I’m just someone who likes cooking and for whom sharing food is a form of expression. – Maya Angelou
Four great recipes to wow your guests during the Holidays! These delicious Christmas treats range from easy (the kids can pitch in!) to moderate in prep. Whether you are looking for a last-minute show-stopper, or you’d like to savor the time to make cookies from scratch, these recipes are everything you’re looking for to create memorable holiday favors this season.
Christmas Tree Cupcakes
With a simplistic design, these Christmas tree cupcakes can be dressed up and decorated as festive as you want them to be! Add a confetti star to top the tree or use icing to create ornaments. Can be prepped and baked in under one hour! Makes one dozen cupcakes. This is one of the best Christmas treats.
What do I need?
- 12 Unfrosted White Cupcakes
- 7/8 Cup self-rising flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- 1 ½ cups of unrefined castor sugar
- 1 ½ cups unsalted butter
- 3 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Homemade Buttercream
- 2 cups icing
- 2/3 cup unsalted butter
- ¼ cup milk
- 3-4 drops of green food coloring
Christmas Sprinkles (optional)
For the Cupcakes
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 12 ct. muffin tin with muffin holders.
- Combine sugar, butter, and extract together until it has a fluffy consistency. Eggs will be stirred in one by one, then adding baking powder and flour until mixture is thoroughly mixed.
- Use a large spoon to fill muffin holders evenly. Bake for 25 minutes.
For the Buttercream Icing
- Set up hand or electric mixer and add the icing and butter to a bowl. Mix until both are combined to a thick texture. Slowly add in milk, mix on HIGH speed until mixture becomes fluffy.
- Add drops of green food coloring until you are satisfied with your ‘tree green’.
Let cupcakes cool completely before decorating with the icing. It is helpful to refrigerate them for 20-30 minutes.
Decorating the Cupcakes
- Use a piping bag for the icing. Center the piping bag directly over the cupcake and begin to squeeze while circling slowly to create a pyramid tree shape. Stop when you have reached the top.
- Get creative! Decorate the “trees” as you’d like.
Tips: Sprinkles and/or sugared candies work well for ornaments. Confetti stars make for great tree toppers!
Heartwarming Coffee Blend
This quick and easy recipe can be used for you and yours, to share with co-workers, or store in mason jars for a cute and simple holiday gift. (think teachers or the postman!) One of the best Christmas treats.
What you’ll need:
- 4 cups ground coffee. Feel free to use any roast you’d like, although dark seems to work best.
- ½ tsp of ground cinnamon, and 5 cinnamon sticks.
- 40 cloves and 20 black peppercorns (to add spice)
To Sweeten
- 16 oz. non-dairy creamer to sweeten. (optional)
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 1 pinch salt
- Choose how sweet or spice-based you’d like your blend to be.
- Using a mortar and pestle, crush the cinnamon sticks, peppercorns, and cloves together. Don’t worry too much about breaking up the cinnamon sticks as much as the other spices. You want it to be a bit chunky.
- You can now add those ingredients to the coffee grounds in an air-tight container and shake well until blended. Keep and store in the container or divide up into jars to give away!
- To use the sweeter option, you will add all spices, sugar, salt, non-dairy creamer to the coffee grounds, shake until blended, and store in the same fashion. Mason jars are great for gifts.
- Yields 60-84 servings.
German Gingerbread Cookies
A fun way to say “Ich liebe Dich” (I love you!) to the ones nearest to your heart this Christmas! These delectable cookies are a German staple around the holidays. They can also be decorated with fun sayings to add the perfect touch! One of the best Christmas treats!
Ingredients
- 5 cups of white flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tbsp gingerbread spice mix
- 7 tbsp unsalted butter
- Pinch of salt
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 7 oz. golden syrup
Heart shaped cookie cutter
Begin by preheating the oven to 350°F.
- Using a sifter, combine baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, and spice mix into a generous size bowl.
- Heat a saucepan to a low heat. Stir in sugar, butter, salt, syrup. Once well blended, add mixture to the bowl with your dry ingredients to create a dough.
- Clear a space to roll the dough. Dust lightly with flour and spread the dough out in front of you with a rolling pin. The dough should be about 1 centimeter thick.
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Use the cookie cutter and create your heart-shaped cookies from the dough. Place them on the tray.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes until edges are nicely browned. Cool, then carefully transfer to a baking rack.
Cookies can be decorated using a piping bag and icing. Get creative with different colors of icing and design your cookies to be unique!
Four Chocolate Parfaits – With Oreos!
Who doesn’t love a parfait? Easy to eat and an effortless presentation! This recipe will use Oreos (because they are delicious!) for the filling, but you can customize these parfaits with your own favorite cookie.
Quick tip: The cream can be made using instant pudding or by making your own at home. We will show you how to make your own!
What you will need:
- 2/3 cup whole milk
- 1 container of whipped topping
- Approx. 20 cookies
- 5 oz. semi-sweet chocolate morsels.
- Heat milk and chocolate in a saucepan over medium heat.
- Set mixture aside to cool. Whisk occasionally to keep mixture consistent.
- Fold whipped topping and chocolate mixture together to create the filling. Set aside.
- Add cookies to food processor and blend until smooth.
- Start filling parfait cups. Layer cups evenly alternating between chocolate mixture and cookie crumbles.
- Top parfaits with chocolate morsels and/or plain whipped topping.
Serve chilled.
