Teacher Gifts: 2008 Edition

Well, the holidays are just around the corner. The kids' last day is Friday (mine is next Tuesday...boo! hiss!) so I decided to kick it into high gear yesterday while Robin was out with the kids. I baked a lovely eggnog pound cake. That will end up being my gift to my inlaws this year along with a great gift certificate to a local restaurant.

For the kids' teachers, I decided to go as easy as I could. I wanted to bake mini loaves of pound cake for them as well, but seeing as Maddy alone has 8 teachers; I just didn't have the energy to devote to that this weekend. Besides, I wanted something that was fairly fresh for the teachers. Seeing as the gifts won't be distributed until Thursday or Friday, I went another route: ALMOND ROCA!

First of all, if you never had it (like I'd never had it...oh for shame!), you need to check out the following recipe. I got if from Two Peas in a Bucket from a user named "SuffyAnn". I give her all the credit. The recipe was not only easy but oh.my.goodness. SO GOOD!

Almond Roca

Ingredients:
1 pound butter (not margarine)
1/4 Cup water
2 Tablespoons Karo Light Corn Syrup
2 cups white granulated sugar.
1 Cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup sliced or slivered almonds

Directions:
Butter bottom of cookie sheet and sprinkle with almonds.
Reserve about 1/2 cup for the last step.
Combine the first four ingredients in a large saucepan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until cooked to hard crack stage:290 degrees on candy thermometer. (If you don't have one, the hard crack stage can be tested in a small cup of ice and water.) The mixture will become frothy and a nice caramel brown. Immediately pour over almonds, and spread over cookie sheet.
Sprinkle with choc chips, spreading with pastry knife.
Then sprinkle crushed almonds over the top.
Cool completely.
Then simply break it apart and package.

This is what mine looked like all packaged up:

Like the tags? Made 'em myself! ;) Go "crafty" one fall afternoon and was messing around with some new Christmas stamps (like I needed anymore!) on some strips of "useless" paper. Turns out it wasn't so "useless" afterall!

I also, thankfully, made a bunch of Christmas cards last December. After Christmas was over. Why? Oh, probably because I knew I'd never get around to it this December if I didn't. I'm so glad I did. Here's the 2008 card design:

The kids each wrote a little message inside and signed their names. I slipped in a gift certificate for a local restaurant (that I got for $2 on restaurant.com. An 80% savings on the gift certificate. YES! SCORE! Robin and I have actually dined at this restaurant, so I feel good giving it to them all).

Tah-dah! Teacher Christmas gifts DONE!