Just a Quickie Holiday Recipe

Ingredients
1 oz semisweet chocolate, melted
1 tbsp hot fudge sundae sauce, room temperature
1 box plain chocolate cake mix (not fudge or devil's food, without pudding)
1 cup eggnog
1/3 cup orange juice
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves

Directions
Heat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Lightly grease a 13 x 9-inch pan and dust with flour. Set the pan aside.
Place the all ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds.
Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
Bake 38 to 42 minutes.
Remove the pan from the oven and cool for 10 minutes.
Invert it onto a serving platter to cool completely.

This cake is awesome. Also someone gave us a hot chocolate machine, which has been pretty fun, so we've been experimenting with different hot chocolate recipes (if you can believe that). As the house has crawled with kids yesterday and today, the favorite, by far, has been hot chocolate made with a splash of eggnog. Yum-oh!

If you're not finished shopping, here's a recommendation for every age:

Pre-reader- Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
Early reader- Click Clack Moo (yes it's been around for a while, but it's sheer perfection)
Slightly older reader- Olive the Other Reindeer (hilarious for ALL ages, actually)
Chapter book reader- Clementine books are the new Junie B. Very funny stuff. Author won the Sid Fleishman award for humor on these guys, and well deserved.
Mg- Oh, my goodness, where do I start? For 11,12 year old girls, RUN don't walk to the book store and get them Lauren Myracle's novels Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen (three different books). The books you needed when you were that age. I especially love the treatment of the sibling relationship in these books. I adore this series.
YA- Boyproof, Uglies, Pretties, and Specials series,don't bother with Twilight, they've already read it.

That's all for now. xoxox If you order from B&N today, you'll still get it for the holidays!