Fa la la Food!

Another thing I love about Christmas time is baking.  I love to experiment and make new things.  I also like to bake for my students.  My 4th and 5th grade choir sang You're a Mean One Mr. Grinch this year, so when I saw these cute Grinch cookies on Pinterest, I had to make them.  I got the recipe from this blog.  Here is the recipe:

Grinch Cookies

• 1 18.25 oz box French vanilla cake mix (I just used white cake mix)
• 6 T butter
• 2 eggs
• Green food coloring
• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1 t corn starch

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 375°. Melt the butter and set aside to cool. In a shallow dish, mix together the powdered sugar and cornstarch with a fork. In a large bowl, mix together the cooled butter, cake mix and eggs. This will be a little hard to stir together. Add the green food coloring and make sure it is all mixed in.

Take two spoons and drop a blob of dough in the powdered sugar. Move it around with spoon until it is mostly covered in powdered sugar. Then, once it is already covered, roll it into a ball and place it on a cookie sheet.

Make sure you don't over crowd the baking sheet because these cookies spread out.

Bake them for 8-9 minutes.   They will look slightly puffed up.

Take them out of the oven and cool for one minute. Then move onto a cooling rack. They will drop a little, but will still be nice and chewy.


I also made a batch using red velvet cake mix for my piano studio's recital but I forgot to take a picture.  They tasted awesome!  My husband took the leftovers to work the next day and they got rave reviews from his coworkers.

 I also made cake pops for my piano studio's recital.  I have never wanted to make these before because the traditional method of making them uses frosting to hold together crumbled up cake.  I do not like most kinds of frosting so these didn't sound appetizing.  Lately, several companies have made devices and pans for making these by just baking cake in a round shape.  I used the Nordicware cake pop pan that I purchased it at Target for mine.

I used the recipe on the package.  The recipe created brownie like cake that was very dense and rich.  Here it is:

Fudgy Cake Pops

•   3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 Tbsp cocoa
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 24 lollipop sticks
• 1 package chocolate bark coating (I also used regular white almond bark)

• assorted sprinkles (I used colored sugar) 

Heat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease pan and set aside.  In medium saucepan, over low heat, melt chocolate chips and butter together; stir until smooth.  Remove from heat and pour into medium bowl.  Add sugar and cocoa; mix until blended.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Add flour and salt; stir until blended.  Spoon batter into bottom half of pan (without holes) filling each well so it mounds over the top of the pan.  Place top half of pan on top and secure with keys.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out almost clean.  Cool 5 minutes in pan, remove cake pops from pan to cool completely.  Melt chocolate bark according to package directions.  Insert lollipop sticks into cakes.  Dip cake pops in melted chocolate, spinning to let excess chocolate rip off.  Decorate with sprinkles as desired.  Place on parchment paper to set.  Makes about 24 cake pops.

I also decorated some by dipping them in the white almond bark and then drizzling some of the chocolate bark over it.  I let them dry by sticking the stick end into a block of floral foam.  I displayed them at the piano recital in some parfait glasses that I picked up at a thrift store.  The sticks were shorter than I thought so I filled the parfait glasses with some coffee beans then stuck the pops in.  They turned out so cute and they were a big hit with my piano students and their siblings.