What do you mean it's not Christmas yet?

I love Christmas.

I love cookies.

I love planning my Christmas Cookie Exchange party.

This year will be the second time I have hosted one. I can't wait.

I've got a few cookie recipes to try out.

The first one is a cranberry and white chocolate biscuit recipe involving one of my all time favourite ingredients, condensed milk.

This recipe yields a lot of biscuits. It would work very well if you needed to bake for a school fete. They are really yummy with a semi-crisp shell but a soft and crumbly centre which is owed mostly to the condensed milk.

The cranberries and white chocolate work well together and give the biscuit a very festive look. If I go with this recipe I will drizzle each biscuit with melted milk chocolate, maybe with sugar sprinkles too.

I think a decoration trial will be in order soon too.

Christmas in July

I've been experimenting with White Christmas recipes for Robin from Cookie-Exchange. She has a book deal and would like to include some Australian Christmas treats.

I immediately thought of White Christmas, of which any Australian Christmas table is naked without.

One small problem though. You can't buy Copha in North America. It seems to only be available in Australia.

So I made two version of White Christmas, one using Copha and another using a Copha substitute consisting of Crisco and coconut cream.

I must admit that I loved the non-Copha version. Copha wasn't the only thing I substituted. I left out the coconut (of which I'm not a huge fan) and added in marshmallows, extra rice bubbles and dried cranberries.

As much as I love my traditional White Christmas it is nice to have another version up my sleeve.