Official Christmas Baking/Cooking/Craft/Secret Santa Thread!

[TheRocket]

Okay, I will draw the names tonight and send out a pm to those who havne't given me their address.

[TheRocket]

And yes, the "gift" can be anything from a candy cane, a homemade gift, an old vhs of Godzilla that you find under your bed, or you can go buy something for under 10 bucks.

[Metcarfre]

OMG my cookbooks came in and they are SO AWESOME!!!

[TheRocket]

=D!!! That is so good to hear!

[Vanguard]

Ladies, Gentlemen, and anyone else that doesn't neatly fall into one of the previous two categories, feast your eyes on what I'm about to share with you. This is deep eldritch lore passed down from generation to generation of the Vanguard line, itself being ancient in age (i.e. my mother found this recipe in a book like eight or so years ago). I present to you "Chocolate Stuff".

You will need:



2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick real butter
2 fairly heaping tablespoons Hershey's cocoa
1 teaspoon of vanilla

The first thing you're going to want to do is mix the flour, sugar and eggs together in a bowl. It might take a while, but mix it well until it's a uniform consistency.



Protip: don't use a whisk for this part like I did. It doesn't work well. Add in the teaspoon of salt after you've finished mixing.

Meanwhile, place the stick of butter in a microwave-safe bowl and add on top of it the two tablespoons of cocoa. It doesn't matter if you dig the spoon into the cocoa and come out with little mountains of it on the spoon. That's kind of what we're aiming for here.



After you have your butter and cocoa together place it in the microwave to melt it (about 4-5 minutes will do). It's also worth noting that, when melted, an entire stick of butter can take up a lot of volume, so make sure your bowl is big enough.

After your butter is melted you want to pour the butter mixture into the bowl with the flour mixture. Combine the two, add the vanilla and mix thoroughly.



When you're done mixing (and you should be done when it's no longer soup-y) pour the mixture into a greased loaf pan, making sure you spread it out evenly.



With that done, place the loaf pan into a much larger pan with water in it.



Ideally the water should go up to about the halfway-point on the batter in the loaf pan (i.e. half is submerged, half is not). The idea here is that the bottom half will be somewhat soft and gooey while the top hardens and becomes kind of crunchy.

Place the pan into the oven and bake it at 300 degrees for 40-50 minutes. At the 40 minute mark you want to check the top to see if it's hardened and become crunchy or not. Whether or not it's ready might depend on your oven, so leave it in until the top becomes crunchy.

(Somewhere when I was making this to "demonstrate" I had a bit of a foul-up, so no pictures of a finished product until I try Attempt 2)

~Van

[TheRocket]

Please send me your address ASAP for the Secret Santa!

[falconknight06]

Nevermind. Nothing to see here. Move along!

[TheRocket]

You did, but I havn't recieved all the addresses yet from people... so if one more person other than you wants to join I can swing that. But if I put you on the list it makes it uneven and we are stuck waiting for a new person.

[falconknight06]

You did, but I havn't recieved all the addresses yet from people... so if one more person other than you wants to join I can swing that. But if I put you on the list it makes it uneven and we are stuck waiting for a new person.

S'ok, I should have been paying more attention to the forums. have fun everybody. I'll just let myself out

[Tally]

Well then, can I join too? That'd make even numbers again. (I totally did not have time to read this whole thread, though I plan to when I get home again tonight, so just to be clear, is this a send-a-gift-to-one-person Secret Santa kind of thing? B/c timewise I can't handle sending a ton of stuff - even my family members aren't all getting actual physical cards this year - but if it's just a one-send thing I would love to participate.)

[TheRocket]

Yes yes! I will pm falconknight to see if they are still interested. Tally please send me an address in which your secret santa can send you soemthing.

[falconknight06]

PM has been sent Rocket!

[Deedles]

I would love to praticipate, but currently have no ideas ... So! I'll just enjoy seeing how this thread pans out! ... And see if I can think of any nice recipe to post. Though ... sadly I'm not much of a baking person, I prefer cooking savoury food! :]

[TheRocket]

Woot woot! Okay, this is officially capped. I am waiting on people to respond to pms and then we can get the names drawn!

