Bratzles, Brazelis, or Bratzelis

The smell of Christmas, for me, is Bratzles cooking. Someone really should patent a Scentsy or candle scent called Fresh Baked Bratzles. (I'd buy them out!)Bratzles are a traditional Swiss cookie that have been made in my family for decades.

Bratzles

1lb Butter
2 c. Sugar
2 tsp salt
1/2 c. Cream
2 Eggs
2 Heaping Tbsp Cinnamon (I mean really heaping!!)
5-7 Cups Flour

Directions

Melt Butter in large pan over med/low heat. Stir in sugar and take off heat. Add cream salt and cinnamon till mixed. Let cool slightly. Mix in eggs and add flour a cup at a time until a nice soft dough forms. Plug in iron and let heat up for 7-10 minutes. Put a pie tin behind the iron to catch all the excess butter that presses off the cookies. Roll dough into balls and place on iron, press firmly and let cook until golden in color. Around 20 seconds. Yields about 200 cookies. (With 8 on a plate you'll get about 24-28 goodie plates.) I did find a link here to purchase a Brazeli Iron

Snow Icing (for roof and yard)

I love how creamy and warm this is when it is first mixed, you will want to lick the bowl, beaters and anything else you can get your hands on! It is oh... so yummy... too bad you aren't eating your Gingerbread house!

6 egg whites – beat on high until stiff

In a Sauce pan combine:
¾ C. Water
3 C. White Sugar
1 ½ tsp. Cream of Tarter

Stir lightly, put lid on until sugar mixture boils really hard. Then take the lid off and boil to a soft ball stage. Then Pour the hot syrup in a steady stream into the egg white while the mixer beats on high. Continue beating on high for 4-5 minutes.

** Do not attempt to do more than a single batch of this icing as it will fill your mixer to the brim with a single batch! **

Royal Icing

Beat 3 egg whites until foamy
Add ½ tsp. cream of tarter
Mix in 1 lb of Powdered Sugar using dough hooks (you can use whips).

Mix until spreading consistency or firm to hold shape.

Gingerbread Hard Candy Glass Windows

This is just hard tack candy, but you can be creative and make all sorts of colors to do in your windows, but I love doing the golden yellow, and then some green so I can make the effect of a Christmas tree or a wreath in the windows, you just have to lay out the candy in the window the way you want it to look, noting that it won't be a perfect silhouette as the candy will melt the way it wants to, but you will get the general effect. This is one of the things I love about these houses, is that there are lights and windows. This year we made it so the doors were cut out and we put glass in the doors, I think that added a lot as well.

2 C. Sugar
½ C. Light Corn Syrup
½ C. Water

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Cook without stirring (to avoid bubbles) to a hard tack stage. Add desired food coloring and stir with a wooden spoon. Pour the hot liquid onto a cookie sheet and quickly rotate pan to spread hot candy thinly over surface of cookie sheet. Allow to cool thoroughly. Once cooled, use a hammer and crack the candy in 4-5 places to create shards of candy.

Line a cookie sheet with foil, place gingerbread house pieces with right sides up on foil. Wearing gloves so you don't leave your mark, take shards of candy and place in window openings, layering pieces to fill up the window opening. Be careful not to use the powder granules from the broken candy it will make your windows cloudy. Place the cookie sheet in an oven heated to 400-425˚. Watch this carefully!!! Do not let it boil/bubble, do not do more than one cookie sheet at a time, and place it on the top rack only to avoid burning. Your windows will be cloudy if it’s overcooked, or boils. Once it is completely cooled, you will be able to pull the foil off of the back of the gingerbread pieces.

Beefy Taco Joes

Quick and Easy

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef
1 can (10 3/4 oz.) Condensed Tomato Soup
1 cup Pace® Thick & Chunky Salsa
1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
8 Sandwich Buns with Sesame Seeds

Directions

Brown ground beef in skillet. Pour off fat. Add soup and salsa. Heat through. Top with cheese. Serve on rolls.

Onion-Beef Muffin Cups

I found this recipe in a Simple and Delicious magazine. It won grand prize in that particular issue, but I will admit it didn't look very good. I decided to try it anyway and wow it was good! The steak I buy is twice the size I need, so it's good to freeze or double the recipe. Enjoy!

• 3 medium onions, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup butter, cubed
• 1 boneless beef top sirloin steak (1-inch thick and 6 ounces), cut into 1/8-inch slices
• 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup beef broth
• 1 tube (16.3 ounces) large refrigerated flaky biscuits
• 3/4 cup shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

In a large skillet, cook onions in butter over medium heat for 10-12 minutes or until very tender. Remove and keep warm. In the same skillet, cook steak for 2-3 minutes or until no longer pink.
Return onions to pan. Stir in the flour, brown sugar and salt until blended; gradually add broth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 4-6 minutes or until thickened.
Separate biscuits; split each horizontally into three portions. Press onto the bottom and up the sides of eight ungreased muffin cups, overlapping the sides and tops. Fill each with about 2 tablespoons beef mixture.
Combine mozzarella cheese and 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese; sprinkle over filling. Fold dough over completely to enclose filling. Sprinkle with remaining Parmesan cheese.
Bake at 375° for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand for 2 minutes before removing from pan. Serve warm. Yield: 4 servings.

