Deck the halls with boughs of HOLLY

I would like to say I haven’t been blogging because I have been soaking up the holiday atmosphere and relaxing … but that’s not quite true.  While I have been enjoying lots of little Christmas-y moments with my family, I’ve also still been busy making lots of gifts, and work has been crazy. We put up our tree last weekend, and I decided to hang this felt ornament I made for Parker right next to a ceramic ornament my mom painted for me when I was 4 years old. Traditions!

The new ornament is from a pattern in “Fa La La La Felt,” which has so many cute projects.

And though I’m happy to leave the food blogging to my husband, I wanted to share this yummy recipe from Cook’s Country magazine. Basically, you melt chocolate in heavy cream and refrigerate it to create a ganache. Then you roll the ganache into balls, wrap them individually in plastic and then freeze. When you want a cup of hot chocolate, just unwrap one of the balls and plop it into a cup of milk, and microwave for 2 minutes. The result is a very rich hot chocolate, in the same time it would take to make it from a powdered mix. I experimented with tossing the balls in powdered sugar before freezing. I found that the sugar tended to get a bit absorbed into the balls. There’s a similar version posted at My Kitchen Cafe, though I just heated the cream in a sauce pan, turned the heat off, dumped the chocolate in and let it sit for a few minutes to melt it.

(Yes, our tree is directly behind one of our kitchen counters. Our living room has five doorways and a closet door, so there really is no good space for a tree. So the tree is basically in our kitchen.)

Comments

4 responses to “Deck the halls with boughs of HOLLY”

  1. maryanne Avatar

    That hot chocolate idea sounds great. And both ornaments are adorable!

  2. The Hungry Crafter Avatar

    Just wanted to say that your post title made me smile — especially after the last post! Merry Christmas, HOLLY!

  3. Erin Avatar
    Erin

    I saw those at My Kitchen Cafe too (which is one of my favorite sites) but was put off from using them as gifts by the need to keep them frozen. I will probably try them for our house, as I have never gone wrong with a Mel recipe. I am using a king arthur recipe for hot cocoa blocks, as well as homemade marshmallows, for teacher gifts. http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/cocoa-blocks-recipe http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/homemade-marshmallows-recipe

    Merry Christmas!

  4. […] project was inspired by an ornament my mom made me when I was 4-year-old. She used to go to a paint-your-own ceramics place, and made me […]

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