Yummy treats!

{9} Favorite Holiday Recipe

I'm not a huge chef.  That's an understatement.  I can hardly cook anything worth eating.  I do, however, have a few recipes up my sleeve, and a couple of favorites my mom makes.

Unfortunately, I don't have copies of all the recipes, so that kinda nullifies the point.

Anywho.  My all time favorite holiday recipe to make and share with others are my Chocolate Mice.  

When I was younger, my mom and I would go to this mother/daughter tea thrown my mom's friend, Ms. Nanette.  At the tea, she had these adorable Chocolate Mice (which I ate too many of) so my mom asked how she made them.  So here we go:

The Cast of Characters: A bag of Hershey's Kisses, enough jars of maraschino cherries (with the stem!!!) to match the number of kisses, a bag of chocolate chips (I use semi-sweet), paraffin wax, a bag of slivered almonds, edible silver beads, and sprinkles.

These particular mice aren't my own creation.  I couldn't find a picture of the ones I've made.  Anyway.  

1) Unwrap all the Hershey's kisses ahead of time, place them on a plate where they're convenient to access.  Drain the cherries and place on paper towel, also easy to access.  Melt the bag of chocolate chips over a double boiler with a bit of paraffin wax (it helps stuff stick better.)  Prep a cookie sheet with wax paper.

2) Once chocolate is melted and yummy, dip each cherry in the chocolate and while still liquid-y, stick a kiss with the flat side against the cherry (as pictured above) and set on the wax paper to cool and harden.  Continue with the rest of the cherries and kisses until you run out of each.  You can't use cherries with little or no stem because they're hard to dip.  

3) If you have the time, stick the cookie sheet of mice in the freezer to speed up the hardening process.

4) Once hardened, reheat some of the previously melted chocolate in a bowl.  Grab a toothpick and pour some sprinkles, silver beads and slivered almonds on a plate.  Dip the ends of two slivered almonds in the melted chocolate and wedge them between the kiss and the cherry for ears (without making them detach!)  Take the toothpick and put two dots for eyes and one on the tip of the nose and place sprinkles for eyes and a silver bead for the nose.  Once the whole sheet of mice are complete, freeze again to ensure the chocolate hardens.

I don't serve mine on the oreos like it's pictured above.  We just put them out on a decorate plate.  Get creative with them, it's fun!  The sprinkles I use are the fun ones that are flat and either plain circle shaped or stars/clovers/hearts.  Mix and match colors, it makes them look goofy.  They're always a huge hit and a great activity for little kids to help with (while being supervised, of course!) 

 

I also love sausage balls, home-made pecan log, Mrs. Harshman's crab wedge thingies, Yorkshire puddings, and many other treats.