08 August 2008

Today's project - homemade peppermint patties. Yum-yum. I looked up this recipe almost two years ago and never got a chance to make them until now. Why now? Because I'm avoiding finishing my other project....sewing box cushion covers. Whenever I get to a particularly tricky part of a sewing project, I completely retreat to something I know I can accomplish. Ah well - at least I'm getting through some of the recipes on my To Do list.

These are the easiest thing to make ever. I found the recipe here, but I substituted 1 bar of Scharffenberger 70% Dark Chocolate (9.7 oz) for the 16 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips. It was plenty of chocolate and I love dark chocolate.

This is what it looks like in the process:


After mixing and kneading sort of like a dough, it gets rolled out and cut into it's circles. I used the top of a salad dressing bottle. I would have taken a photo of the kneading process, but it was so sticky I had to get a rubber spatula and go over my hands with it to get it all off....not a good combo for trying to use a camera.

Little circles all lined up, waiting for their chocolate bath:

Ahhh.....dunking in the good stuff (and by the way - the recipe says you can put the chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler - I highly recommend the double boiler):

Now fork me out of here:



And let me rest in the refrigerator to firm up:


And finally, the inside of the finished product:



Perfection. But I guess tomorrow I really do have to get back to those covers. Aargh.

2 comments:

Pat said...

My mouth is watering over these pictures of "Delicious Looking choc. mints" I think it would of been worth the trip back to your house!

I had a wonderful time with Sierra and Ryan. Next summer I told them to plan on at least 2 {several days) visits, one isn't enough for all that love they give me. Ray mentioned as we left you on way home - "Your son, Scott, really has a wonderful family, wife and children". I whole hardly agree. Love, Pat/Mom

dana said...

Hey Laurie, thanks for your comment on my MADE sewing blog. Those peppermint patties look deeeevine. YUM.
Didn't mean to leave you hanging on info about making puff sleeves. It's not too hard, but I hope this makes sense....
* Assuming you know the shape of a sleeve, just make the top and bottom (the round portion that connects to the shirt and the bottom part that gets hemmed), make them both twice as long as your normally would.
* Sew the armpit part of the sleeve together.
* Next do a gather stitch around both the round and hem areas (the parts that you made twice as long). This is what creates the "puff".
* For the hem area, cut a piece of skinny elastic that will comfortably fit around your arm and sew that on the inside of the sleeve. I kept the edge of my fabric raw (no hem). Since knits tend to curl up, I made sure that the curling side was on the outside so it created that cute extra ruffle on the edge.
* make sure your sleeve is gathered enough to fit in the armhole of the shirt and sew it on.
That's it!
I know that might sound complicated but it works pretty good.

A small tip I found with gathering fabric (I'm sure there's some real professional way of doing this but this is my make-shift technique)...I crank the tension up as high as it will go (10 on my machine) and I increase the stitch to the largest stitch (5 on my machine) then I just sew. The machine automatically gathers the fabric for you. Make sure you leave your thread extra long at the beginning and end of your gather stitch so you can let some fabric out if you need to or gather it more tightly.

Okay, hope that helps.
Feel free to email me directly if you have more questions:
danawillard@gmail.com
- dana