Super easy gingerbread truffles

Oh my, oh-my-oh-my-OH-MY.  My gingerbread craziness has really kicked in this year and I've been on the hunt for a new recipe for something ginger-bread-y.  

You might have seen my forays into Gingerbread Men, Gingerbread cake, liebkuchen, Dutch Taai Taai and good ol' Gingerbread stars... I'm a gingerbread NUT.  Guilty.  THESE are my favourite discovery this year.  I saw them over at What Megan's Making and thought - hello - we need an Aussie adaptation of THAT, and STAT.

These are very easy to make and look very sweet but actually I think the white chocolate is a great compliment for the PUNCH of flavour you get from the gingernut filling.  Yes.  These are made with good ol' Arnotts gingernut biscuits.... otherwise known as jawbreaker cookies!

Only 3 real ingredients here and you'd never guess it by the taste!

Ingredients:

2 packets arnotts ginger nut biscuits

250g (1 block) philadephia cream cheese

250g white chocolate

Decorations for top if desired.

Method:

In your food processor (or thermomix) process the ginger nut biscuits.  As they are very hard I suggest pulse to start with and then full process.

Then add your cream cheese and process until well combined.  It will resemble moist sand.

Get out some baking paper, and if you have little helpers or are OCD and like everything to be the same-ish size like me - draw a circle on your paper.  This will give your kids a guide to how big the truffles should be.

Get rolling!  Very easy :)

Many hands make light work but sometimes, it's easier doing it with one.. but my girls love gingerbread too so there was no stopping them...

Then melt your white melts - I do mine in the microwave - 1 minute on 50% power, take out, stir, return for another minute on 50% power, stir - if not fully melted put it back for 30 seconds.

Get your decorations at the ready - Megan used some reserved crumble mix, but I used sugar snowflakes for a Christmas touch or you could use silver dragees (or balls) or even sugar balls.  Let your creativity go - or just leave them plain!

With a skewer, dip the balls into the chocolate and cover completely.

Let as much as the chocolate as you can drip off... before placing back on baking paper and add your adornments..

Leave to set for about 20 minutes and store them in the fridge before serving, great for teacher/neighbour gifts and a great little something to take to Christmas drinks or get-togethers.

The taste as I said, is different to what I expected.  The punch of the ginger is perfectly complimented by the white chocolate, it's not overwhelmingly sweet.

Now to give them away before I eat them all... <help>

Handmade Class teacher or group present - the lolly wreath

A friend of mine Di, has been telling me some for some time about lolly wreaths.  She has made them for her daughters teachers each year and they are gratefully received.  So this year I thought I would give it a go and give it to the lovely support staff at the school office (As I have Eloise's teachers' present sorted)... but I had one problem.

What I thought I needed couldn't be found.  I wanted a plain wire wreath with no nothing on it - you know like floristry wire.  A coathanger was not going to cut the mustard - so I set out to find a substitute. And I found it.

I just bought a regular el cheapo wreath from Spotlight and removed all the ugly decorations (which were incidentally hot glue gunned on - ick)  So the removal of such items was a huge improvement

So what you need is the wreath and about 1kg (or 2 if you like a really spangly wreath!) of toffees or wrapped lollies.  Use some wire ties (you know, the ones at the bottom of your drawer where you keep your garbage bags and glad wrap..) and twist around one end of a lolly.  Then twist the other end of a tie around the end of another lolly..

Then twist it around a branch of your wreath.  I did one pair of lollies per branch, but go for your life - whatever works!

The cost of this:

Wreath $14.00

Sweets $7.00

Ribbon $2.50

Total 23.50 (3 staff = less than $8 each)

I did notice however that spotlight had mini wreaths for under $5 - so you could make small ones for friends, colleagues, teachers or neighbours.  (I don't think my garbos would appreciate one - they are too used to their beers!)

Who outside your family do you gift for?