Thursday, December 23, 2010

Pretzel Rod and Gingerbread Factory!

It's a tradition every Christmas to make pretzel rods and gingerbread men. It just wouldn't feel like Christmas without making these! You melt chocolate bark in a double boiler and dip pretzel rods in it. Lay them out on wax paper and, while they're still wet, sprinkle whatever you like on them! This year, in addition to the colorful sprinkles, we sprinkled some of the rods with crushed candy canes, and they were really good!
When there's just a little bit of chocolate left at the bottom of the pan, it's a good time to dip Oreo cookies, too! They turn out so cute and they are delicious! I guess you could dip whatever kind of cookie you have in your cupboard and they would probably be delicious!
Take a string of cherry licorice and tie two pretzel rods together in a knot and then place them in our large cellophane bags.
We tied ribbon around the bag to hold them tightly in place and to keep any part of the pretzel rod from being exposed. If you have time, a cute little Christmas tag would be adorable attached to the ribbon.
We did the same thing with the Oreos. Two fit perfectly into our medium cellophane bags!
Then it was on to gingerbread! As I've told you before, my son absolutely LOVES gingerbread. As fast as I can make the cookies, he can eat them! In fact, he even eats the dough raw, so while I'm TRYING to make them, he's eating the dough, resulting in fewer cookies! Arghhhhh! We found that if we use a gingerbread man cookie cutter, we get way less cookies than if we use a round biscuit cutter - and we want MORE gingerbread cookies, so that's why these are round. My daughter, her best friend, and my daughter's boyfriend decorated the cookies using toothpicks!
This is how many I was able to get baked before my son could attack them! I imagine by this time tomorrow, they'll all be gone! Oh, well, that's what I made them for, right? That's why I stood for hours in the kitchen making them, right? I made them from scratch this year - and they are deeeee-lish! I'll have to hide a stash just for me before they're all gone!
They made cute smiley faces - and there's even some cookies with our dog's name on it! We had a fun time yesterday in the kitchen. Today, it's time to make more fudge! I think I've already made 24 pounds of it at this point! I'm finally starting to get kind of sick of that stuff!! Ha! Love the holidays, love the baking, love Christmas - IT'S ALL GOOD!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Penny,
These look amazing!
Next time you have a bit of chocolate left, try dipping Ritz Crackers with Peanut Butter in the middle. You'll think you've died and gone to heaven! Yumm!
Merry Christmas friend!

penguinstamper said...

Hi Robin!

OMG, I wish I had done that! Now that you mention it, I've had those before and you're right, you will think you've died and gone to heaven! Maybe I'll have to rush to the grocery store and buy more chocolate bark and do that! Thanks for the suggestion, Robin!!

Merry Christmas to you - and I wish you a New Year filled with all good things, my friend!