Christmas Treats

My dear Watson and I made some Christmas treats for some of our neighbors and my work friends.  It was a lot of work but I really liked doing it.  It took us almost 6 hours, so this is definitely not one of those quick, easy, last minute neighbor gift ideas.  BUT, I only spent $11.68 on the few items I didn't already have, and was able to give gifts to 17 people (and it could have been more). That comes out to $.69 per person.

We made peanut butter truffles, almond cremes (recipe posted on my Recipe tab), caramel brownie bites (homemade brownie AND caramel), and dark chocolate truffles.  I learned a dipping technique from The Pioneer Woman (who learned it from Bakerella - the famous cake pop lady) that involves using a toothpick to transfer the candy from the chocolate dipped spoon to the pan. I thought it helped keep the candies nice looking, and was very pleased. 

Here's some documentation, though not much.

Bowl full of chocolates.

The round chocolates are almond cremes and peanut butter; the toffee covered one is almond creme; the square one is a caramel brownie bite.

Tied up with some ribbon.

And this is the special Christmas tag I made to go on each bag. I used Adobe Illustrator, though I can't guarantee I used it correctly.  My big brother Ben showed me a few basics when he was here on a quick business trip a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to put them to use.  I still would have mostly preferred to use Photoshop, but I definitely realized some of the cons to Illustrator (and by cons I mean pros...it took me like 4 times reading through this blog to realize I put the wrong word :) oops!)