Short On...? Carry On: Part Five, Easter Candy

We could have bought some Easter treats earlier at the store, but we didn't, and today all the grocery stores are as crazy as they're allowed to be right now. So it looks like I'm responsible for filling our household baskets.

What do we have?

250 g dark chocolate chips
300 g butterscotch chips
1 lb. (454 g) butter
1 cup milk powder
1 bag sweetened, flaked coconut

Miscellaneous things like quick oats, cocoa, eggs, milk, flour, sugar, green and multi-coloured sprinkles. Yes, I know how fortunate we are to have some of these things.

What would you do with these ingredients? If peanut butter weren't an issue here and if I needed a lot of something, I'd probably make peanut butter balls and dip them in melted chocolate chips. My grandmother might have made cocoa-oatmeal macaroons. But we need only small batches of any one thing, and I have only that one cup of milk powder, so I'm thinking half a batch of chocolate cheater fudge, half a batch of coconut candy, and a batch of butterscotch-oatmeal cookies or squares ("Scotchies"), some of which we could freeze for later.

We have to start by making the equivalent of one can sweetened condensed milk. I got this version in a "living on one income" workshop at my very first homeschool conference, twenty-five years ago.

Sweetened Condensed Milk Substitute (makes equivalent of one can)

Ingredients: 2/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup melted butter, 1 cup milk powder, 1/3 cup boiling water

Mix in blender, let thicken a bit in the refrigerator.

Half Batch of  Canadian Living Quick Fruit and Nut Fudge, without the fruit and nuts

Half the amount of sweetened condensed milk
225 g chocolate chips (turned out to need the whole bag)
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Heat chocolate and milk mixture together until the chocolate melts (I did this in the microwave, it took only a couple of minutes). Stir in vanilla. Spoon into foil-lined pan or mini muffin cups. Top with sprinkles. Refrigerate until set, cut in squares.

Half Batch of Coconut Candy, from a recipe found at The Gold Lining Girl

Ingredients: Half Full bag of coconut (her bags must be twice as big as ours), half the amount of sweetened condensed milk. Follow the recipe at that link, cutting amounts in half. Bake candies and let cool. Optional: melt remaining chocolate chips, stretching with butterscotch chips if necessary, and partially dip the candies as shown at The Gold Lining Girl.

Three things we didn't bake today

Chocolate-Covered Pretzel Christmas Trees.  Warning (tip): we used the red gel as recommended, but the dots stick to anything they touch--wax paper, other cookies, etc.  Another time I would probably use either candy sprinkles or some kind of icing that hardens better.

No-Bake Coconut-Date Squares, from Vegetarian Times Magazine

No-Bake Apricot Nuggets, from Canadian Living Magazine (not cut yet). Lydia's turn to make these, this year!

Easter things to make (food and crafts)

Well, at the Treehouse there are always Kiffle.

And maybe Coconut Chicks, though probably not this year.

I like the Easter Cross Centerpieces at Mad in Crafts.

We got cream cheese on a great sale last week (if you're near a Food Basics in Ontario, they should still have it on sale--Lactantia brand for $1.44 a box), so we might make Cream Cheese Mints.  I like the shape of these ones--it reminded me that we have a couple of small plastic cookie stamps, Easter/spring-themed, and I bet they'd work on candy.  On Easter morning we have a coffee-and-baked-stuff time before the church service, and these would be good for that.

On the vegan end...we will also be at a potluck Sunday night that includes vegan relatives, so I'm thinking Pizza Cake, made with a no-eggs-or-dairy white cake as the base.  I usually make pizza cake in the large-sized foil pizza pans from the grocery store, because the foil pans actually have sides to hold the cake batter in (unlike our regular flat pizza pans). 

And, not so much to make...but last year we started kind of a new tradition here.  Instead of having individual Easter baskets or chocolate bunnies, last year we all went to the European grocery and picked out chocolate, cookies and other things for everyone to share.  It was a nice change, and I think we're going to do that again.

No-sugar apricot treats: gluten-free, dairy-free

I found this recipe in a Company's Coming Kids' Lunch cookbook, but the identical recipe was posted on a vegan forum six years ago. So I'm not sure who borrowed it from whom. In any case, these are easy and very good. I did think they were a bit strong on the orange peel--next time I would use just a spoonful rather than the whole thing. Cut into small slices, they would look nice on a holiday cookie plate.

