Holiday Sweets and Treats

At Christmas time, I love to make candies and other sweet treats for the family and to give as gifts to friends.   Over the years, I've tried probably hundreds of different recipes for sweets, cookies, and special snacks. I've done everything from pretzels dipped in almond bark to hand-tempered, hand-dipped French gourmet couverture chocolate truffles,  and everything in between.  For the last few years I've made upwards of 30 or 40 pounds (yes, POUNDS) of candy to be given as gifts or savored as treats during our family Christmas celebrations.  This year, I'm cutting back and only making about half of the recipes I made last year.   Here are some of the things I've made in the last few weeks.
(sorry for the poor photos - I didn't know I was going to blog about all of these.  ;-)

Chex Mix - recipe off of box

Chocolate Christmas Candy

I had a big day of making chocolate candy this weekend.  Each year I make a dozen or so different types of hand-dipped chocolate treats, usually spread out over the course of 6 or 8 weekday evenings in December.  But this year, I had a couple of good friends come over to spend the day, and we knocked out a lot of it all at once!

Easy Pretzel Kisses

Here's a really easy recipe for making a Christmas treat that is yummy and pretty and takes no culinary skills.  In my house, these are all good things!  I call these "Pretzel Kisses".  I don't know what the real name might be, but it really doesn't matter, because they taste yummy no matter what you call them!