Fun Dip Fun Book

When I was a kid, I always loved receiving candy fun books at Christmas. Back then, there wasn’t the same variety of candies available for fun books as there is now; we only ever got Lifesaver fun books.

The other day, as I was checking out the Christmas candy available in Sultan Center, these Fun Dip Fun Books brought me all the way back to me childhood in two different, delightful ways: (1) they reminded me if the Lifesaver Fun Books which I loved receiving as a child and (2) they had Fun Dip inside, which is another candy I used to absolutely love as a child.

Nanaimo Bars

It is now the Christmas break. On the last day if school before the Christmas break, I decided to do a little baking with my students. My reasons for this were five-fold: (1) the speakers in my classroom are broken so showing a movie was not an option, (2) I like to bake with my students from time to time, (3) our current social studies unit is chocolate, so Nanaimo bars fit well with the unit, (4) my students don’t respect me and are doing a pretty good job being nonstop naughty for me, so trying to get them to do Christmas-related reading and math activities all day long when they’re already excited was going to be hell on earth, and (5) Nanaimo bars are just plain delicious. Actually, considering my students normally ARE very naughty, they were shockingly well-behaved while preparing the Nanaimo bars. Maybe they were excited about how much sugar and chocolate was going into these things or maybe I should just try those very tactile, hands-on activities with them a little more often. Anyway, my kids had a blast, and I’d love to show you my pictures of the kids preparing these (I made them do all the work), but I feel weird about putting photos of other people’s children on the internet, so I just can’t show you those photos.

But… what DO a bunch of fifth grade Kuwaiti students think of Nanaimo bars, anyway? According to one boy, “These smell better than Selena Gomez!” If that’s not the quote of the holiday season, I don’t know what is!

By now, I’m sure you’re probably wondering what ARE Nanaimo bars, anyway?! Nanaimo bars are a classically Canadian Christmas treat consisting of three layers. The bottom layer is a combination of graham wafer crumbs, desiccated coconut, crushed nuts, cocoa powder, sugar, and butter. The middle layer is butter, custard powder, vanilla, icing sugar, and milk. The top layer is quality dark chocolate melted with just enough butter to make it spreadable. And when the whole thing is said and done, the finished product looks like this:

I always use the recipe which you can find on the Canadian Living website, but I usually alter it by removing the nuts (I’m not a fan of nuts in baking). This time around, on a whim, I kept the nuts but substituted in crushed pecans in place of the more traditional walnuts. Also, since my school does not have an oven (Canadian Living’s method requires that you bake the bottom layer) and since I was averse to letting a bunch of kids have a treat with a raw egg in it, I altered the recipe a little further this time around by removing the egg and adding a little more butter in its place (and crossing my fingers that the bars didn’t fall apart into a crumbly mess when trying to get them out of the pan). Technically, there are measurements for all the ingredients in Nanaimo bars, and usually it’s imperative when baking to follow measurements exactly, but with these, I never measure anything out and instead just eyeball everything, erring on the side of adding too much of everything (especially if it’s an ingredient I particularly enjoy, such as chocolate or sugar). For this reason, you will never have the same Nanaimo bars twice from me, but I can guarantee they’ll always be delicious.

For the Base:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1/3 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten

For the Filling:
1/4 cup butter, softened
2 Tbsp custard powder
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups icing sugar
~2 Tbsp milk

For the Top Layer:
4 oz (115g) dark chocolate, chopped
1 Tbsp butter

For the base, mix together all the dry ingredients first. Then pour over the melted butter and the egg and mix well. Press into a 9-inch square cake pan. Bake in a 350*F oven about 10 minutes, until firm. Set aside and allow to cool completely before doing the next layer (otherwise, the next layer would be difficult to spread and may even melt, and that’s not what you want).

For the middle layer, mix together the butter, custard powder, and vanilla. Alternately add in the icing sugar and the milk, adding a little extra icing sugar and/or milk until you achieve a spreadable consistency. Spread this mixture over the base. Put in the refrigerator and allow to harden at least 15 minutes before moving in to the next layer.

For the top layer, heat the chocolate and the butter until melted and well combined. Spread over the custard layer. Return pan to refrigerator and let cool until the chocolate is set (about 15 minutes). Slice into bars and enjoy!

Candy Cane Hockey Sticks

A little background: Canada is a country that really loves hockey. We love hockey so much there’s no need to specify “ice hockey”. What other type of hockey would you ever talk about? We love hockey so much (and we’re such good, honest people) that there is no humour or irony in a sign like this one:

So, now that you know the background, here are some candy cane hockey sticks, a totally normal Christmas candy in Canada. They even come with a candy puck and you can turn the packaging into a rink so you can actually play a game of candy cane hockey. Oh, Canada…..

