Holiday Treats For Gift Giving!

I love to bake and the holidays are my excuse to bake up a storm. It seems that no one complains, in fact the goods I make get eaten just as fast as I plate them by our various neighbors who just have to come by and see what smells so good. But that is the joy of baking, so others can enjoy what you have created, and if we did not have friends coming over to snack on what I put out then I probably would not bake so much. Another reason for my obsessive baking over the holidays is, baked goods make for perfect gifts over the holidays. With just a few ingredients I can bake up a very nice holiday gift pack to give to friends and family! Ever since I can remember, my family has had a tradition of what we tend to call Haber Cookies that we give out. The tradition started by some friends of my grandparents who were the Habers, and Mrs.Haber would make a tin full of cookies for everyone every Christmas. After my grandparents passed away, my mom and my aunt continued the tradition by making their own “Haber” cookies to give out to family and friends. Well that tradition has continued in my home and I find that not only do they make a great gift, but when you are on a budget, you cant afford to get everyone gifts, so the homemade desserts are great for gift giving. Besides they are truly made with love and care, because you want everyone to enjoy the treats you have made them. One of my favorite traditions from the Haber collection are the tassies! I love tassies and they seem to be one of the favorites among many of our friends and family as well. This week is my baking week. I started yesterday and I probably will not finish until Thursday, or at least that is the plan. My main dessert that everyone has requested are the tassies and today has been a tassie day! I have made too many to even count today and I promised that I would share my recipes for my chocolate cherry tassies and my pecan pie tassies!  Well first you need to make your pie crusts for your tassies. If you use a traditional pie crust, I find that the tassies will fall apart so I use this recipe for the crust: Since we are in the holidays, my kids decided to add some food coloring in the crust mix!!

For 24 chocolate cherry tassies you will need:

1/2

cup butter, softened

1

package (3 oz) cream cheese, softened

1

cup all-purpose flour

1/8

teaspoon salt

1

cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

24

large maraschino cherries, drained

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 24 mini muffin cups with cooking spray.
2. In medium bowl, beat butter and cream cheese with electric mixer on medium speed until well mixed. On low speed, beat in flour and salt until dough forms.
3. Shape dough into 24 (1 1/4-inch) balls. Press in bottoms and up sides of muffin cups. Fill each cup with about 2 teaspoons chocolate chips. Top each with a cherry.
4. Bake 13 to 16 minutes or until edges of cups are golden brown. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from muffin cups to cooling rack; cool completely.

For the 24 Pecan Pie Tassies you will use the same recipe for the crust you used for the Chocolate Cherry Tassies.
Then for the filling you will need:

3 eggs 1 cup brown sugar 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour 1 cup corn syrup

2 tablespoons butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2.	In a medium bowl, gently beat eggs. Stir in sugar and flour, then the syrup, butter and vanilla. Fold in pecans. Pour mixture into tassie shells, (there will probably be a little left over). Bake for 10-15 minutes, eyeball them, they may need a little longer.

A little thing that I learned when making the pastry shells is to put your dough between some parchment paper then roll it out, that way it does not stick!! Once they are done let them cool before packaging them for gifts, or put them out for everyone to enjoy!! They do go fast so as a little FYI you might want to make more than just one tray of each!!!! Happy holidays everyone and I would love to see any recipes you might have that I can add to our Haber Cookie tins this year!! Please share in a comment below!!!!!!!!