Each year when the holidays roll around, I spend countless hours in the kitchen baking up batch after batch of delicious holiday cookies. Well my plans hit a little hiccup this year when my oven stopped working last weekend, so I had to improvise a bit. I thought it would be fun to make some fudge to throw in my tins this year because my recipe requires no baking whatsoever! Total score 1 for mom!
I got this recipe from my mother in law a few years ago and it really is just so simple. It takes just about 15 minutes from start to finish, so it makes for a quick and easy recipe when your crunched for time!
Ingredients:
- 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 3 cups sugar
- 2/3 cup butter
- 1 container marshmallow fluff
- 1 – 5oz can evaporated milk
- 4 oz chopped walnuts
- 1 tsp vanilla
Directions:
Line a baking pan with parchment paper, ensuring that it lines the sides as well. In a large pot, combine sugar, butter and evaporated milk. Cook over medium heat stirring continuously until mixture comes to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, continuing to stir constantly. Remove from heat, add the chocolate chips and stir until melted. Then stir in the remaining ingredients – marshmallow fluff, vanilla and walnuts. pour into your parchment sheet ready baking pan and let sit for a few hours. Cut, serve and enjoy!
Now Id’ like to share with you some tips for easier holiday entertaining. Well remember above where I mentioned my oven fiasco? Yeah, well that entire lovely spread above (besides the fudge) was all made at my sister’s house, then brought home to feed all of us plus some unexpected guests. Imagine that!
Obviously before I started, I had to get the things that I would need, so I stopped at Walmart to grab my ingredients from the baking, dairy and frozen food sections. The main dish was a STOUFFER’S? Party Size Lasagna with Meat & Sauce, then I grabbed some NESTLɮ TOLL HOUSE? Rolled & Ready Sugar Cookie Dough Sheets to make sugar cookies in a breeze and my delicious walnut fudge called for NESTLɮ TOLL HOUSE? Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels.
I’m sure you’re wondering how I went from this..
to this..
But really, it was easy. It was so easy in fact, that I’ll be using this method of “cheating” more often!
- Don’t slave over your main dish – Grab a STOUFFER’S? Party Size Lasagna with Meat & Sauce for your main dish. Trust me, they’ll never guess it was frozen because it tastes homemade! We’re cheese heads here in Wisconsin, so I added some extra cheese to the top 15 minutes before it was done, then took the lid off and continued baking for the duration.
- Think Easy Sides – I chose cheesy garlic bread. I just grabbed a loaf of Italian bread, mixed softened butter and minced garlic in a bowl, spread it on the bread, topped with Mozzarella cheese and put it under the broiler for a couple of minutes.
- Go with easy treats instead of an elaborate dessert – I made fudge which was quick and easy, then made star and candy cane cut out cookies with the NESTLɮ TOLL HOUSE? Rolled & Ready Sugar Cookie Dough Sheets.
I swear, the NESTLɮ TOLL HOUSE? Rolled & Ready Sugar Cookie Dough Sheets are the best invention ever! I cut the shapes out right on the little cardboard they came on and just pushed the scraps together when I needed to cut more. I never once used a rolling pin!
Then I whipped up some icing real quick using powdered sugar and a little bit of milk, spread it on, added some sprinkles and voila – delicious cookies in a flash! I’m telling you, it really doesn’t get much easier than this!
Do you have any holiday entertaining tips to share? I’d love to hear them!
