Claire AndradeI spent most of yesterday and part of today making my annual Christmas Treats. I have been doing this for about three years now. This year I decided to mix it up and try (mostly) all new recipes. I think they all turned out looking pretty and hopefully they taste just as good! I definitely put my new stand mixer to work! Today I am sharing all of the sweets I made – there’s still time to make them in time for Christmas if anything catches your eye! Enjoy!
M&M Sprinkle Cookies
I made these cookies for my work potluck and they were gone in no time! I think the secret was the vanilla pudding mix. They were almost like a cake batter cookie but I thought the taste of these were much better. Highly recommended! You can find the recipe here.
Hot Chocolate Cookies
These cookies look so pretty! I was very impressed when they came out looking so good, and they really do taste like hot chocolate. Miguel suggests drinking a glass of milk with them too – they are a little rich and dense. You can find the recipe here I followed it exactly. These definitely took the most work of any recipe I made though.
Softbatch Sugar Cookies
These cookies are soft, gooey goodness! I love cookies that seem a little under baked and these cookies did the trick! They were super easy and yummy. You can find the recipe here. I followed it exactly.
Lumps of Coal Bags:
I found a recipe online for these here but only used 2 cups of rice crisps. I felt like I didn’t have enough marshmallow to use 3 cups. So maybe if you added more marshmallows you could use the 3 cups of cereal. I also only got 20 clumps out of it and I was hoping for more. Anyway they taste good and make super cute treat bags! I already had the cellophane bags and ribbon at home and I printed off the tags here.
White Chocolate Covered Pretzels
I’m not a huge fan of these but everyone I know seems to be obsessed with them so I still make them every year (over 100 of them actually). These are one of Miguel’s favorites and the only thing I could get him to help me with – he did the sprinkles 🙂 I didn’t use a recipe for these, so I will just share what I did. It’s pretty easy to do.
-Lay out a long sheet of wax paper.
-Melt one bag of Nestle white chocolate chips
(I had never used our new microwave to melt chocolate before and I ended up throwing away 2.5 bags of chocolate because I over cooked it and it became hard. So I suggest heating up on a low power for 30 second increments in a glass bowl, stirring every time you get it out. Should be good to go in about 1.5-1.75 minutes )
-Coat pretzels in chocolate. I use a fork to dip the rings in and coat and then let it drip off any excess.
-Lay pretzels on wax paper and coat with sprinkles
-They dry pretty quickly, maybe 20 minutes. Then store in a container!
Gift box assortment ready for the neighbors!
I found the little gift boxes at Michael’s. I think a set of 4 was $4. And they are so perfect for making up little gift boxes to give to people. This is why I love baking for Christmas, so I can share my sweets with others and these boxes make it easy and cute!
I hope everyone has a great Christmas weekend and enjoys their sweets!
Claire