Craigs’ Christmas kickoff has minty flavor

There’s no waking in the wee hours for Black Friday shopping at the Craig household.

The Liberty Lake family’s day-after-Thanksgiving tradition involves doing – not buying – for others.

And, at the center of the favorite family activity are tiny, pistachio-colored ingredients: Guittard Green Mint Chips.

They’re the key to the Craigs’ annual holiday mint chip pancake mix as well as mom Julie Craig’s signature birthday brownies. She buys them by the case.

The day-after Thanksgiving, the Craigs come together assembly line-style to make up some 250 batches of minty pancake mix, which they deliver to friends and family members. The ritual has helped get them into the spirit of the holidays for more than 10 years now.

“It’s our official kick-off to Christmas,” said wife, homemaker and baker Julie Craig, 44. “It’s very fun. A lot of people say it signifies Christmas to them.”

Craig and her crew – her husband and, if they’re all in town, four children and son- and daughter-in-law – deliver the gifts over several days, loading up the back of the car and making the rounds.

“We don’t go anywhere near Black Friday,” Craig said. “I’d rather be home with my family any day.”

Her husband, dermatologist Steve Craig, 52, was a widower with two children younger than 10 when she met him in 1996. Assembling and distributing the pancake mix was a way of “building new family traditions.”

Today, the family includes Kristen Schill, 28, of Salt Lake City, and her husband Nate; Andrew Craig, 25, of Greenacres, and his wife Monica; Ben Craig, 16, a junior at Central Valley High School; and Hannah Craig, 14, a freshman at CVHS. The Craigs also have two grandchildren.

Anyone who comes home to Liberty Lake for Thanksgiving helps. The mix is simple to assemble and, Craig said, easier and healthier than holiday cookies.

“A lot of people will have (the pancakes) on Christmas morning,” she said. “But, a lot of people won’t wait that long.”

Craig buys three or four 25-pound boxes of pancake mix – she uses Krusteaz – as well as those highly prized Guittard Green Mint Chips, which – for a long time – she could only find seasonally at WinCo Foods. She would stock up in early or mid-November, buying a 36-count case of 12-ounce bags.

Craig uses the chips all year, not just Christmastime. Each month, she makes her signature mint brownies for the women in her church who are celebrating birthdays.

“At church – we’re Mormon – all of the women’s birthdays are put in the church newsletter,” Craig said. “There’s almost always five or six.”

And some months, there are as many as a dozen.

“There are some months when I need to bake twice,” Craig said. “More than that, and I would put on some serious weight.”

Women of the Liberty Lake Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints never know what day of the month their birthday brownie will arrive. Craig bakes them when she has time. And, like the holiday pancake mix, she personally delivers these treats. Each comes wrapped on a paper plate and includes a personalized card. (Craig makes the cards, too.)

“I think a lot of the ladies look forward to it. They know it’s coming,” she said. “It’s pretty fun to see people anticipate it.”

Craig got the brownie recipe from another mom at a school picnic when her youngest was in kindergarten, then adapted it. She added the mint chips and shortened the baking time for a softer, chewier, super-fudgy brownie.

Recently, she began using homemade vanilla extract after her oldest, Kristen Schill, showed her how to make it. The 10 or 12 vanilla bean pods displaced about ½ cup of a fifth of vodka, and Craig poured the leftover booze down the drain.

“Being Mormon, I’d never bought alcohol in my life,” she said. “For a teetotaler, it felt weird (to have it in the house).”

But the weirdness was worth it: “Boy, does it make good vanilla.”

While the homemade vanilla extract is a new development, Craig has been baking her minty brownies for church birthdays for about eight years now.

“I don’t think I’ll ever be allowed to stop,” she said. “And I wouldn’t want to. Anything that you can do with your time that can benefit somebody else, there’s big satisfaction and there’s connection. For me, personally, this is an easy thing I can do.”

Mint Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix

From Julie Craig of Liberty Lake and www.krusteaz.com

Craig buys 25-pound boxes of mix and figures she gets around 60 or 70 gift-sized portions from each. The Craigs give the enhanced mix away in 4-cup containers with lids and make their own custom labels with instructions.

“We set up an assembly line with all the family and have different stations: container, pancake mix, chocolate chips, mint chips, lid, instruction sticker, stack,” Craig said. “There are kids who’ve grown up associating the arrival of their pancake mix with the Christmas season and anticipate our knock on the door.”

For mix:

2 cups Krusteaz Original Pancake Mix

1/2 cup Guittard Green Mint Chips

1/2 cup chocolate chips

Combine all ingredients in 4-cup container with lid.

For pancakes:

1 cup milk

2 eggs

2 tablespoons oil

Heat griddle to 375 degrees. Lightly grease griddle.

Stir mix, milk, eggs and oil together with a wire whisk until smooth. Do not over mix. Let batter stand 2 minutes. Pour slightly less than ¼ cup batter per pancake onto griddle.

Cook pancakes 1 to 1 ¼ minutes per side, or until golden brown, turning only once.

Yield: 14 to 16 4-inch pancakes per gift-sized portion

Bittersweet Chocolate Mint Brownies

From Julie Craig of Liberty Lake

1 cup butter

2 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups cocoa powder (Craig prefers Hershey’s dark.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon real vanilla extract (Craig makes her own; see recipe below.)

4 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1 generous cup 60 percent cacao bittersweet chocolate chips (Craig prefers Ghirardelli.)

1 generous cup mint green chips (Craig prefers Guittard Green Mint Chips.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease 9-by-13-inch baking pan. (Craig has a convection oven and uses a Pyrex pan or stoneware baking dish, and says both work well.)

In a medium saucepan set over low heat, melt butter. Then remove from heat, add sugar and stir to combine. Return mixture to heat briefly, just until it is hot, not bubbling. It will become shiny-looking as you stir it. Transfer to mixing bowl.

Stir in cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth each time. Add 1 cup of the flour, beating until well combined. In a separate bowl, toss the chips with remaining ½ cup of flour, making sure all chips are coated. Add this to the rest of the batter and stir in with a spatula or wooden spoon. (Coating the chips with flour keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the pan during cooking.) Spoon the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake in a convection oven for 24 minutes, or in a regular oven for 27 minutes. (Craig likes them “ooey gooey.” You may have to adjust the time if you prefer a more well-done brownie.) Remove pan from oven and, after 5 minutes, loosen edges with a knife. (This helps keep the brownies from sinking in the center.) Let cool before cutting into them. (Craig often cools them in the refrigerator, which gives the final product a nice “set.”) 

Homemade Vanilla Extract

From Julie Craig of Liberty Lake

Rum or bourbon can also be used instead of vodka.

10 to 12 vanilla bean pods

A fifth of vodka

Split vanilla bean pods in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds. Place pods and seeds in quart-size mason jar. Use a funnel to pour in vodka (there will be about ½ cup leftover). Replace lid, shake and store for 2 to 3 months in a cool, dark place, shaking once a week or so to speed up the extract process.