Apricot Logs/Balls/Slices

1.5 cups dried apricots (about 40--or a 300 g bag)
1 Tbsp water
juice of 1 medium orange
Grated peel of 1 medium orange (or less, see above)
1/2 cup flaked coconut
Flaked coconut, for coating

Measure apricots and water into casserole dish or large measuring cup. Cover and microwave on high for 2 minutes until moist and plump. (Lacking a microwave, you could pour a bit of boiling water over them and cover, or steam them briefly.) Put the apricot mixture and orange juice into a blender or food processor. Blend, stopping the blender and stirring often, until the apricots are very finally chopped. Pour mixture into a medium bowl.

Mix in the orange peel and first amount of coconut. Divide the mixture in half. Roll into two 6-inch (15 cm) logs.

Place the second amount of coconut on waxed paper. Roll the logs in coconut until well coated. Cover each log with plastic wrap. Chill about 3 hours. Cut into 1 inch (2.5 cm) pieces.

Variation: shape the mixture into 1 inch balls. Roll in the coconut and chill.

The candy that did turn out?

That wouldn't be the chocolate-pretzel clusters in the Crockpot...although a couple of the Squirrelings did like those. Mama Squirrel just made one too many substitutions in that recipe, and the salty pretzels, while interesting, were just a little too...salty.

What did turn out well--it's really almost failproof--is Canadian Living's Quick Fruit and Nut Fudge. Made just like the recipe says, except we leave out the nuts and use dried cherries for the fruit. And we use homemade sweetened-condensed-milk substitute. Cut them small, and they're incredibly good, especially with the slightly tart dried cherries. We've actually posted the recipe here before; which is why Mama Squirrel figured that these, at least, would defy her tendency to mistake-prone-ness this week. And she wasn't wrong.

December is Chocolate...and Cookies

I posted this previously:

"Malted Milk Buttons and Crispy Rice Shortbread, two variations on a Master Dough recipe that I found in a (thrifted) December 15, 1998 Woman's Day magazine and which were adapted (with others in the same food article) from One Dough, Fifty Cookies by Leslie Glover Pendleton."

But Mama Squirrel came up with a variation all our own! The problem with writing it out is that it was made from only half the Master Dough recipe, since the idea is to make a big batch and split it between two variations. (We mixed the other half of the dough with Rice Krispies.) And the Master Dough recipe, which I assume is copyrighted by the author, contains such difficult-to-halve ingredients as three egg yolks and 4 3/4 cups of flour. But here's the basic idea:

Make a shortbread-type dough containing unsalted butter, sugar, salt, egg yolks, vanilla, and flour. (No baking powder.) To a batch of dough made with about 2 1/2 cups flour, add half a package of (dry) instant chocolate pudding mix, and a cupful of small chocolate chips. Press into a greased 9 x 13 inch pan, pre-cut into squares, and bake for half an hour at 350 degrees. Re-cut the squares after they have cooled slightly. Drizzle with a glaze made from powdered sugar mixed with a little milk, just enough to let it drizzle from a spoon.

For some reason (mainly because they're very tasty), these improvised squares have been everybody's favourite so far these holidays. As in, they're gone. Maybe we'll make some more.

Here are some other cookies we've made and posted about in the past:

Date-Walnut Bars
Rigglevake Cookies
No-bake Chocolate Fruit Balls
Gluten-Free Dutch Chocolate Chip Cookies
Lemon Poppyseed Shortbread
Tofu Fudge Chews
Peanut Chocolate Butterscotch Bars (link only)
Doreen Perry's Cookies
Betty Crocker's Brownie Recipe
Cappucino Thumbprints
Chocolate Hazelnut Crescents
Double Ginger Drop Cookies (LINK FIXED!)
Snickerdoodle Blondies
The Best, Bar None
Two No-Bake Candy Recipes (one of our most-visited posts)

Coconut chicks

Have you ever had strawberry candies made from sweetened condensed milk, strawberry gelatin powder, and coconut? They were a staple of fancy cookie plates when I was growing up--I guess that dates me, huh? Maybe they're still popular in some places.

We make Easter candy chicks in the same way--not every year, but maybe every few. The recipe was clipped from a 1994 newspaper article, and it says that they "adapted" it from Alison Boteler's book What Should I Bring? I haven't been able to find it posted online--the strawberry recipe is all over the place, but no chicks.

