Candy Bars!

I'll put the original recipe first, and then mine below. With these ingredients, how could it be bad?! (That's excluding the health side of things, unless you follow my theory that says that if you're happy, you'll enjoy a better life.) ;D

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, melted

• 1 pkg. 2 -layer chocolate cake mix

• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

• 1 cup white chocolate chips

• 2 cups chopped pecans OR coconut

• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

• 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

Preparation:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter and cake mix in large bowl. Mix with fork until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over bottom of 15x10" jelly roll pan and press to form crust. Sprinkle with semisweet chocolate chips and white chocolate chips and pecans or coconut.

In microwave on medium power, melt milk chocolate chips for 1-2 minutes or until melted. Stir sweetened condensed milk into the melted chips. Spread milk mixture evenly over nuts in jelly roll pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 18-25 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely and cut into bars. 48 bars

My version:

Ingredients:

• Approximately 1/2 cup butter, melted (I probably had a bit more than 1/2 cup, and I think it could have used a little more.)

• 1 pkg. 2-layer Devil's Food cake mix (It was that or German Chocolate, and we use the German Chocolate mix more often than we do Devil's Food.)

• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, divided (into 1 cup portions - We didn't have milk chocolate chips.)

• 1 cup white chocolate chips

• 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans (2 cups sounded like a LOT of nuts.)

• Almost a full pkg. caramels (Don't you judge me!) ;)

• Splash of heavy cream... Approximately 2 Tbs maybe?

• 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk

Preparation:

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter and cake mix in large bowl. Mix with fork until crumbly. Sprinkle evenly over bottom of 15x10" jelly roll pan and press to form crust (good luck! Took me F.O.R.E.V.E.R!).

Place unwrapped caramels into a heat-proof container with the cream. Microwave until completely melted.

Sprinkle 1 cup each of semi-sweet chocolate and white chocolate chips on the crust, then the pecans, then pour/spread melted caramel over chocolate chips and nuts.

In microwave on medium power, melt remaining cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips for 1-2 minutes or until melted. Stir sweetened condensed milk into the melted chips. Spread mixture evenly over caramel in jelly roll pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-25 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely and cut into bars.

Oh, boy. Now I want some!!! We're thinking about tweaking the recipe some more. Some of the changes we're thinking about include: making the crust more crispy-cookie-like, and more caramel (think Twix). I'd like to try it with the milk chocolate chips as well; we just didn't have any this time.

Sparkling Cranberries

I made this recipe over Christmas, and it turned out quite well! The cranberries were very pretty, but the berries we had were getting a little old when I finally got around to doing it, so they went bad on us pretty quickly. Anyway, they were a lovely addition to the holiday selection of goodies. They even tasted good, especially if you like slightly sweet sour things. I'm just going to copy and paste the recipe; the original is HERE.

For the simple syrup, raw cane sugar or real brown sugar lends a nice molasses flavor to the cranberries, but regular granulated sugar (or a blend of brown/white) will work.

• 2 cups cranberries, picked over

• 2 cups water

• 2 cups sugar (see head notes)

• More sugar for coating: I do a mix of medium-grained organic sugar for the first coating, and then a second toss with regular granulated white sugar. You don't want a huge grain for that first toss, just something larger than standard sugar, smaller than most turbinado sugars. You can sort of see the different grain sizes in the third photo in the main write-up.

Place the cranberries in a medium glass bowl and set aside.

Make a simple syrup by bringing the water and sugar just to a simmer in a medium saucepan. Let the syrup cool for a couple minutes and then pour it over the cranberries. If the syrup is too hot the cranberries will burst, so be careful. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, drain the cranberries and toss them with larger grained sugar until they are well coated. I only use a scoop of sugar at a time, and small batches of cranberries, so the sugar doesn't get too damp. Place the coated cranberries on a baking sheet to dry for a few hours.

Do a second toss with the regular granulated sugar, this typically takes care of any sticky spots on the cranberries. Let dry another hour.

Makes 2 cups of sparkling cranberries.

Caramels

These are so good! With these ingredients how could they not be?

• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 1 cup evaporated milk
• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 1 cup butter
• 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
  

Grease a 12x15 inch pan.

In a medium-size pot, combine sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, evaporated milk, whipping cream, and butter. Monitor the heat of the mixture with a candy thermometer while stirring. When the thermometer reaches 250 degrees F (120 degrees C) remove the pot from the heat.

Stir in vanilla. Transfer mixture to the prepared pan and let the mixture cool completely. When cooled cut the Carmel into small squares and wrap them in wax paper for storage [I didn't do this. It was late, and I was lazy :)].

Link

Saltine Cracker Candy

• 1 cup of butter
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• saltine crackers
• 12 oz of chocolate chips (recipe calls for milk chocolate, but we've done it with semi-sweet and both. We never measure either, but put however much we want.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil (we usually use parchment now because we found that the foil tended to tear with the candy). Completely cover with crackers. Melt the butter and brown sugar. Boil three minutes, stirring constantly. Pour boiled mixture over crackers. Put in oven. Cook five minutes. Remove immediately and sprinkle with chocolate chips. Refrigerate until cool. Lift foil (or parchment). Candy will break into different shapes (depending on how hard and long the butter and sugar mixture boiled, the candy may need some help breaking into manageable pieces.).