On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me,
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree.
The Twelve Days of Christmas recipes continue!! Today’s theme is two turtle doves, and might I say this recipe is MUCH simpler than the last one. It took very little time to make these and they are relatively simple. To read about my Partridge in a Pear Tree recipe, click here. I love turtles. When I was growing up nothing excited me more than the orange turtle box under the tree. My mom would leave it unwrapped since my dad would always go snooping for them, and by the time Christmas day would come around there would be none left. She actually started buying two boxes of them because we just couldn’t help ourselves! These turtle doves are essentially your basic run of the mill turtles, cloaked in white chocolate with a milk chocolate drizzle topping. They are freaking fantastic. I snagged this recipe from Woman’s Day Magazine’s December issue.
What you’ll need: 1 heaping cup of pecan halves, 16 soft caramel candies, 1 cup of white chocolate, 1/4 cup of milk chocolate and 1 tbsp plus 1/4 tbsp of shortening, divided.
The first step is roasting your pecans. Toss a heaping cup of pecans onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 350 F degrees for about 10 minutes. Make sure the pecans are arranged in a single layer, not overlapping, in order to get evenly roasted pecans. Once the pecans have cooled, divide them into 16 clusters.
Next, add a soft caramel candy to the top of each cluster. Try to arrange it so that it is at the top of the cluster, touching multiple pecans. I actually flattened the caramels a little bit so that they would better coat the pecans. Place in over, set to broil, and bake for 2 to 3 minutes or until the caramel has melted. Watch your caramels carefully, it can burn very easily if you’re not paying attention.
Let the melted caramel cool. Meanwhile, melt white chocolate and shortening in a double boiler, in a microwave, or in a heat safe bowl atop a pot. Once melted, spoon heaps of the white chocolate over the pecan and caramel cluster. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes, or until hardened.
Melt the milk chocolate as you did the white, and then drizzle over the white chocolate. Return to the fridge to cool. I left them in for about a half hour.
These taste really good. Let them soften to room temperature before serving or you will be biting into a really hard caramel center.
Annnd that’s pretty much it… super simple right? With cooling time in the fridge it took me about an hour from start to finish. They’re a great gift to give at Christmas – especially for Turtle lovers. Pop them in a home decorated box, wrap and send – it’s that easy.
On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
The Jill of all Trades 