Hot Cocoa

Ingredients;

125 mL sugar
50 mL cocoa powder
dash of salt
80 mL hot water
1 L 2% milk
4 mL vanilla extract*

1. stir together sugar, cocoa and salt in medium saucepan; stir in water. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil. Boil and stir 2 minutes. Add milk; stirring constantly, heat to serving temperature. Do not boil.

2. remove from heat; add vanilla*. Whisk until mixture is foamy. Serve topped with marshmallows.

*Variations for flavouring: Add one of the following with the vanilla extract-

SPICED COCOA: dash of ground cinnamon and dash of ground nutmeg. Serve with a cinnamon stick if desired.

MINT COCOA: 2 mL mint extract OR 45 mL crushed hard peppermint candy. Serve with peppermint candy stick, if desired.

CITRUS COCOA: 2 mL of orange extract.

SWISS COCOA: 10 mL powdered instant coffee.

CANADIAN COCOA: 2 mL maple extract.

Looking Back:
This hot chocolate is the best I've ever had. It's amazing!

Classic Buttercream Icing

Ingredients:
250 mL vegetable shortening
5 mL vanilla
30 mL water
454g or 1000 mL of icing sugar
15 mL egg white powder

1. In large bowl, cream shortening, icing sugar, eggwhite powder, vanilla, and water
2. Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredietns have been thouroughly mixed together
3. Blend together an additional minute until creamy

*This icing can be refrigerated or you can freeze it

Gingerbread Houses

Ingredients:

*This recipe make 4 small houses

250 mL shortening
250 mL sugar
1 egg
250 mL molasses
15 mL vinegar
500 mL flour
5 mL baking soda
2 ml salt
5 mL ground ginger
5 mL ground cinnamon
5 mL ground cloves

(you may not need all of this)

* Preheat oven to 375 F or 190 C

1. Cream shortening well
2. Gradually add sugar and cream well again
3. Beat in egg, molasses, and vinegar
4. Stir together 250 mL of the flour along with the baking soda, salt, and spices
5. Gradually blend that first cup of flour and spices into the creamedd mixture and mix well.
6. Add another 250 mL of the flour gradually, blending well. Your dough should feel soft and workable so you might not have to work in all the flour.
7. Gather the dough into a ball and then flatten it into a disk and roll it out to 3mm thickness
8. Cut into the shapes you want your house to be made out of.
9. Place on parchment paper to line a cookie sheet
10. Bake for 5-6 miuntes or until hard. It will be soft when it comes out of the oven but should harden the longer it sits out.

Looking Back:
This recipe is stressful, not going to lie. My friends and I went through 2 hand mixers and we had to redo the dough 3 times. Once the mixing bit is over though, the decorating is really fun.

Spider Web Cookies

Ingredients:
375 mL flour
300 mL cocoa powder
2 mL salt
185 mL margarine
300 mL sugar
1 egg
3 mL vanilla

Royal Icing:
250 g icing sugar
2 mL cream of tartar
15 mL whip powder
50 mL water

* Preheat oven to 350 F
1.  In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa, salt. Set mixture aside.
2.  Use an electric mixer to cream the maegarine and sugar until fluffy.
     Beat in the egg and vanilla.
     Add flour mixture; mix on low speed until thoroughly combined.
     Divide the dough in half; wrap in plastic wrap.
     Chill for 10 minutes in the freezer.
3.  Roll the dough out between two pieces of wax paper until about 5 mm thick.
     Cut out a tracer for the web shape from scale paper.
     Cut out each cookie.
4.  Place cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.
5.  Cool completely on wire racks.
6.  To make royal icing whip together the icing ingredients in a medium bowl.
7.  To make the cobweb design, begin by icing cookie with white royal icing.
     To 50 mL of the icing sugar add 30 mL melted chocolate chips or use black icing paste.
8.  Pipe out a spiral of black icing starting from the center to the edges of the cookies.
9.  Draw a bamboo skewer or use the tip of a sharp knife and drag it from the center to each point of the cookie, then from the inner curves back to the center.


Looking Back:

This recipe is so stressful! The moisture content is really finicky and cutting out the spider webs is really annoying. This is a recipe for patient peopole......really patient people. 

Yellow Cupcakes

Ingredients;
375 mL of sifted cake flour
5 mL of baking powder
1 mL of salt
220 mL of granulated sugar
85 mL margarine
1 egg
5 mL of vanilla extract
150 mL of milk

*Preheat oven to 350 F
1. Line a muffin tine with paper liners.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
3. Cream sugar and butter together until light.
4. Add the egg and vanilla to creamed mixture and beat until thoroughly mixed.
5. Add flour mixture to creamed misture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition.       Continue beating one minute.
6. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 18 to 20 minutes or until toothipick inserted comes out clean.
7. Cool 10 minutes in pan on rack; remove and cool completely before decorating.

Looking Back:
These cupcakes were really good and had a good moisture content. I would for sure make these again.

Chocolate Banana Bread

                                                                                    Ingredients:                                                                     

1/2 cup of walnuts
1/2 a Banana
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla



*Preheat oven to 350 F
1. In a small bowl, mash the banana with a fork until somewhat smooth
2. In a medium bowl, mix wet ingredients together with a silicon spatula
3. In a large bowl mix dry ingredients together
3. Form a well in the dry ingredients and fold the wet ingredients into dry mixture
4. Pour into grease bread pan and bake for 35-40 min.
5. When done baking, let cool for 10 min before eating

Looking Back:

This was a great recipe and was really fun to do. This is great for a midnight snack or for a lunch. I will definetly be doing this again!

Rainbow Cookies

Ingredients:                                        

250 mL of margarine
250 mL of sugar
2 eggs
5 mL of vanilla
625 mL of flour
5 mL baking soda
10 mL of cream of tartar
2 mL of salt

*Preheat oven to 350 F
1. In a large bowl, cream together margarine and sugar. Add one egg at a time. Beat until well incorporated. Add the vanilla.
2. Sift together dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
3. Slowly stir the flour  mixture into the creamed mixture.
4. Divide the dough into 5 unequal amounts as listed smallest to biggest.
      - Blue
      - Green
      - Yellow
      - Orange  
      - Red
5. Mix 2-3 drops of food colouring to each amount.
6. Start by rolling the smallest ball into a snake. Surround the snake with the next largest ball until all the dough is used up. OR roll each ball into a snake, place each side by side and shape into a rainbow.
7. Put in freezer for 10 minutes or until the dough hardens.
8. slice the cookies in half anf place on an ungreased cookie sheet.
9.Bake for 8-10 minutes
10. Let sit on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then move them to a cooling rack to cool completely.

Looking Back:

This recipe was lots of fun! I had lots of fun making this but a word of caution. When you're making the snake with the first roll of dough, make it quite small and thick because it will stretch as you handle it. other wise it's lots of fun to make!

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients:

1/2 cup of walnuts
1 cup of Zucchini
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla


*Preheat oven to 350 F
1. On a cuttingboard, shred the zucchini
2. In  a medium bowl, mix wet ingredients together with a silicon spatula
3. In a large bowl mix dry ingredients together
3. Form a well in the dry ingredients and fold the wet ingredients into dry mixture
4. Pour into grease bread pan and bake for 35-40 min.
5. When done baking, let cool for 10 min before eating

Looking Back:

This is a very easy recipe with good outcomes. The bread came out very moist and tasted excellent!