#48: Snowman Doughnuts and #49: Grinch Cookies

Two treats. One fourth grade Christmas party. I am the queen of all things DIY. Considering we are very close to reaching a temporary hiatus of my baking blog (I'll explain later), I wanted to cram as many recipes into this before the holidays were over- hence my making two treats for our classroom holiday party, even though I always know my two treat days NEVER turn out quite right. Luckily for me I chose two VERY simple recipes, but two also very much worth mentioning. The first I put Stephen in charge of- Snowman doughnuts. Three ingredients, five minutes of your time, and they are PRECIOUS... although for WHATEVER reason, Steve-o had some adorable "I'm-a-man-so-I-can't-be-creative" issues with them. The next are called "Grinch Cookies," which are essentially chocolate chip cookies with mint... but so much more. I bring you the HOLIDAYS... in blog form...

#48: Snowman Doughnuts (as found on http://creativeholidaygiftideas.blogspot.com... I love fellow bloggers)

Ingredients:

24 white powdered doughnettes (I'm not sure if that is how those mini-doughnuts are actually spelled...)
24 candy corns
Black icing in a tube

Directions:

Place candy corn inside doughnut hole, with the orange and white end sticking up through the hole. Place black icing dots as nose and mouth.

Yeah, that's it. I think this takes the cake as the EASIEST "baking" project ever. It's not even close to something requiring baking though... so maybe it's more of a "craft" project. Regardless, it was ADORABLE watching Stephen trying to put black dots all over the doughnuts, especially because for whatever reason, he couldn't get the icing to stick to their surfaces. On top of that, when we left the doughnuts overnight in the Tupperware, the icing "bled," so all of the eyes and mouths were smudged. I forced the kids to all tell Stephen how "cute" the treats were though... so I think he got over his "failure" as a baker. Plus, they seemed to be a big hit, so score ONE for Miss Peters... and Mr. Baird.

This is a picture from Pinterest because in my excitement to finish school, I forgot to take ANY photos of the holiday party. Well played. Look how CUTE these are though!!

#49: Grinch Cookies (as found on Bettycrocker.com)

Ingredients: 

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon mint extract
6 to 8 drops green food color
1 egg
1 cup creme de menthe baking chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chunks

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F. In large bowl, stir cookie mix, butter, extract, food color and egg until soft dough forms. Stir in creme de menthe baking chips and chocolate chunks.

     - I don't know what creme de menthe chips are. A lot of people who left comments about this recipe on Betty Crocker's blog said they chopped up Ande's mints and used those. I found a bag of mint chocolate chip chips from Tollhouse that worked amazingly. Also, I added a little more peppermint extract than what was called for in the recipe because I like a really minty cookie.

2. Using small cookie scoop or teaspoon, drop dough 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

    - Teaspoon? Try tablespoon!

3. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until set. Cool 3 minutes; remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Serve warm or cool completely. Store tightly covered at room temperature.

     - I actually ended up baking these for 12 minutes, because the bottoms got super crunchy, and the centers were still raw. Very strange. I also didn't like how the bottoms were so brown compared to the rest of the cookie... I'd have to play around with this recipe to see if I could prevent that next time.

YUMM-O. The dough tastes and looks just like mint chocolate chip ice cream... if I could somehow take the egg out of the recipe, I'd eat the dough all alone by itself!