Over the holidays my mom and I had some fun making cute desserts as gifts for some friends and family. I like to experiment, especially while in the States, as I had all the ingredients at my fingertips. Most specialty items are hard to come by in Belarus.

My mom also made her pound cake and spice nuts which she is reknowned for. She makes them every Christmas.

As for the other goodies, we made homemeade marshmallows. Peppermint truffles and chocolate truffles. Chocolate candy cane/sprinkle cookies. And it was good.

And these are my masterpiece. Marshmallows.

They look magical don't they? My aunt thought they tasted like gum, but we won't talk about that ... (I still love you Mare : )) Either way, they tasted like a richer version of your typical marshmallow, and I had a great sense of accomplishment after making them. I thought "I just made marshmallows, and nobody but me will care." But they looked pretty and we used them for gifts, so it all worked out ; ) And no, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?

And that's all for now!

I promise I'll get off my absence kick and come back here where I belong, with you guys.

Except for the few days it will take us to drive back to Belarus, and the several more to recover. But I'll tell you more about that later.

Happiest Wishes,
Em

P.S. Almost forgot to give you the recipes!

Marshmallows (Alton Brown's recipe; I doubled the recipe and experimented with green food coloring on a few; it was cute, but recipients didn't know what they were)))

Chocolate Candy Cane Christmas Cookies (do not repeat, in fact, just read that and it will fry your brain; PW's recipe, modified only with shapes and some sprinkles)

Truffles (PW's recipe as well; modified with no sea salt, and for the peppermint truffles we added peppermint extract and dipped in almond bark instead)

Enjoy!