Eggnog Baked French Toast

It snowed last night!! San Antonio hasn't had this much snow for 30 years! While it was snowing we were having a perfect snowy night dinner, this Eggnog Baked French Toast. The powdered sugar on top even looked like snow! I have made a bunch of variations of this dish with different fruit, but it was time for a Christmas upgrade. Instead of half and half and a little syrup like my regular recipe here, I just mixed eggnog with the eggs and you can totally taste the eggnog flavor. I grated a little fresh nutmeg on top before baking too. If you are an eggnog lover, this needs to be in your recipe collection!

Eggnog Baked French Toast
1 16oz loaf french bread (day old bakery bread works great)
8 oz cream cheese
4 TBSP butter or margarine, melted
1 3/4 cups eggnog
10 eggs
Sprinkle of nutmeg
Powdered sugar
Syrup

1. Cube bread and layer half of it in a 9x13 in. pan. Cut the cream cheese into small pieces and sprinkle evenly across the bread. Cover with remaining bread cubes.
 2. Pour melted butter evenly over the top. Mix eggnog and eggs and pour over evenly. Press down with spatula so that all the liquid is absorbed by the bread. Sprinkle a little nutmeg over the top. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours or overnight.
3. Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 45-55 min. If it starts to get too brown, lay a sheet of foil on top until it has finished baking. Remove from oven and sift powered sugar over top. Cut into squares. Serve with syrup
Makes 8-12 servings

Spritz Cookies

I have an old Pampered Chef cookie press tucked away in my pantry, and sometimes I forget it's there! I needed to make a treat for a cub scout pack meeting last week, with practically no ingredients on hand, and I remembered my cookie press. So here's the Pampered Chef Spritz Cookie recipe that I used. It calls for vanilla extract, but I like to use almond. It's an easy dough to work with, not too sticky. I divided it in half and added green food coloring to make some trees and wreaths. I sometimes have a hard time getting the dough to stick to the pan instead of stay on the press. I found that using just the right amount of dough is what makes it work for me (which is 1 and a half clicks of my trigger). A cold pan is supposed to help with that too. Spritz cookies aren't just a Christmas cookie even though that's how I think of them. My press has all different shapes, even a 4 leaf clover and pumpkin. If you don't have a press and want to try these, just roll them into tsp sized balls and press them down a little with your thumb. Happy baking.

Spritz Cookies

Pampered Chef
1½ cups butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
3½ cups flour
Colored sugar or sprinkles (optional)

1.  Preheat the oven to 375°F.
2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed of the electric mixer about 3 minutes or until creamy, scraping down the sides as necessary. Add the egg and vanilla; beat well.
3. Add the flour; mix on low speed just until blended, scraping down the sides as necessary. (The dough will be soft; do not refrigerate.)
4. Fit the cookie press with the desired disk and fill it with the dough. Press the dough onto the cookie sheet 1" apart.
5. Decorate the cookies with colored sugar or sprinkles, if desired. Bake 10-12 minutes or until the edges are light golden brown. Cool the cookies 2 minutes on the cookie sheet, then remove cooking rack. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Makes about 6 dozen cookies.