8th Annual Candy Making Event Day

Most of you that know me, know my passion is small sweet treats like candies and cake balls.  Some day I hope to be spending my working hours having my place where I can have all these favorites on hand through out the year, not just at Christmas!  For now I settle on my annual candy making event day.

This year was the 8th year that I organized my kitchen like I was managing a project!  Each year, I take my favorite candies for the holidays and spend an entire day making all of them.  I started this project on my own with three recipes in 2004 and added the kids the next year.  I used this to kick off my holiday spirit because at the time I was a single mom struggling to find a reason for the season, not to mention I didn’t have much money for gifts.  I began pouring my love into candy and started giving small gifts out to my friends.  It was such a huge hit that I began to get “dibs” called on my candy at Thanksgiving!  I try to add at least one new recipe each year (and I have only had to throw out a couple that weren’t big hits).

I would encourage you if you have ever thought of trying something like this, you should do it!  A few years into the process, I started putting people into teams and they would work on recipes together.  That was around 8-9 recipes and six years ago.  Then I moved into by invitation only with a set number of teams, working on 12-14 recipes for the day and I threw in dinner.  The only drawback became that if some of our friends didn’t get invited because we limited the number of people in the kitchen, then friends felt like they missed out on something really important.  This year I opened the kitchen up for the day between the hours of 9 am – 5 pm, still serving dinner at 5:30.  We made 19 different varieties of candies, still working in teams.  You were able to drop in when you could, make a few things and leave if you needed to.  This seemed to really work out and we had a total of ten adults cooking throughout the day.  It was really fun and if someone couldn’t make it, I didn’t feel guilty.  Of course everyone brings their own containers and gets to take some of everything home – the best part!!

The project management piece?  It was a lot to undertake: selecting one to two new recipes that was worth trying, going through all my recipes, organizing the ingredients and sorting out which ones I needed to purchase for the day.  After three stores and quite a bit of money later, the entire kitchen table was covered!  On the morning of the event, I got up extra early to sort all the ingredients into piles with the recipes for easy selection and making later.  I also, organized my candy list in order of cook times and set up times, starting with the candies that take the longest to get to the final product.  Of course, an additional trip to Wal-Mart happened since the night before they did not have all their Almond Bark out.  Note to yourself:  You CANNOT make candies without this Almond Bark.  I have tried almost every version of candy coating out there but this really is the best tasting for the recipes I use and it holds up well.

Ingredients Galore:

Now, I realize that by now you are dying to know what kinds of candies were on the list and how is it even possible to have 19 candies?  I’m going to give you the full candy list but I’m not going to share every single one of these recipes.  First, it is hard for me to part with some of my recipes that have “secret” ingredients (again if you know me, you aren’t surprised that I have secrets in my candy too).  Second, I need to have more blog material! HA!  A lot of my recipes have been handed down for many years, I have tweaked and made some adjustments I prefer or I have acquired them from really great friends.  Others I found through the internet (I added two new ones from Pinterest this year).

Candy List 2012

1. My Best Chocolate Fudge

2. White Fudge

3. Peanut Butter Fudge

4. Chocolate Mice

5. Easy Turtles (Much easier than original Turtles – but a huge hit with everyone)

6. Peppermint Bark

7. Buckeyes

8. Chocolate Covered Pretzel Rods (Easy but MUST be decorated)

9. Sugared Pecans

10. Crock Pot Candy

11. Peanut Brittle

12. Martha Washington Cremes (Thank You Jeanne!)

13. Reindeer Bites

14. Reindeer Balls (Peanut Butter Balls – Thanks to Garth Brooks) NEW

15. Dipped Marshmallows

16. Oreo Truffles

17. Oreo Pops

18. Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites NEW

19. No Bake Cookies (I only allow this type of cookie since they are easy and don’t require baking, all others are saved for another day)

Here are some of the recipes, enjoy and I hope you start your own tradition!

White Fudge

Ingredients:

1. 1 1/2 pounds premium white chocolate or confectioners’ coating

2. 1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk

3.   Dash salt

4. 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

5. 1 cup chopped nuts

Directions:

1. LINE an 8 or 9-inch square pan with wax paper, extending paper over edges of pan.

2. MELT chocolate with sweetened condensed milk and salt in heavy saucepan, over low heat. Remove from heat; stir in vanilla and nuts. Spread evenly into prepared pan.

3. CHILL 2 hours until firm. Remove from pan by lifting edges of wax paper. Cut into squares.

I found this by accident one year from Eagle Brand, feel free to click here to find it on their website and many other recipes.

Easy Turtles

Ingredients:

1. 1 bag Square Waffle Pretzels

2. 1 bag Rolos, unwrapped

3. 1 lb Pecan Halves

Directions:

1. Line cookie tray with parchment paper.

2. Fill the tray with pretzels.

3. Top pretzels with one Rolo, smallest side up.

4. Bake in 275 degrees pre-heated oven for only 2-3 minutes.

5. Remove and add a pecan halve to the top of each candy, just slightly pushing down.

6. Cool completely for about 2 hours, then store in air tight container.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Bites

Courtesy of a blog What Megan’s Making found on Pinterest.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup creamy peanut butter

2. 2 tablespoons softened butter

3. 1/2 cup powdered sugar

4. 3/4 cup brown sugar

5. Holiday shaped Pretzels

6. 1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips (I replaced this and used my favorite Chocolate Almond Bark)

Directions:

Line a baking sheet with wax paper and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat peanut butter and butter until combined. Scrape down bowl, add sugars and beat until combined. You should be able to roll the mixture into balls without sticking to your hands. If needed, add more powdered sugar until you reach a consistency that is easy to roll.  Roll the mixture into small balls, about 1 teaspoon of mixture for each ball, and place on prepared baking sheet. Sandwich the balls between two pretzels and place in the freezer for 30 minutes. Melt the chocolate in a metal bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Stir occasionally until smooth, and remove from heat. Dip each pretzel bite halfway into the melted chocolate and place on the prepared baking sheet. Chill in refrigerator until chocolate is set.

Reindeer Balls

I found this watching FoodNetwork one morning with Garth and his wife, Trisha Yearwood, and HAD to add them!  I changed the name for the holidays, but they call them “Miss” Mickey’s Peanut Butter Balls and you can find a link to the recipe here.

Ingredients:

1. 1 cup sugar

2. 1/2 cup dark corn syrup

3. 1/2 white corn syrup

4. 2 cups crunchy peanut butter

5. 4 cups rice cereal

Directions:

In a large saucepan, stir the sugar and the syrups together over medium heat. Remove from the heat and quickly add the peanut butter, continuing to stir until the mixture is fully combined. Add the rice cereal and mix well. Shape the mixture into palm-size balls with your hands. Transfer to waxed paper. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

Final tray of all the candies:

Happy Holidays to you and your families!

Thanks for visiting and reading!  Feel free to leave comments or questions!

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