Here's the basic recipe--I don't think I'm violating any copyrights by posting the parts that are pretty much like the strawberries. You need: one package lemon-flavoured gelatin powder, 1 can sweetened condensed milk (we make our own, it's much cheaper), and 4 1/2 cups flaked coconut. Also whatever you want for eyes and beaks: some combination of chocolate chips, raisins, bits of nut, bits of cereal, broken pretzels, or whatever. Chocolate chips, pointy side in, make good eyes.

Combine the gelatin powder and condensed milk; add coconut and mix well. Cover and chill for about an hour. The rest is up to your creative powers: basically make small balls (teaspoon size) for heads and slightly bigger balls (tablespoon size) for bodies. Stick together and decorate as desired. Warning: this is a messy business! Keep a bowl of water nearby both to clean off your hands and wet them (it helps keep the mixture from sticking to them).

Store in the refrigerator until wanted. You can arrange them in an Easter-grass-stuffed (and plastic-wrap-covered) egg carton, or add them to a cookie plate or table decoration.

Chicks made by The Apprentice.

Of Smarties and Lune Moons, and things that are no good for you

If you're outside of Canada, here's a site offering favourite Canadian groceries shipped wherever you happen to be! Although I didn't think that Cheerios and Kraft Dinner were uniquely Canadian.

If you're looking for the Smarties, you'll have to look under Chocolate Bars, for some reason, not candy.

I liked this page of Vachon Snack Cakes--Canada's answer to Little Debbies. They were pretty common lunchbox currency when I was growing up: Flakies, Jos. Louis, and Lune Moons. Actually they're called 1/2 Moons, but because of bilingual packaging (you can see it in the photo there), we always thought they were called Lune Moons.

And of course Viva Puffs and Wagon Wheels--more childhood stuff that we (very occasionally) buy, supposedly for the kids. (Dare Ultimate Fudge Cookies are one of Mr. Fixit's deepest, darkest secret cravings. But don't tell him I told you.)

Frugal Christmas

The words Frugal and Christmas don't seem to go together any better than Diet and Christmas do. Christmas makes you think of extra--extra food, extra busy, extra stuff to buy. Even in times past (before malls and Muzak), holiday celebrations meant extra noise (even firecrackers), extra music, extra spices and sugar and things that were usually beyond most peoples' reach. Extra-vagance, whatever that meant at the time. Putting aside the usual "we can't afford it" for a few once-a-year treats. Cinnamon. Oranges. Oysters.

"I ate up the oyster crackers, and I ate up the Christmas candy, but by jinks," said Pa, "I brought the oysters home!"--Laura Ingalls Wilder, On the Banks of Plum Creek

But those of us who--for whatever reason--normally follow semi-frugal, extremely-frugal, or absolutely-broke-frugal spending habits the rest of the year, don't always want to throw away the money we've saved (or that we don't have) on one month-long spending spree in December. Putting a stack of holiday fliers in front of a reformed spend-a-holic makes as much sense as telling an alcoholic to forget all the rules and go on a bender. One way or another, we'll pay for it in January.

So focus instead on the "extras" that don't cost anything.

Extra time, extra effort, extra help. Make what you have extra beautiful (or see here.)

Enjoy Christmas lights in the park.

Borrow Christmas books and videos from the library, if you can't find what you want online or at the thrift shop. (Or support local store owners who need your business more than the giant onlines do.)

Spend a little less time eating. Really. People drop over and you want to feed them something--but does it have to be puff pastry and shrimp? You don't have to pare down to the extent that skinflint Mr. Bean did (he ran out of Twiglets and used twigs instead), but most people can manage to get by on crackers and cheese, or muffins, or scones, or grapes, or Peak Freans biscuits. If the Good Cavekeeping lady drops by, you can tell her I gave you permission.

Stretch what you have a little. Don't do it all at once, eat it all at once, or watch it all at once. In The Long Winter, Ma and the girls agreed to save the bundle of story magazines they'd received until Christmas, just in case the Christmas barrel they expected didn't arrive. (It didn't get through until May.)

"I don't want to," Laura said.
"Nobody does," said Mary. "But it's good for us."
Sometimes Laura did not even want to be good. But after another silent moment she said,"Well, if you and Mary want to, Ma, I will. It will give us something to look forward to for Christmas."--Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter

Combine your resources with another person or another family. You have a stereo, they have CDs; they have a piano, you have a guitar. You have the hill, they have the sled (or you have the hill and the sled, they have the kids). You bring the cookies, they bring the hot chocolate. Or just trade for awhile: your videos for theirs.

