christmas is said to be the time for giving. but for poor people like me who celebrates it on a very limited budget, giving can be quite hard. i'd rather keep that digital weighing scale i'll be buying for white elephant to myself, or i'll make sure to get it back during the game. as i have said, since we're on a budget, i have decided to just make goodie boxes for christmas. and for goodness sakes, they better like sweets, oh and not allergic to nuts. which reminds me, when i gave away cookies during our speech class, i forgot to tell everyone that the cookies had walnuts. and boy oh boy, one of my classmates was allergic to walnuts. good thing she wasn't anaphylactic.
anyway, since we're in a budget, making my own goodie box would be a lot cheaper and would be more thoughtful because we put put more thought into it and exerted effort. please, they better like it, or even just pretend.
oh, did you see the boxes we used? don't the look great? and the boxes are in my favorite colors. guess where we got 'em. oh my, i hate it when i read that statement, as if i can hear your answers. and i just did it. eek. so let me tell you, me and shawn got it at the 99 cent store. yes! those 5 dollar hallmark boxes are 99 cents. and we needed seven and there were seven left. we were just so lucky. and get this, when we were paying, the cashier was begging us to give her one, but the christmas spirit was telling us not to give her any because we needed seven. i know, but again, we're on a budget and i know for sure that we can't get those purrrty boxes for 99 cents anywhere else.
those boxes were filled with blondies, shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate and walnuts, and banana bread. one box had mini pineapple upside-down cakes, that's for shawn's aunt and uncle. it was fun putting everything together and seeing how it looked like afterward.
let me talk about the shortbread cookies the was inside the goodie box. they were small and cute. and they looked so delicate. i love it!
this was the very first time i made a shortbread cookie and it's a good thing it tasted great. i also did not want to just give it as it is, so i slathered some melted chocolate on it and dipped it in chopped walnuts. anything dipped in chocolate is great in my book.
i bet a lot of you have their go to shortbread cookie recipe and if you are obsessed with it, i am not going to tell you to follow my recipe, but i'm telling you it was great. you mught as well try it, you've reached this part of the post anyway, so it means you are interested.
shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate and walnuts
what you need:
shortbread
2 sticks of chilled butter
2/3 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
what to do:
1. preheat your oven to 325 degrees.
2. with a food processor: put all the shortbread ingredients in the food processor, run it until it forms a soft crumbly dough. if you don't have a food processor like me, cut the butter into the flour and sugar with your hands, when it's nice and crumbly, add the egg and vanilla extract.
3. knead the dough on a lightly floured surface until it all comes together.
4. make balls the size of a tablespoon and flatten it with a fork to make the lines i have in the picture above.
5. bake for 20 minutes or until the sides are firm.
what you need:
coating
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts
1 cup melted cocolates (i used semisweet, but it's really up to you on what you want to use)
what to do:
1. melt the chocolate on a double broiler.
2. put the toasted walnuts in the food processor and pulse until it resembles a coarse meal.
3. dip the shortbread cookies halfway in the melter chocolate and then into the chopped walnuts.
voila!!!! you have pretty shortbread cookies!
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