From our candy family to yours, we wish you a great holiday, whichever holidays you observe, and of course we wish you sweet dreams and candy wakefulness, peppermint daydreams and marshmallow goodness. And chocolate and other good stuff too. Whatever. I am sure you get the idea. Me, I have candy treats for all my family to enjoy. I hope you do too.
In all seriousness, we send you our best for the holidays. We will be back on Monday, once we all get back from out of town.
With just a few days before Christmas, we’ve been thinking a lot about holidays traditions here at NCA. One tradition that I always want to start, but have yet to actually find the motivation for, is baking and decorating a gingerbread house.
One thing I will do differently the NEXT time I do actually make a gingerbread house is use NECCO wafers on the roof. They are so cute. As it happens, the good folks over at NECCO, called to offer some NECCO wafers as part of our Christmas. Yes, please. Other people should have the opportunity to procrastinate assembling their gingerbread houses while eating all the decorations, too.
We also have some delish holiday themed taffy from Adams and Brooks (remember when I told you about the sugar cookie taffy last week?), some excellent chocolate from Ferrara and Zachary, fancy caramel cremes from Goetze, and some mellow creme Christmas trees (also from Zachary). It will all be useful as you make your gingerbread house – either for decorating, or for snacking while you decorate.
To win, leave a comment below telling us just one tradition your family has for the holidays. As always, if you put it on Facebook, or Tweet about our contest (with a link to this post) you’ll get an extra chance to win. We’ll use random.org to pick the winner.
We’ll announce the winner on Monday, December 28 – so have your comments up by Sunday night. Here’s a peek at what you’ll win.
Usually, we love spending time picking out our prize winners – debating the merits of each and every entry. But this month, we’re busy with cookie swaps (chocolate- and candy-based cookies, natch!), Secret Santa and picking out gifts for our fellow Candy Dish bloggers (Carl – this candy-themed hand bag has my name all over it).
That’s where random.org comes in. They helped us pick the winner of the Peeps prize pack last week, and this week they selected a winner for our Hershey prize pack. The lucky recipient is Elyse who hosts a Santa breakfast every year to raise money for toys and food to donate to a local shelter. That’s nice, right? I love good deeds. Great job, Elyse!
We have one more contest to announce tomorrow (Tuesday) so be sure to check back for your chance to win!
Our very good friends in Hershey, PA sent the gift basket below (valued at $50) for us to offer to one lucky reader of the Candy Dish Blog.
Hershey has a long history of charitable work, most notably the Milton Hershey School. It’s especially nice to think of charitable acts we can all participate in around the holidays. It’s in this spirit of selfless giving that we picked the contest requirements.
In order to win the prize, please leave a comment in the comments section below telling us what charitable things you do around the holidays or any time of the year (for example, our very own Carl just raised money for children’s cancer research by agreeing to shave his head if he met his fundraising goal*).
We’ll choose one winner to receive this incredible basket of Hershey sweets (it includes tons of great stuff like KitKat miniatures, Kisses and Christmas tree-shaped Reese’s). Mention the contest on Twitter, Facebook or your blog for an extra chance to win (be sure to leave a comment with a link to show us that you did it).
Hurry: entries must be recieved by Sunday, December 20 in order for us to get the candy to the recipient by Christmas. The winner will be announced on Monday.
Aunt Ida, who still knits you a pair of mittens and a matching hat every year for Christmas
Your next door neighbor, Sally, who always brings in your mail when you’re out of town
Paul, your dog walker, who was the first to notice the cute new neighbor had a Golden Retriever which led to your first, second and third dates with the Golden Retriever’s owner
The Golden Retriever’s owner with whom you have now had three officials dates (not counting the time you ran into each other at Starbucks after your second date)
What do all these people have in common? They all love candy and would like very much to get some for the holidays. Don’t ask me how I know since I’ve never even met Ida, Sally, Paul and the Golden Retriever’s owner. I just know. Trust me on this one. Almost everyone likes candy. It’s universally appealing.
Even better, there are thousands of different types out there – each one as unique as your recipients – so you should have no problem picking out something “sweet”. Oh, but wait. You want to get something new, something that Ida will not have encountered in her 87 years on earth and that will let the Golden Retriever’s owner know that you’re cool and trendy. Well, try a few of these items on for size:
I love this simple candy cane centerpiece idea from Better Homes and Gardens magazine (courtesy of their You Tube page) for a number of reasons.
While I have a tendency to not be overly excited about red roses during the rest of the year, there’s something wonderful about a deep red rose at the holidays.
You can make it with a pickle jar and a rubber band.
It’s a great use way to use traditional candy canes in a non-traditional way.
As you will recall, yesterday I told you about lovely Karen’s lovely chocolate cookie peppermint bark. Today, I thought I would share this chocolate bark recipe from the December issue of Real Simple magazine*.
Chocolate Nut Bark
Makes: Two gifts (22 ounces in all) Total Time: 45 minutes
What You Need:
12 ounces chopped semisweet chocolate
2 1/2 cups mixed nuts
What To Do:
Melt the chocolate in a heat proof bowl set over (but not in) a saucepan of gently simmering water, stirring occasionally.
Spread the chocolate evenly on a parchment-lined 9-by-13-inch baking pan and sprinkle with the nuts. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
Break the bark into pieces. Keep at room temperature for up to one week.
There you have it. A recipe for those who like peppermint, and a recipe for those who prefer nuts. Have you ever tried to combine the two? What interesting inclusions have you used to make bark candy?
*Karen, creator of yesterday’s famed chocolate cookie peppermint bark recipe, suggests that a gingersnap crumb base would work very well with this chocolate nut bark. I agree. And I hope she will try it out and bring us samples.
From our candy family to yours, we wish you a great holiday, whichever holidays you observe, and of course we wish you sweet dreams and candy wakefulness, peppermint daydreams and marshmallow goodness. And chocolate and other good stuff too. Whatever. I am sure you get the idea. Me, I have candy treats for all my family to enjoy. I hope you do too.
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