home economics class. My grandfather loved this recipe, and I used to make it for him all the time. Enjoy!

Quick and Easy Fudge

1 c. butter
1 c. creamy peanut butter
1/4 c. cocoa
2 T. vanilla
1 lb. conf. sugar

Melt butter and peanut butter in a large pot over medium heat. Remove from heat and add cocoa and vanilla. Add sugar one cup at a time and stir until smooth. Press into a square baking dish and let set until cooled. You can put it in the refrigerator to speed up the process so you can eat it sooner!

Thanks for stopping by!

Peanut Butter Fudge

My dad and brother both love peanut butter, so I made them each a box of peanut butter fudge as part of their Christmas gift. I didn't have a recipe, so I did an online search and came across this easy recipe from Food Network Host Alton Brown. (I like him a lot, especially his show, "Good Eats".) Anyway, the recipe is really easy and very tasty! Be careful when microwaving the peanut butter and butter--I boiled mine over in the microwave! Here's the link to the recipe. Thanks for stopping by!

Peppermint Divinity

There's a recipe for Peppermint Divinity in the December issue of Country Living magazine. In Christmases past before I had children, I would make an assortment of homemade candies, put them in little gift boxes, and give them as Christmas gifts. So I've made candy before, but I've never made divinity.

I've been on a mint kick lately. It started a few weeks ago when I bought a bottle of Twisted Mint hand soap at Bath & Body Works. The idea of peppermint divinity piqued my interest. I thought I would give it a try and put it in our preschool teacher gifts. It turned out really well--even if I do say so myself! Yum!