This morning I shovelled snow, made coffee, made some Christmas gifts, and made some Christmas goodies. Here’s what I did and things I would differently next time!

Rachel’s Chocolate Mint Balls

1 pkg chocolate (I used Decadent semi-sweet chocolate chips – this is too sweet! Use UNsweetened chocolate!)

condensed milk (again I used sweetened – use UNsweetened!)

icing sugar (this is why everything else needs to be unsweetened – this is your main ingredient)

Peppermint extract

In a bowl, mix icing sugar, condensed milk and some drops of peppermint extract. You’ll have to keep tasting it until it’s a nice After Eight’s kind of minty. You need the mixture to be thick enough to form it into small balls.

Melt the chocolate. I melted it in the microwave on Med. for 2 minutes - check it – then a minute and a bit - check it – it needs to be runny, but be careful not to burn it. (I did that!) Rachel suggests using a pot with water in the bottom (boiling) and putting a bowl over the pot. Melt the chocolate in the bowl. (She saw that on Martha Stewart.)

Put some parchment paper or waxed paper on a cookie sheet. Put some blobs of chocolate on the paper - this will be the bottom of your chocolate mint balls. This is how we get chocolate on the bottom. Form your sugary mixture into balls and place on top of the blobs. Then you need to coat the blobs with the melted chocolate, making sure no white is showing. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer. It’s a good idea to keep them in the freezer until maybe an hour before  you eat them.

Also, once they are frozen, I would package them up in a cookie tin with waxed paper liner - being careful to not have them touching. Use waxed paper between layers. A great gift.

Later this week - or maybe even today, I will be making truffles! More on that later!