Remember, send a holilday card, whether it be hand drawn, self crafted, stolen from your mom or store bought. Send a small gift along with the card. It can be a dollar store item, a craft, some cookies, an old dvd, some tube socks, a comic you drew... whatever. Don't make it cost over 10 bucks, and don't feel like it has to be a really good present. The point is just to send a little fun something along side a Christmas greeting.

Happpppppy Secret Santaing!

[Tally]

Ooooh, hooray! Thanks to Siobhan for doing all the admin for this, and for letting me be in it.

Ok, I've read the whole thread now. All in one go, here are my various reactions/responses.

- About all the FUD photos and recipes posted: YUM. I must try these.
- About the LRR forums cookbook idea: I think it sounds perfectly awesome. As for printing, if Sibohan lays out/edits/formats the whole thing, why not then post it somewhere as big long PDF and let people download that and have it printed as they wish, at whatever quality and cost they wish?
- About this whole entire wonderful craftsy delicious thread and all the people in it: heart heart heart!

[Dubious_wolf]

Rocket I se a PM not sure if you received it can you confirm?

[Master Gunner]

Check your outbox and sentbox. If the PM is in your outbox, it has being sent, but not read yet. If it is in your sentbox, then it has being both sent and read. If it is not in either, then it wasn't sent at all.

[Dubious_wolf]

it's in the sent section so it has been read. acknowledged HQ.

[TheRocket]

Hehe.. yes I got your note. Just waiting on 2 more people I believe. 2 people who don't log in enough it seems!

[Dubious_wolf]

understood.

[Tally]

Alright baking/cooking queens and kings: do any of you have a good and simple recipe for fudge? I'd like to try making some, but last time I did this (which was, admittedly, way back in high school) I swear I followed the instructions correctly, but I ended up with a puddle of brown goo. Delicious, but still a puddle.

[Evil Jim]

I have a very simple recipe for fudge but can't for the life of me think of where it is right now as I haven't used it for a couple years. I'll conduct a search, & if I come across it within the next couple days I'll post it here.

EDIT:

Well, that didn't take long.

Microwave Fudge

WHAT GOES INNIT:
1 to 1½ lbs of chunk chocolate
1 can of sweetened, condensed milk (14ox / 396g)
1 Teaspoon of vanilla
Nuts to taste (optional)


HOW TO DO IT:
Heat chocolate in microwave until melted (usually 2-4 minutes)
Remove from microwave & stir in the milk
Immediately add vanilla
Pour into 9"x13" pan
Let cool in fridge

NOTES:
I wrote this recipe down as a friend recited it verbatim so it's not in the official recipe format.

I have used this recipe a number of times & have had consistent success, despite the fact that I'm often a walking nightmare in the kitchen.

EDIT:
I bought a can of condensed milk for the recipe today & it's 14ox / 396g.

[I X]

Ooooh, hooray! Thanks to Siobhan for doing all the admin for this, and for letting me be in it.

Ok, I've read the whole thread now. All in one go, here are my various reactions/responses.

- About all the FUD photos and recipes posted: YUM. I must try these.
- About the LRR forums cookbook idea: I think it sounds perfectly awesome. As for printing, if Sibohan lays out/edits/formats the whole thing, why not then post it somewhere as big long PDF and let people download that and have it printed as they wish, at whatever quality and cost they wish?
- About this whole entire wonderful craftsy delicious thread and all the people in it: heart heart heart!

I can lay it out. Or you can. Using THIS!

<brandishes link>
Scribus

Makes some goooood PDFs.

[2stepz]

I don't have any unique baking things I could post... but to me, winter means SOUP. I may come back at the end of the week and post some soup recipes.

That reminds me... FIEND! I still need to buy blackbeans for that Southwest Soup creation you inspired... dang you.

[Metcarfre]

Now I want to make soup too...

Must... find... good... squash soup... recipe!