Who cares how looks? Everyone knows not to judge a book by its cover
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My Christmas Crack didnāt crack! I underslcooked the toffee and ended up with extra chewy caramel. Still tastes good, and I was able to break it into pieces after an hour in the fridge. Next time, will ignore the āboil for 5 minutes exactlyā directive and use a damn candy thermometer.
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Can you microwave it to cook a bit further?
No, unfortunately I didnāt realize it was underdone until I had already poured the toffee onto the crackers and topped with chocolate. Itās edible, just a bit chewy.
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I meant with crackers and all. I microwave crackers with cheese, and sometimes they turn into frico, so I was thinking toffee might cook a bit extra and get crunchy too.
If it were just the crackers, maybe, but the chocolate makes it a no go.
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Aaaah yes. I meant before the choc layer went on. Ritz or matzoh?
I used saltines, actually, but next time I think I would go with Ritz/Club or maybe pretzel thins. Something with a little more character of its own.
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Iām currently in Bangkok, Thailand where a Japanese friend of 25 years lives with his Thai wife and children. My Japanese friend is a Mennonite (Japanese Christians are somewhat rare and Iāve never met another Mennonite anywhere!)
Anyway, he is doing his best to raise his kids as Christians and he and his wife asked me to teach them and their kids how to make cookies for Santa. Though I am Jewish by faith and didnāt celebrate Christmas until my father remarried a Christian woman, I have made Christmas cookies more than a few timesā¦.but never iced ones! We bought the ingredients (powdered sugar is surprisingly NOT easy to find in Bangkok!) and made the cookies today!
The cookies themselves were easy to make, but the royal icing (I used a recipe without egg whites or meringue powderā¦good luck finding that last one here!) was a painā¦and decorating the cookies with an impatient 5 yr old girl and 7 yr old boy nagging me wasnāt easy either!
In the end, we made 3 types of cookiesā¦messily decorated royal iced one, cookies using the same cookie cutters and decorated with sprinkles and thumbprint cookies. The kids and the parents had a good time as did I. And though the cookies donāt look so great (they look bad, actually!), they tasted fine and the family was more than satisfied!
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All such decorated cookies done with children and friends are, by definition, ābeautifulā! What fun memories for that family and for you.
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Thank you for the uplifting comment. Iāve been here in Bangkok since December 8th and for various reasons, my stay here hasnāt been ideal. Iām here 2 more weeks and I hope the rest of it was as memorable (Iāve certainly had āmemorableā days since arrivingā¦but not pleasantly memorable days) as today was.
Tomorrow Iāll go with my friend and his family to the church he belongs to (Protestant, not Mennonite as there isnāt one here) and though I feel a bit guilty about going as Iām myself not Christian, I will enjoy meeting others there.
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I think these cookies are utterly charming! Sounds like so much fun!
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They look great! Especially that (I think) angel repurposed into a (I think) cactus.
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Thank you so much. Everyone was surprised at how well they came outā¦especially me because even though I had checked to see if my friends had a scale, the one they had was an old fashioned analog one ā¦not too conducive to measuring things which only weigh a few grams.
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Thank you so muchā¦and yes, my friends and I agreed that at least one of the angels had been reincarnated as a cactusā¦the kids even re-enacted the holy transformation! 
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2! 4! 6! 8! Time to transubstantiate! And now I have to listen to
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Thank youā¦that was genius ! I know of Tom Lehrer, but both the word ā transubstantiateā and that ditty are new to me!
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My parents had the LP of That Was the Year That Was, and I listened to incessantly as a kid. I memorized a lot of songs that made no sense to me at the time, but I caught up eventually. Did you know math used to be different? I did not!
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I donāt know where I learned of Tom Lehrer, but I donāt think it was from my parents. However, my parents owned this comedy gem which I bought a copy of as an adult. It still makes me howl to this day!
(edit: It worked better after all, so I amended this comment/reply to show the link as I wanted it to appear.)
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Hmmā¦I never have much luck on this site with posting links. Let me try my favorite cut from the album (uploaded to YouTube by me) and see if this post works better.
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