First up is something my sister had got at a cookie exchange and I couldn't believe I had never seen something like this before! They are little mice made from a Hershey kiss and cherry. After looking around the internet I see there are several variations of this, but basically she just dipped a maraschino cherry with stem in melted chocolate. Then dip the flat side of a Hershey kiss in the melted chocolate and attach 2 almond slivers to form the ears. Then attach the kiss (head) to the cherry (body). She then just used a toothpick to dip in the melted chocolate to make the eyes. Here is a link to more detailed instructions I found and here is a picture of the ones my sister had:
Next up was something I had seen various versions on the internet for-- Smores jars you assemble and give as gifts. These were more time consuming than I had planned and was disappointed with how they baked...but hey, the jars looked cute! I would recommend playing around with the recipe some and it may be better-- I think the butter needs greatly reducted-- maybe try with 3/4 stick instead. Basically I had a 1 Quart mason jar from Michaels and filled the bottom with 1 sleeve of crushed graham crackers. Then I added 1/3 cup brown sugar and really patted it down to compress as best I could. I found cute xmas tree peeps (but you could make these for easter, halloween or any holiday and use those peeps) and used 1 peep and about 1-1.5 cups mini marshmallows. Again, I'd keep pressing them down to cram in as many as possible. Then fill with about 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Close the jar and attach a cute tag with the baking instructions. Here is a pic of my jars after they were filled:
Front of the tag:
Inside of tag with instructions:
I'll have some more recipes later this week for you too!
