Homemade Marshmallows

Ingredients:

1 package unflavoured gelatin
80 mL cold ice water, divided into 40 mL each
125 mL sugar
80 mL light corn syrup
one small pinch of salt
1.5 mL vanilla
20 ml icing sugar
20 mL cornstarch

Looking back:

This was a really fun and really sticky project! I definetly recommend this for a rainy day inside!

Banana Splitsville

Ingredients:

Basic Caramel Software:

500 mL sugar
250 mL water
1 tbsp light corn syrup

Caramel Sauce Software:

1 batch caramel (above)
500 mL heavy cream (whipping cream)

Banana Brulee Software:

4 bananas
sugar for coating

Additional Splitsville Software:

Any ice-cream of your choice.

Looking back:

This wa really fun to make and I really enjoyed doing it!

Easy Nut Brittle

Ingredients:
250 mL sugar
125 mL corn syrup
250 mL nuts
5 mL butter
5 ml vanilla
5 mL baking soda

1. Spray cookie sheet with not-stick spray.
2. In a large glass bowl or measuring cup stir sugar, corn syrup and salt with a wooden spoon.
3. Microwave on high until syrup is pale yellow or amber in colour (about 5-8 min).
4. Add nuts and then put back into the microwave 1 minute more.
5. Immediately stir in butter, vanilla, baking soda. The mixture will be foaming.
6. Quickly and carefully pour unto the cookie sheet. Spread the brittle evenly across the cookie sheet.
7. When the brittle is completely cooled, break into pieces.

Looking Back:
This is a fun recipe that takes less than an hour to do. The brittle is reallly good! You have to make sure that you use the clear corn syrup so that you can tell when the solution changes colour.

*Note: In this recipe I used peanuts but you can use any kind of nut you want.

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.