A New Tradition

I have started a new tradition for myself -- Christmas Movie a night in December. A cumbersome title to be sure, but unlike many of today's youth, I don't need to shorten everything to four letters. So I started off the month with a bang by hosting Claymation Night. I invited a few friends over to watch Rudolph, Year without a Santa Claus, Santa Claus is Coming to Town and Frosty.

I tend to go overboard when having people over, and my budget can't really handle it at this time of year, so I announced we would be ordering out. This however opens up the door to do some baking. I had been debating for weeks what I would make, I was trying to have some variety, as well as allow my gluten free guest to enjoy a treat as well. Of course I changed my mind a hundred times.

Inspiration come in the form of Dulce de Leche caramel sauce being sold at Superstore. I love Dulce de Leche (however, it scares the crap out of me thinking of boiling a can) and wanted to try it out, and two days before the party, I started looking for recipes that called for Dulce de Leche. I found David Lebovitz's Dulce de Leche Brownies. K is a big fan of David and I had one of his cookbooks on my stack for months and didn't even look at it. This recipe has changed my mind. It was really simple to make, it used one pot, and, as you can see from the picture, the brownies were gobbled up.

I will definitely be making these brownies again before I go home for Christmas. If you've never been to David's blog, take a minute to check out the brownie recipe.

My second recipe was Mars Bar Squares from Company's Coming Most Loved Treats by Jean Pare. I don't know if Jean invented this recipe. I couldn't find it credited to her on the internet, although I did find lots of variations of this recipe. Some of you may look down your nose at Jean and her cookbooks, but I am positive that a majority of houses have at least one of her books in their collection. Besides anything that combines melted Mars Bars with 1/2 cup of butter...I mean, how can that be bad?

We do have lots of copies at HPL so check it out. Unfortunately the URL is horribly long, so go to the library catalogue and do a "Title starts with" search for "Most Loved Treats."


Next Week:

I am trying out Madeleines for better or worse.

-C