Special K / Wheaties Clusters

I first had these during a music camp at church (think VBS except we learned a musical in one week to perform on Friday night).  I remember the ladies working hard in the kitchen making us snacks while we rehearsed.  Thank you Kristy! :)  They are so yummy and just enough different to be something "new" for a lot people. The recipe I have is actually named "Special K Clusters" and indicates that Wheaties is an alternative for the cereal. For some reason, I've always made them with Wheaties, so I adjusted the name when I wrote the title.

Ingredients:
1 cup white Karo syrup
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup peanut butter
5 cups Special K or Wheaties flakes

Directions:
Bring Karo syrup and sugar to a rolling boil.
Remove from heat and add vanilla, peanut butter, and cereal; mix well.
Working quickly, drop by spoonfuls on wax paper.
Once the clusters set up, transfer to an airtight container for storage.

Raspberry Shortbread Ribbons

'Tis the season for Cookie Swaps! This is a great Cookie Swap recipe because they make up quickly and easily. Depending on the size of your Cookie Swap, baking enough cookies can be a bit daunting. You shape your shortbread into logs, for this one, and then simply slice into ribbons after baking. You could always double the dough and make larger slices if you wanted bigger "ribbons". The recipe promised 5 dozen, I ended up with about 4 dozen. Since I needed 3 dozen, this worked out well -- I could reject some of the not-so-pretty ones. And eat them, of course. ;)

warning: cell phone photo coming up...

Ingredients:

Shortbread Dough:

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raspberry jam

Glaze:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
 
Directions:
Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  While this is mixing, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.  Add egg and vanilla to the butter and sugar and mix well.  Gradually add dry ingredients until throughly combined.
 
Seperate dough into fourths.  Form a log from each dough section four inches apart on a greased cookie sheet.  Your logs should be about 10 inches long and 2.5 inches wide.  Create a 1/2 inch valley down the center of each log; try to create a "dam" at the end of each log, otherwise your jam will just run off the edges later on.  Bake at 350 for 10 minutes.
 
Remove logs from oven and fill the valleys with jam.  Bake for another 10 minutes or until edges are lightly browned.  Cool for two minutes, then slice into 3/4 inch slices.  Transfer ribbons to a wire rack.  Be sure to place a layer of wax paper between the rack and counter to catch the glaze drippings in the next step. 
 
In a small bowl, combine glaze ingredients.  Drizzle glaze over warm cookies.  Cool completely so that glaze will harden.  Also, be sure your cookies are seperated from one another after drizzling, so that the glaze doesn't "glue" them together.