Pink Peppermint Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches

These little peppermint Oreo ice cream sandwiches were my favorite new creation of the Christmas season.  They are SO good. 

Chocolatey.  Pepperminty.  Cool, creamy, and delicious.  

Plus they're bite-sized little babies, so obviously they're low-cal...

Right?

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Dark Chocolate Peppermint Cupcakes

It feels odd to post all these Christmas treats in January, but I decided it made no sense to save them until next year.  (By which time I probably would have lost the pictures or accidentally deleted the posts.)  This last December was CRAZY for us.  I think I was sick 21 of the 31 days of the month, and amidst Christmas preparations, going on vacation, and baking up treats for our friends, I literally had no time to get these recipes posted.  I hope you don't mind me going back into Christmas mode for awhile, but I promise Valentine's treats are coming soon!  

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday.  Thanks for sharing some of your time with me this year!

These dark chocolate cupcakes are filled with peppermint whipped cream and topped with peppermint marshmallow buttercream, and peppermint candy pieces.

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Terry's Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Early last month I developed a cookie recipe based on my favorite Christmas treat, Terry's chocolate oranges.  Right before Christmas I decided a cupcake version needed to happen as well.

These were scrumptious & had the perfect combination of chocolate and orange.

Nom. Nom.

Now i really want a chocolate orange.

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White Chocolate Peppermint Oreos

The knife block set we got for our wedding conveniently came with a whacker.  You know, one of those long rods that you use to whack things like candy canes or Oreos to crush them?

Okay, so it turns out the "whacker" is actually a knife sharpener.  Yes, I just figured that out today.

Who knew?

Everyone needs a good whacker in their knife set.  Otherwise you couldn't make these babies.

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Penguin Pops

I maybe should have titled this post "pops for dummies".  These are seriously so easy, because you use a ready-made body you don't have to dip it in chocolate.  The hardest part is the molding of the beaks and cutting out the feet.  (Which really isn't hard at all). I'd estimate these take about 5 minutes to make the taffy pieces in bulk and then about 3 minutes per pop to assemble.  It doesn't get easier than this!

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Peppermint Whipped Cream (For hot cocoa or cupcakes)

Sorry I always have to spout off randomly to you before I ever give you a recipe.  I like to hold them for ransom so I can talk to adults for 3 minutes of my day (Love my 3 year old but he wants to talk about "human bodies" all day and that kind of disgustingifies me.)  PS-  Don't call social services on me.  When I say he wants to talk about human bodies, he wants to talk about the skeletal system and circulatory system and how the small intestine absorbs food, and what the white blood cells fight with.  Sometimes he calls me the names of germs, which personally I don't find that hurtful because I don't even know what they are.  As you can probably guess-  it's nice to have a real chat once in awhile where I can talk about adult things.  Like cake batter snack mix.

So, I have to ask.  Has anybody seen Jack & Jill?  What did you think of it?   I laughed through the whole movie.  Probably because I'm immature.  But then I found out that it only got 1 star on IMDB.  ONE. STAR.  I thought they reserved that kind of rating for movies like 101 Dalmations II or Land Before Time XII.

So I would probably feel better about myself if somebody else could tell me they thought Jack & Jill was hilarious as well.  (If you hated it you don't need to tell me. I don't want to go through life thinking I'm a bad movie judger. You know?)

Anyways, this whipped cream is perfect on the Peppermint Rims I posted a few days ago.  Also, it's freaking delicious.  You can just plop it in a cup of cocoa, or you can stabilize it and use it to pipe on chocolate cupcakes and add some peppermint pieces.  (Also freaking delicious.)  By the way, I didn't stabilize mine, so your cupcakes will definitely be prettier than my cupcakes.  No worries. And if you stabilize it, be sure to double the piping gel because that recipe only makes half as much as this one.

If you are using it to frost cupcakes you may want to add more sugar.  It is  lightly sweetened which is perfect  for cocoa, but it may need a little umph to replace frosting.

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Peppermint Hot Chocolate Rims

Can we have a little chat about couponing real quick?  I do not watch couponing shows.  I have heard of them.  I have heard there are people who spend hours a day cutting coupons and who actually *make* money when they go through the check-out line of the grocery store.  To be honest, I am completely befuddled by this.  Sometimes I get ambitious and I look through those coupon pages that come in the newspaper.  I usually end up throwing them away when I realize the coupons either require you to buy twelve sticks of deoderant to get a free one, or save you 25 cents on a package of paper towels.  (Since the big package of paper towels costs like $10 and I spend 25 cents on gum like every time I pass a gumball machine, I find this slightly ridiculous.  Also, being OCD I have panic attacks when I have a million little crumpled coupons overflowing out of all the corners of my purse, so I usually decide it's not worth saving the 25 cents.) 

Anyways.  This was before I discovered Coupon Loving Chicks through Lark's Country Heart (possibly the nicest person in the world and totally the reason I have more than six Facebook friends).  These ladies find coupons for you and post them on their Facebook wall.

Coupon of the day- A 10$ gift card when you spend $50 at Target.  (I'm just gonna assume that I'm not the only one that can't get out of there without spending $50-$100.)  It's basically free money!  Plus then you can justify spending $10 on Lipsmackers or boot socks.  Maybe coupons *are* good for something after all. I am totally converted.

Visit Target's Facebook page, and follow their link to print the coupon; it's only good through Dec 3rd!


Now that we have that out of the way.  I'm going to show you my favorite way to serve hot chocolate, and one of my favorite Christmas "recipes".   Peppermint rimmed mugs.  The great thing about this is it takes about 2 minutes to do. It's INSANELY easy. (Read: Edward Scissorhands can do this.  And he has no hands.)

Also it looks fancy so everyone will think you're kind of a domestic diva.

Plus peppermint hot chocolate is kind of the best.

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Gingerbread Hot-Chocolate Stirring Sticks

So I found this package of Gingerbread Men marshmallows at Target last week. 

 

I had no idea what to do with them but I couldn't resist buying them cause they were stinkin' cute (and like $1.25).  I ended up making these little hot chocolate stirring sticks for my kids.  The best part is even little ones can help skewer the marshmallows.  They taste alright but are nothing special.  They are coated in a sugary mixture so that's why they look a little powdery.

Anyway- easy peasy, and great for a snow day.

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Gingerbread Waffles with Cinnamon Syrup and Whipped Cream

Favorite. Breakfast. Ever.  That's all you need to know.  Every time I run out of dinner ideas- we end up eating these. I actually prefer them topped with whipped cream alone, but some of my family can't live without the cinnamon syrup.  If we ever have leftovers (rare), I freeze these for quick breakfasts and snacks and they are a hit.  These are a bit time intensive, so I don't recommend them for first thing in the morning when you're starving. 

Also, be aware, when you take the waffles off the iron they will be very limp.  Be careful not to tear them, but don't worry, they will crisp up as they cool down. 

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Snowman and Reindeer Oreo Pops

I started my Christmas shopping this week. So although I am painfully aware it is still August, I figured, what the heck, let's post a holiday treat.  I made these pops last year and have been promising to post them, and since I'm pretty sure I don't want to spend my *December* a very sacred month, posting OLD recipes, I'll just post them now for you.  I take it a personal responsibility to spread Christmas cheer before Halloween costumes are even in stores. PLUS if you're a freakish planner like me, you need lots of time to strategically plan which holiday treats to bake when, who to give them to, how to avoid having heaps of chocolate sitting on your counter all month... this time of year practically calls for a binder!  Oh wait, I have one of those.

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