Gingerbread House

About three years ago I met a woman Zina who had a family tradition of making homemade Gingerbread Houses each year with her family, she had done it as a child, and had carried on the tradition with her kids, when I saw how fun her houses were, I decided that I wanted to make it a tradition as well. Don't get me wrong, it's not an easy process, but the finished product is awesome, and makes all of the effort worth it in the end! So I am going to detail the process in my next few posts for anyone else out there who wants to start the tradition. This is my second year doing it, and I learn something new each time. These are a few of the houses that I have made, the decorating credit goes to my sister in laws Dani, Marybeth and myself.


Gingerbread House
1 ½ Cups Sugar
1 ½ Cups Shortening

1 ½ Cups Molasses
3 egg yolks (save whites for icing)
1 ½ tsp Salt

3 tsp Baking Powder
1 ½ tsp Baking Soda
3 tsp ground ginger
3 tsp ground cloves
2 ½ tsp cinnamon
1 ½ tsp ground nutmeg
6 Cups Sifted Flour

Cream sugar and shortening and then add all ingredients in second group. Add seasonings from last group and mix well. Switch to dough hooks and add flour; beat for 10 minutes. Place in fridge for 3 hours minimum. Roll dough to ¼” thickness on a greased cookie sheet (a rolling pin that fits inside your pan or on top of the bottom of your pan if flipped over works nicely, make sure all your pieces will fit on the rolled out dough before baking). Dough will cover 3 silver cookie sheets completely. Cut out patterns into dough before baking. Bake dough at 350˚ for 20 minutes or until dough is slightly underdone. Once dough is out of oven quickly cut out pieces for a second time then move to a cooling rack. Do not attempt to cut pieces once the dough has begun to harden, it will crack and break.**

**However if you have a piece that does crack or break, if you place the dough back in the oven for a minute or two to re-warm, the gingerbread becomes soft and pliable again and you can push the broken pieces back together and let them cool, then carefully remove the mended piece for your house. Also, when you make the windows you will re-heat the pieces which is why you want them slightly underdone, and the "glass" from the windows will help to mend broken areas as well.**

Assembly
You can either use a hot glue gun for assembly, or you can make it completely edible by heating up 1 C. Sugar in a frying pan at 400˚ to melt the sugar, then turn it down to keep it hot at 300˚. Dip the pieces into the sugar then place them together to assemble. Put the sidewalls on the inside of the house.

Easy Apple Struedel

This is super simple but a crowd pleaser!

Ingredients:
1/2 pkg. Puff Pastry Sheets (1 sheet) (Pepperidge Farms are good)

1 egg

1 tbsp. water

1 can (21 oz.) apple pie filling

Directions:
Thaw pastry sheet at room temperature 30 min. Preheat oven to 375°F.

Mix egg and water. Unfold pastry on lightly floured surface. Roll into 16" x 12" rectangle. With short side facing you, spoon pie filling on bottom half of pastry to within 1" of edges. Starting at short side, roll up like a jelly roll. Place seam-side down on baking sheet. Tuck ends under to seal. Brush with egg mixture. Cut several 2" slits about 2" apart on top. Bake 35 min. or until golden. Cool on baking sheet on wire rack 30 min. Slice and serve warm, top with Vanilla ice cream.

Gingerbread Cake

I can't take full credit for the recipe, as I got it from an old friend Kelly Hoffman, I will never forget when she served this to us, it was one of the most enjoyable desserts I have ever had. the flavors were amazing. I love the spices, the texture, and everything about it. It was warm when we ate it, and with the fresh whipping cream on top, my mouth is watering already. I hope you enjoy this sometime this holiday season, it is a show stopper.

2 C. Flour
1/2 C. Sugar
2 tsp. Ground Ginger
2 tsp. Cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 C. Molasses
1/2 C. Butter
3/4 C. Boiling Water
1 large Egg lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 350
Grease a 9" square pan

Combine Flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger until well blended

In a separate bowl combine Molasses, Butter and boiling water and stir until butter is melted. Then add Molasses mixture along with Egg to the flour mixture and whisk until smooth. With a rubber spatula scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, about 45-50 minutes. Let cool in pan on a wire rack. Serve with fresh whipping cream while slightly warm.

Cranberry Pomegranate Jello

I know that this may sound a little strange, but I will never forget the first time I tried this jello, it was like a little slice of heaven. Seriously, it is so yummy! It has such a tartness to it from the cranberries, and then such sweetness from the raspberries and Jello. It is a must in the winter season!

1 small package orange Jello
1 small package raspberry Jello
1 package frozen raspberries with syurp crushed
1 Pomegranate - Seeds only
3/4 C. chopped cranberries

In a large serving dish or jello mold dissolve both packages of Jello in 2 C. Hot water, once dissolved add 1 C. cold water. After Jello is mixed, add fruits and stir. Place Jello in fridge to set. Once Jello is set, serve with whipping cream.