Or play Fraggle Pebble presents, à la Muppet Family Christmas. The Fraggles give the same Fraggle Pebble to each other over and over again, back and forth, just for the fun of giving it. (Check out that link--it's a whole photo blog synopsis of the video. The spelling's not great, and it was Bert who had to dress up as Mamma, not Ernie, but still.)

Listen to whatever music makes you happy, even if it's on the radio. Go to church and sing.

And have a wonderful holiday.

A Holiday Meme, by Dewey Squirrel

This is my blog but I nevver get to rite anything bekuz Mama Squirrel is always hogging it. So today I am taking kontrol of the keeboard and I get to anser all the questions.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Neither, I like root beer flotes.

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? I am not suposed to tell.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? On my tree/house? All cullers and as many as Snoopy's doghous.

4. Do you hang mistletoe? No, I like it for an apetizer.

5. When do you put your decorations up? Mr. Fixit puts them up for Dewey when he should be resting his tired bones in front of the television Hey wait a minit, this is my meem and I get to rite...Well, I did put up my own reeth on the door.

6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Pizza.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: Curling up in a warm attic with my fourtteen brothers and sisters.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I pwomised I would never never tell that he cheets at cards--oops.

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? I open EVERYBODY'S gifts on Christmas Eve becuz I cant stand the susspens. But don't tell them.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? I don't have one, I just share with the hummans.

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I like it becuz it's eazier to see the cats' footprints and go the uther way.

12. Can you ice skate? I am a very talented squirrel. I can do a lot of things. I have even been on staje at church. But I cant ice skate because I don't aktualy have feet.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift? The Chipmunks' Christmas Album.

14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Keeping away from Uncle Louie for another year. [Uncle Louie is always after Dewey for that fifty bucks Dewey owes him...]

15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Boosh Butch Bûche de Noël (thank you Mama Squirrel). You no...Yool Log. Something about being a Squirrel, we have a thing for desserts made out of wood.

16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Riding along in the car and waving at people out the window. Sometimes they wave back.

17. What tops your tree? Well, I tried climbing up there once becuz I wanted to talk to that pwetty angel that the Apwentice made. But she wouldn't even say halo to me.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving? Giving. One year I rode along with Santa and helped him give out all the presents. I am very good at going up and down chimnies.

19. What is your favorite Christmas Song? Chesnuts, Akorns and Walnuts Roasting on an Open Fire But It Wasnt My Fault!

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum? They make my fur too stikky.

How we celebrate

If you read The Apprentice's "sevens" post below, you'll notice that she included two of Charles Dickens' books in her list of favourite books. Last night I read her Stave One of A Christmas Carol...how many times at Christmas do we READ A Christmas Carol instead of watching it? There are all kinds of interesting little things in it that are different, of course, from the movie versions.

"And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever.

'Let me hear another sound from you,' said Scrooge, 'and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. 'I wonder you don't go into Parliament.'"

Tuesday nights are also an online chat time for our online homeschool community, and I was reminded this week that there are many different perspectives on Christmas, even within the North American Christian community. Some of us make a deliberate choice to "celebrate the Christian year," following the seasons of Advent, Christmas and so on with influences such as Martha Zimmerman's book of the same title. Others make just as deliberate (and often more difficult) a choice not to celebrate one particular day at all, or at least not to celebrate Christmas Day as Jesus' birthday. A few have chosen another time of year to celebrate, such as the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles in the fall (or in January if you're Ukrainian). And some are kind of in the middle, trying to figure out what fits with their convictions, what reflects their relationship with Jesus and what can or should be left aside. Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, or nothing of that sort at all? Jesse Trees, Christmas Trees, no trees? Lots of presents, three presents (to reflect the three gifts given to Jesus), no presents? Hot chocolate, wine, or carrot juice? Handel, Celtic, Christian-bookstore-pop, Bing Crosby, or even (gasp) Elvis in the CD player?

