Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Santa Trail Mix ~ Santa Hat included! and December Cook off

With lots of goodies on my list to make I ran across a Santa Trail Mix concotion from Cookies and Cups that I just could not resist making, so, here we are:

Santa Hats with M&Ms, pretzels, peanuts, and raisins


Also, the December Cook Off over at Kitchen Corners is under way so please visit and vote for my Derby Day Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. Voting ends Friday!



If you are like me, too cute to resist!!! And who doesn't like the sweet and salty combo. Only 4 more days left until Christmas but this is a super cute and simple treat to whip together to just have while you are watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" or "Christmas Story" for the 100th time! Or leave some for Santa!

So, to get started you need to find some sweet flavored Bugles to turn in to Santa Hats. (over at Cookies and Cups they used Caramel flavored Bugles, I used peanut butter and chocolate flavored, sweet and salty already, so why not add some chocolate on those babies!)

They hold there own but really need to become Santa Hats for some magic!
 Next, you need to have either red candy melts, or if you are like me I already had some white chocolate bark and red gel food coloring so I opted to use the bark and add red gel coloring.

*Loco Cocoa tip: I already had the white chocolate bark and red gel food coloring so used that and it mixed together beautifully, I cannot attest as to whether or not regular liquid red food coloring would mix together as well or not.

So, melt your chocolate, I did mine in 30 second intervals in the microwave, stirring after each heating until melted, then add food coloring until you get the color you want. As you can tell I didn't go all out red, that takes a lot of food coloring!!
*Loco Cocoa tip: You may need to add a little shortening to your chocolate so that it is thin enough to dip your Bugles and get it nicely coated.

Then time to dip
Can you see it transforming in to a Santa Hat?


Dip as many Bugles as you can laying on wax paper to dry. Then after they dry reheat or melt more chocolate to dip tips and bottoms in to add a mini-marshmallow on top and to dip bottom in nonpariels for Santa's Hat!

This was so magical for me (sorry, it doesn't take much to entertain me, especially in the kitchen!)





I went ahead and drizzled some of the pretzels with left over chocolate!
Can never have too much chocolate!

Once you have finished your hats you are ready to mix your treats together!

Here is a list of materials suggested for your Santa Trail Mix:
  • Sweet Bugles
  • White Chocolate Bark or red candy melts
  • Shortening
  • mini marshmallows
  • nonpariels
  • M&Ms
  • raisins ( I love some soft & chewy with all of that hard stuff!)
  • peanuts
  • pretzels
  • Rice Chex

Time to get mixing and enjoy!



This won't last long!!

Happy Baking,

Lynn aka Loco Cocoa






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