Cute Edible Mice to Make With Your Family and Give As Gifts

 So I am not so fond of mice but these mice are a big hit!  Easy to make and tasty too they make the perfect teacher or neighbor gift for this yuletide time of year.  Here is what you will need to make these yummy candy cookies.

Christmas Mice

*Package of filled cookies

*Chocolate Kisses

*Sliced almonds (for ears)

*Maraschino cherries with stems

*Dipping Chocolate

*Icing 

      

Melt your chocolate on the stove top in a pan which sits in a pan of boiling water (stirring often to make sure it won't burn) or use your microwave.  Then dip cherries.  Put a chocolate kiss next to the dipped cherry with the stem of the cherry sticking straight out behind.

Add the sliced almonds behind the chocolate kiss for ears and then set the mouse on a half of a cookie.  Take a small tube of icing and add a nose and add a mouth.  You can use white or dark chocolate to make your cute Christmas mice.  Get creative!

Gather your children because these are so much fun to make.  Everyone will have a good time and then you can surprise neighbors or teachers or anyone you like with these  festive Christmas treats!

     

Prepare For Christmas Baking Now

My life became a lot easier when I started using a beautiful handmade wooden french rolling pin and I learned to make bread in an hour! I make a beautiful bread braid filled with fruit or jam and baked in the oven. (Resembles German Stollen a bit.)

Drizzle icing on top of the dessert bread braid and you have a beautiful gift to give your neighbors at holiday time. You can use a variety of jams such as raspberry, apricot, or cherry filling. Whatever you have on hand or want to put in the middle of your dough. It will taste delicious!

Use your favorite bread dough. I love this recipe from fast easy bread
You can make this from start to finish in an hour! It's great! This will make two bread braids. Half your dough and cover the other portion. Then roll out your dough with your french rolling pin. Take a 4 0z. container of cream cheese and mix it with a 3/4 cup of powdered sugar and add 1/2 t. vanilla. Spread it on down the center of your dough.

Next put your jam or pie filling on top of the cream cheese mixture in the center of your dough. Then take your kitchen scissors and cut strips on both sides of the rolled out dough. Don't cut too far into the middle. Fold over the very top of your braid and begin braiding the strips back and forth on your braid. Fold the bottom of the braid up on your dough and secure each strip by pinching them tightly together.

Bake in a 350 oven for 25 minutes and while it is still hot and fresh from the oven, drizzle powdered sugar icing on top of the braid. You could get fancy and serve it in a basket with a french rolling pin and the recipe for a gift. Put a fabric napkin in the basket first and then put your gifts inside and tie a fancy wired edged ribbon bow on the side of the basket.

There you go a gift you neighbors will love and remember you for, for years to come each time they use their beautiful handmade french rolling pin!