Baking and Other Signs of the Season

I decided to make these delicious (that's premature-I assume that they will be delicious) peppermint brownies for the Cookie/Ornament Exchange that I am hosting tomorrow. They look delicious, but...man, are they labor intensive! Not that I didn't enjoy drawing the one and three-quarter squares in which the mints would be placed for melting, I did. Seriously. It was, however,  a two  to three hour ordeal.

Currently the brownies are chilling in the fridge under a layer of ganache. The peppermint squares are relaxing on the kitchen counter, ready to be arranged atop the brownies.

The recipe wants me to put the squares bottom side up (squares on the right), but I'm leaning toward putting them face up. I realize it may be difficult to sleep with this issue still undecided, but I promise to update tomorrow. Hopefully, they will look like this:

via Sunset Magazine

Most likely they will not...


In other Christmas news, I read A Christmas Carol to my students yesterday, and today I brought in the film version with George C. Scott as old Ebenezer. I warned them that it was one of my favorite Christmas movies and I expected them to react with the appropriate amount of respect for this holiday classic. They demonstrated an reasonable level of affection for Tiny Tim and kept criticism of the 1980s graphics to a minimum. All in all, it was a good day at school.

No offense to Jim Carrey, he's a genius, but George C. Scott is the only Ebenezer for me.