Hot Cocoa Bar

Also check out 2013's updated Cocoa Bar:

This year while decorating for Christmas/Winter we decided that it would be fun to have a Hot Cocoa Bar.  

Jonathan and I have used to several times throughout this season already, but I really love the idea of Eliana growing up with a Cocoa Bar.  What a treat!  

How fun to have friends over and make a personalized Hot Cocoa as a child?!  Or as an adult :-)

 We had this small chalkboard laying around the house - we used it so that everyone knew the toppings/candies/chips were to be mixed into the cocoa.

Mix-Ins:

Chocolate Chips

White Chocolate Chips

Vanilla

Crushed Andies Mints

Cinnamon Sticks

Bob's Soft Peppermint Candies

Bob's Soft Peppermint Sticks

White Chocolate M&Ms

Hershey Kisses

Adult Only Mix-Ins:

Bailey's

Whiskey

The pinecones were spray painted a metallic gold so that they would shimmer a bit. 

I made the sign above using an old board and spraying it with chalkboard paint.  I then scripted "Hot Cocoa Bar" in chalk.

The cinnamon sticks add flavor and act as stir sticks.

Along with the peppermint sticks - another flavored stir stick.

The peppermint stir sticks and hershey kisses are held in my diy hurricane vases

The cocoa is held in a glass container (below).  You can make your cocoa as weak or rich as you like.

Adult versions are available. 

The bar is decorated with stiff silver ribbons (found at JoAnn Fabrics)

 and white "snow" (found at Target) along with some jingle bells we already had in the house and some white christmas lights (on a white cord so that it blended in to the other silver and whites on the bar.

I found the below "Cocomotion" online.  All you do is pour in milk and add the cocoa powder (in the glass container) and push "on".  It heats and froths the cocoa.  Our Christmas mugs saucers and some spoons are located on the shelves below it.

I think it could evolve over the years and we could add recipes for specific types of Cocoa.  For example, maybe we will have recipe cards with an "Eliana Cocoa" a "Daddy's Favorite" and "Mommy's Favorite" as starting points.

Freezing Cookie Dough

The very best way to freeze cookie dough!

Have you ever wanted just one or two (or maybe JUST three or four) cookies?


And if you are going to have a cookie (or multiple) then you really want a warm gooey just out of the oven cookie, right?!


So...I have found ( well really my sister Lauren, the true Baker in the family, has taught me) that the best way to do this is to double your favorite cookie recipe and instead of baking all the cookies and saving them in a Tupperware container for later, you freeze the little dough balls and keep them in the freezer for later.

First, you make the dough.

Second, you roll the dough into little balls and place them on a cookie sheet.

Third, place the cookie sheet on the freezer overnight.

Fourth, put frozen cookie dough balls in a ziplock container with how long and the temperature to bake them at in a Ziplock bag.

Wallah! Hot baked cookies on demand.



Beware- this can be dangerous! I can often times resist cookie midday if it was made the day before. I can almost never resist a warm just put of the oven cookie.

Now you can always enjoy a very freshly baked cookie.

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Matching Aprons - Homemade Christmas Gifts

For Christmas I made Eliana and her Godmother (Aunt Lauren) matching aprons.

Lauren loves to bake so she will hopefully use hers even without Eliana, but I thought it would be fun for the Godmother/Goddaughter to have matching items for when they play together.

Little girls love to help in the kitchen so perhaps Aunt Lauren can teach Eliana a few of her baking secrets while spending some quality time together.

They are lined with a coordinating pink flower fabric so if you decide to wear just the bottom half and let the top hang down it still looks pretty.

I love all the ruffles! So girly!!!

These aprons were an accompaniment gift to a Breville Mini Pie Maker

Lauren loves to entertain AND bake so I am certain she will make good use of it. And how fun will it be for she and Eliana to wear their matching aprons while making mini pies. Yummy!

I added my "homemade touch" (clothing labels) to give them a handmade look.

The aprons looked pretty folded and wrapped up.

But even prettier on the couple :-)

Posted with iPad using Blogsy

Gingerbread Man Decorating

Instead of the traditional Gingerbread House this year we opted for a Gingerbread Man.

Mostly because I think a gingerbread house would look like a tornado hit it after we decorated it with a 1 year old. :-)

We got all of our supplies together.  We made it pretty simple - since we weren't eating it I didn't make the batter from scratch.  We bought this:

It was easy and worked perfectly!

 I found this gingerbread man form on Amazon (my favorite shopping destination!)

So we had all our ingredients ready...naked gingerbread man, candies and red/green icing.

We also cheated with the icing - but again,  he is only for decoration - not to eat.

 While Mommy got the gingerbread man ready to decorate, Eliana helped pick the perfect kitchen tools.

 We first decided to give the gingerbread man shoes.

And then a hat... Eliana is really into hats :-)

Eliana made sure to taste test the icing.

We also added candies (a.k.a. sparkles to the hat and shoes).

And we of course taste tested the candies too.

I have a feeling we may be missing our afternoon nap today after all this sugar :-)

The finished product:

He looks good on display in the kitchen.  He keeps our Santa (whom contains our Homemade Granola) company.

Our Gingerbread Man's Shoes (with sparkles a.k.a. candies of course).

Our Gingerbread Man's Mittens and Buttons:

Our Gingerbread Man's Hat:

This was fun and was much more manageable than decorating a house this year.  We will target decorating a house for the 2+ years in Eliana's life.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!