Don't mess with a perfectly good recipe and don't procrastinate homemade Christmas presents until the last minute. (If you're buying the present at the last minute, that's perfectly acceptable.)
Ok...so I'm going to be a little vain for just a second and say that I think I usually come up with some great gifts for the people I work with. In fact, I keep my eye open all year for something that would be fantastic and the start working on them months before hand. One year, I decoupaged boxes (apparently I like to decoupage :-D) and filled them to the brim with a flurry of homemade Christmas cookies. One year, I cross-stitched snowflake ornaments complete with beading. I've made little candy dishes and another round of cookies, etc., etc., etc. It's entirely possible my office mates don't think these gifts are a wonderful as I do, but I always have a good time doing it and it gives me an excuse for a fairly large project that keeps me busy for a while and, sometimes, a chance to try a project I probably wouldn't have attempted just for myself.
This year, not so much...mostly since I have a project named "Lillian" who keeps me busier than I could have ever hoped for. I had a great idea for these cute bags made out of t-shirts, but I couldn't decide what I could put in them so it wasn't just a lame bag. I thought of doing some lotion/body wash stuff in a basket made out of a towel and wash cloth, but you never know what scent people like, so I scrapped that one, too. As Thanksgiving approached, I realized I still didn't have an idea for my office gifts, and I was running out of time.
Then, my Kraft Food and Family magazine came. Inside was a recipe for Simply Sensational Truffles. With two ingredients and only three steps, I decided I could handle that. I put the recipe on the fridge so I could find it later and moved on. About a week later, I remembered I needed to find something to put the truffles in. Through my digial scrapbooking sources, I found some templates for gift bags and boxes. I printed a couple off to get a better idea for size and decided on one. Once again, I moved on.
Then, on Monday, I realized this was the last week everyone would be in the office when I would be and I needed to get their gifts to them. I grabbed the ingredients on Tuesday night and got Step One done and in the fridge to firm up. I figured I could finish them up Wednesday, along with putting the bags together (which I'll talk about next), and take them in on Thursday.
Even though I knew I had a couple hours of work ahead of me Wednesday night, I agreed to go to the gym with Erik. We got home around 8:30 and I got started. My first batch was a disaster!! The recipe was only for regular, semi-sweet chocolate. But I like white chocolate truffles better and I like them flavored with something. So I'd made two varieties of regular - one plain, one mint - and two varieties of white - one raspberry, one lemon. I started rolling the raspberry, and they were so soft. When I tried to dip them, they melted enough that they were no longer balls. And they weren't very well covered. I put them back in the fridge hoping I could dip them a second time and be ok, but I wasn't very optimistic. I pulled out the plain chocolate next. Hard as a rock, as it should have been. They turned out great. My first thought was maybe the flavorings had caused firming issues and I was going to have three horrible varieties and only one that worked. But the mint ones turned out great, too. So apparently, the mistake was using white chocolate. I would think chocolate is chocolate and they should have set up equally as firm, but I thought wrong, I guess.
Now the bags. I decided to print them at work on our fabulous color printer. But after the first one came out, the color was all wrong. I did a quick cleaning adjustment and tried again. Better, but still awful. They printed great at home, but this fancy printer didn't like the colors used, I guess. Luckily, I have photoshop at work, so I quickly download some new "papers" and changed the design completely. It wasn't nearly as fancy or detailed, but hey...I was on a time crunch! It printed fine, and I thought I was home free.
That was until I was sitting at my kitchen table Wednesday night at 11:00 still cutting out cardstock bags and taping them together. What was I thinking? It was not nearly the quick project I thought it would be.
I was able to dip the raspberry ones again and they worked well enough that I put them in the bags. The lemon ones were rolled in powdered sugar, so they're still really soft and almost squishy. But at least the sugar keeps them from being sticky! And they all tasted delicious, so that's all that matters, I suppose.
Next year, though, I think I'll go for something much simpler. The people I work with always give great gifts, too, and I'm sure they don't agonize over them quite like I do. We all end up eating so much crap over the holidays, so I think I'll go back to the non-food gifts like decorations or yummy smelling candles. Maybe I can even get them something useful...like a set of screwdrivers... :-D Yep...that's my plan for next year.
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