When I was growing up, Santa came and filled our stockings on New Year’s Eve. I have no idea how my parents got us to believe that Santa came by twice, but that was the way it was. I was a trusting child. What a stocking on New Year’s Eve meant was children with candy and little toys to keep them quiet on New Year’s Day, I’m guessing, when the grownups were no doubt wanting to sleep in and sleep off the late night bubbly. In my husband’s family, Father Christmas left your stocking on the foot of your bed as you slept on Christmas Eve. Children were supposed to wake up on Christmas Day and explore the stockings before coming in to disturb their parents. Same objective, different days. For our girls, we went with option 2.
When they were little, I tried to balance the candy out with more little toys but as they’ve gotten older, there seems to be more candy than stuff. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, until they leave and I’ve got a great big bowl of Christmas stocking candy leftovers. Why do they not take it with them? Excellent question and one I cannot answer for you. I’ve been giving it away right and left. But there is STILL candy in the bowl, so something had to be done. And that something is muffins.
By all means, keep your favorites out. You will notice that there is not a single Butterfinger in there, for instance, although Butterfingers would be superb chopped up in a muffin. And that is because I have already eaten them all. Those are my favorites and they go first. Chop the rest up and let’s make muffins!
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| A small selection of leftovers |
2 cups or 250g flour
3/4 cup or 150g sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup or 240ml milk
1/2 cup or 120ml canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
1 generous cup, roughly chopped, or about 200g random leftover Christmas stocking candy
Method
Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C and generously grease cups of your 12-cup muffin pan or line them with paper liners.
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large mixing bowl.
Whisk together milk, oil, vanilla and eggs in another smaller bowl.
Add all the milk/egg mixture to the dry ingredients.
Gently fold until dry ingredients are just moistened. Now fold in your chopped candy.
Divide your batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups in your prepared pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes in your preheated oven or until the muffins are golden.
Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes before removing the muffins from the pan. Cool completely on a wire rack.
Enjoy!
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| Empty stockings but full muffins! |
When does Santa come, if at all, to your house? Do you have a favorite candy that you hope for or hoard around Christmas time?
