Sidna Brower Mitchell Blog: Holiday Sweets

When the holiday seasons were upon us, I decided to make some sweets for refreshments after a Christmas cantata at our church.

I tried a new recipe from a mystery paperback, Joanne Flukes’ Plum Pudding Murder, that my friend June gave me. While we both appreciate a good suspense novel, June claimed this one had too many recipes. Indeed, there were lots recipes and almost all of them were tempting.

However, here’s one that I took to Ken’s daughter for Thanksgiving sweets and as one of my contributions after the cantata; this is easy and the results are sinfully rich and delicious.

White Chocolate Peach Truffles

1 cup white chocolate chips

2 tablespoons peach jam

powdered sugar to coat

In the top of a double boiler over simmering water, melt the cup of chocolate chips with the peach jam. Stir occasionally. Heat until mixture is of a fudge-like consistency, similar to the inside of a chocolate truffle.

Let the mixture cool on a cold burner and then shape it into truffle-sized balls with your fingers. Then roll them fairly small because they are very rich.

Roll the balls in powdered sugar and store them in a covered container in the refrigerator.

Take out of the refrigerator about 30 minutes before serving.

Makes about 18 decadent truffles, depending on the size you roll them.

NOTE: The original recipe in Joanne Flukes’ Plum Pudding Murder book was for chocolate raspberry truffles with an idea to try white chocolate and peach jam or jelly. Then use cocoa powder to coat the truffles.

For the church event I made snickerdoodles and what I called cherry bombs or cherry brandy balls. The recipe is basically one for Bourbon balls but since I had several bottles of cherry brandy, I substituted.

Cherry Bombs
aka Cherry Brandy Balls

2 ¼ cups graham cracker crumbs

1 cup finely chopped pecans

1 cup confectioners’ sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

2 tablespoons white Karo syrup

¼ cup cherry brandy

confectioners’ sugar

Combine the graham cracker crumbs and the chopped pecans in a large bowl.

Place the one cup of confectioners’ sugar, cocoa, Karo syrup and cherry brandy in another bowl and whisk thoroughly or beat with an electric mixer.

Pour liquid mixture over the crumb mixture and blend well.

Roll into small balls and then roll in remaining confectioners’ sugar to coat.

Makes about four dozen balls.

NOTE: I “sorta” combined my recipe for Bourbon balls with the recipe for whiskey balls in the Jack Daniel’s Hometown Celebration Cookbook, substituting cherry brandy for Bourbon or a Tennessee sippin’ whiskey like Jack Daniel’s.

Sidna Brower Mitchell can be reached via e-mail at sbmcooks@aol.com.