Christmas Treats for Gifting

These little gift items are a good example of how I never like anything to go to waste.  Maybe my mum being born in the '30's has something to do with it, but I abhor food being thrown out.  Even when making something that needs to be scraped out of a bowl or container, I'll scrape every last speck out with my spatula before consigning the bowl to the sink.  On occasion this has resulted in a extra cupcake or rum ball and that pleases me to no end.

Broken candy canes are so sad.  These couldn't be hung on the tree as they were a wee bit banged up.   I bought these ones because they were red and white without the green that I always see.  When I opened up the box however, they were in a sad state.
Dip 'em in white chocolate, roll them in sprinkles - I'm sure some sparkly red sanding sugar would have looked great too - and Voila!  Pretty treats.

But what about all the broken bits?

I ground up the broken candy cane bits in the food processor and sieved them.  The larger chunks might go into some dark chocolate cookies later, but the finer peppermint dust was perfect to sprinkle onto the leftover white chocolate from dipping the candy cane sticks!  I didn't need to add any peppermint flavour because the chocolate had lots of bits from dipping the broken candy canes.  It's a subtle flavour and the white chocolate just melts in the mouth.   You can put the chocolate in a squeeze bottle,  plastic disposable bag or I just dropped small amounts from a spoon to make small coin sized drops.
I love that both the candy canes and white chocolate get all used up and I have something to give when a small token gift is appropriate.  The cute glassine envelopes were from InTheClear on Etsy.

These are cute just for decoration on the counter