Cottage Cheese Cookies

I found these cookies on a list on the internet of cookies from the past. I can’t find the list anymore, but fortunately I saved the recipe because it’s surprisingly delicious.

I’ve been baking and cooking for long enough that I won’t let an unusual- or even unappealing-sounding combination deter me. Instead, I read through the ingredients, imagine how they would taste in concert and, if my mouth starts salivating, I can be sure that the recipe will be delicious. That’s what happened when I read the recipe for cottage cheese cookies.

On the surface, cottage cheese seems like an unusual addition to a cookie. Think about it a bit more, though, and you realise that cottage cheese is just another soft cheese and we use soft cheeses in baking all the time: cream cheese, mascarpone, ricotta, for example. Heck, I’ve even substituted cottage cheese for ricotta before, and it was delicious. So, cottage cheese cookies are more than just potentially delicious. They’re really fudging good, mmmmmkay? Let’s assume that is just a given, okay.

I can tell you from experience that these are soft and chewy, and I think we’ve already established that they’re delicious. Not too sweet, but just sweet enough. And more often than not, people will ask for the recipe. And I have yet to have anyone correctly guess the “secret” ingredient.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup cottage cheese
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Cream together butter and cottage cheese. Blend in sugar, vanilla, and egg. Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into cottage cheese mixture. Drop by gently rounded teaspoonfuls onto a cookie sheet and bake ~10 minutes in a preheated 375*F oven.

Why not leave some of these out for Santa on Christmas Eve?

Chocolate Covered Maraschino Cherries

This is one of my all-time favorite chocolates, but you can only get them at Christmas-time and also only in Canada. I think. I could be wrong about this, but I think this is a fairly uniquely canadian Christmas treat. I once started a new job in Seoul right before Christmas and as I was to be arriving from Canada, I thought I’d bring some Christmas chocolates to share with my new colleagues. The Koreans, understandably, had not ever seen these before, but I was surprised to discover that even my american colleagues had never seen chocolate covered maraschino cherries before.

Butter Tarts

This is something of a Canadian family tradition. A Christmas without butter tarts would simply not be the same. My mom and all my aunts make butter tarts for Christmas every year.

A butter tart is basically just a tart with normal (not sweet) crust filled with a butter, sugar, and raisin mixture. When I was a kid, I thought these were disgusting, probably because I abhorred raisins in baking back then, but maybe also because of the sweetness and richness packed into these tarts.

When you grow up, your tastes change, though, and I found during the first Christmas I spent in Burma that I was just really craving butter tarts, so I grabbed a recipe off the internet and away I went with my kitchen adventures. The results were… disappointing. Butter tart filling is supposed to have a more solid consistency so that you don’t have to use a plate and spoon to eat them. You ought to be able to eat them with your hands without getting syrupy filling all over yourself because the filling shouldn’t be even a little close to runny.

Determined to have the butter tarts if my childhood, I swallowed my pride and emailed my mom to ask for the recipe, which is what I should have done in the first place except my mom and I don’t have the greatest relationship (for however much I love her) and I try to keep our contact to a minimum. Anyway, she got back to me with my paternal grandmother’s recipe, which is the recipe all the women in my family use.

2 eggs
2 cups brown sugar
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 1/3 cups raisins
1/4 – 1/2 cup cream

Beat eggs only until blended. Beat in sugar, vinegar, and vanilla. Stir in butter, cream, and raisins. Line tart tins with pastry (I use the Crisco method or, if I’m feeling lazy, I use the premade frozen tart shells). Fill tarts 1/2 to 2/3 full with mixture and bake 5 minutes at 400F. Reduce heat to 300F and bake a further 15-25 minutes. Let cool and enjoy!

Throwback Thursday: Christmas at Tim Horton’s

The other day, I was at Tim Hortons in the Avenues Mall. I’d decided to treat myself to an iced cappuccino. As I was ordering, I noticed that the donuts jived better with a Spring theme than with a Christmas theme, so full-well knowing the answer I jokingly said to the guy, “No Christmas donuts?” The guy who was working, who was Filipino, gave the standard Filipino service person answer. That is, he told me what he thought I wanted to hear (“Coming soon, madam!”) and not the actual truth (“Not a fat chance in hell we’ll get Christmas donuts in Kuwait”). I don’t know why they think this constitutes good service. Most customers don’t appreciate being lied to.

Anyway, it did get me thinking about candy cane boston creams and candy cane lattes and candy cane hot chocolates which Tim Hortons offered in Canada last year (and probably this year as well.)