The one thing we seem to have in common, as Christians seeking to glorify God and raise godly children, is what we don't want: the great-big-shiny-aluminum-Christmas-tree holiday. We don't want the overstuffed, overspent focus on what's under the tree--and then the famous "black hole" of letdown afterwards. We also don't want the equally empty politically-correct holiday that's been wiped clean of any Christian reference. I don't think many of us are making a point of teaching our children songs like "You better watch out, I'm telling you why, Santa Claus is coming to town." (Although we may give in to nostalgia and watch some of those so-familiar singing snowmen and grinch stories that many of us grew up with. Don't the Heat Miser's little backup guys still rock?)

And none of this is exactly new. Christians have disagreed for centuries over how to celebrate Christmas, or whether to celebrate it at all; how much pre-Christian tradition or mythology should be included, whether trees are in fact those gold and silver idols mentioned by the prophet, or whether the ancient symbols can be or should be "Christianized." (Does or doesn't the candy cane have religious significance?)

This article by Stephen D. Greydanus gets into an interesting discussion of whether A Christmas Carol promotes a Christian or secular view of Christmas. Some have accused Dickens of actually being a major contributor towards the "happy-holidays" kind of celebration. Greydanus discusses C.S. Lewis's point that the story contains very little mention of Christ; but he also presents G.K. Chesterton's argument that, in fact, Dickens' work is "not a work of Christian imagination, but it is a work profoundly affected by Christian imagination, and the significance of the story's Christian roots becomes more marked the further contemporary culture drifts from those roots. Not only is it essentially a morality tale, and a conversion story at that, but it takes seriously the idea of consequences in the next life for our actions in this life." (That's from the article, not directly from Chesterton.)

Dickens' Christmas spirits may be, as Lewis observed, "of his own invention," yet they are still agents of grace; Chesterton considers them suggestive of "that truly exalted order of angels who are correctly called High Spirits" ("Dickens and Christmas").

I certainly don't have the last word for anyone on how or even whether to celebrate Christmas. We choose to prepare our hearts during Advent, to celebrate in every way we can think of during Christmas (that's twelve days long, by the way (grin)), and to finish off with the Three Kings on Epiphany (and yes, I do know there were probably many more than three, and they weren't necessarily kings). It's something we're still working on--choosing what music, what decorations, what traditions mean the most to us and communicate what we believe the season is about. I'm grateful for the insight of those who have shared very different perspectives on this, and I am rejoicing that our goal, in the end, is the same: to glorify Christ every day.

Two no-bake candy recipes

This is what we did with our batch of sweetened condensed milk substitute (we used the Hillbilly Housewife's recipe, here, which makes the equivalent of two cans). The Apprentice made the Apricot Nuggets recipe, which came from Canadian Living Magazine but was based on an Australian recipe (I think they call it Apricot Slice). It sounds like cookies, but it's more like butterscotch candy.

No-Bake Apricot Nuggets

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 tbsp. lemon juice
2 3/4 cups vanilla wafer crumbs (about 90 cookies, but we bought crumbs at the bulk store which was much cheaper than a box of cookies)
3/4 cup chopped dried apricots (we chopped them fairly small in the food processor)
3/4 dried cranberries (we bought these at the bulk store as well)
3/4 cup shredded coconut (divided)

Line a 9 by 13 inch metal cake pan with parchment paper; set aside.

In saucepan, stir together sugar, butter and milk over medium-low heat, stirring to prevent scorching, until butter is melted. Remove from heat; stir in lemon juice.

In bowl, combine wafer crumbs, apricots, cranberries, and ½ cup of the coconut; add butter mixture, stirring until combined. Press into prepared pan.

Sprinkle with remaining coconut; press gently. Cover and refrigerate until firm, about 4 hours. Cut into squares. Keep in the refrigerator, or you can freeze them for up to 1 month. Makes 40 squares.

(Canadian Living, December 2003)


Quick Fruit and Nut Fudge

1 lb. semisweet chocolate, chopped (from the bulk store, of course)
1 300-ml can sweetened condensed milk (or homemade equivalent)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup dried cranberries or raisins or the rest of the apricots that you chopped for the Apricot Nuggets
1 cup chopped toasted pecans (optional)

In bowl over saucepan of hot (not boiling) water, melt chocolate with milk, stirring frequently until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Stir in fruit and nuts, if using.

Pour into foil-lined 8-inch square cake pan; smooth top. Chill for about 3 hours or until firm.

Turn out onto cutting board; peel off foil. Cut into squares. (Make-ahead: layer between waxed paper in airtight container and refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.) Makes 64 pieces.

(Canadian Living, December 1999)