Holiday Sweets & Treats – Recipe Round Up
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Cookies and truffles and tortes, oh my!
photos: we heart this
It’s that time of year everyone – the season when we put our calorie watching on hold – and enjoy all of the treats the holidays have to offer! We’ve shared a number of sweets with our readers over the years that are perfect as DIY gifts or just great to have on hand for all of your holiday visitors.
Today, we’ve gathered those treats in one post for our official Holiday Sweets & Treats – Recipe Round Up. So gather up your kitchen helpers and pick a few wht tested recipes to celebrate the sweetest of seasons.
Cookies
Peanut Butter Blossoms
Peanut Butter Blossoms – To me Christmas means cookies, and this Hershey Kiss topped treat is one of my very favorites.
Coconut Vanilla Sugar Cookies – We featured these cookie cutter sweets for Valentine’s Day, but the coconut and vanilla flavors will work with Santa and reindeer shapes too!
Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies
Flourless Nutella Chocolate Chip Cookies – if you’re participating in a cookie exchange this year, this unique Nutella based cookie will stand out in the crowd.
Holiday Cookie Bonanza, Part 1 – Way back in 09, our review team shared their favorite Christmas cookie recipes. Part 1 includes recipes for Sherri’s family classic Soft Buttermilk Sugar Cookies, Cori’s no-bake Peanut Butter Balls and what Pam claims are the best Oatmeal Raisin Walnut Cookies ever.
Molasses-Spice Cookies
Holiday Cookie Bonanza, Part 2 – Still haven’t found the perfect cookie recipe? We’ve got more including my chewy and crunchy, ginger infused Molasses-Spice Cookies, and drugstore diva Nouveau Cheap’s Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Giftable Treats
Chocolate Mint Truffles
Chocolate Mint Truffles – If you’re looking for a gift-worthy treat, try these easy to make (and easier to eat) chocolate truffles infused with fresh mint.
Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies – If cookies aren’t your thing, try this brownie-like treat full of butterscotch goodness.
Oreo Truffles
Oreo Truffles – A super easy, no-bake treat made with the best packaged cookie on the market, Oreos. Decorate with holiday sprinkles, wrap in cellophane and you have a sweet little gift.
Little Tea Cakes – If you have a tea-lover in your life, bake these Scottish treats (the recipe came direct from Scotland!) and gift with a pretty mug and some fancy teas.
Chocolate and Peanut Butter Bon Bons
Chocolate and Peanut Butter Bon Bons – We’re so thankful our own Pam pried this old family recipe from her Mother-in-Law. Chocolate and peanut butter? What’s not to love?
Happy Endings
If you’re hosting a big holiday meal, you may be searching for a fantastic dessert (beyond a giant plate of cookies) – we’ve got two suggestions for the perfect ending to any celebratory dinner:
Irish Bread Pudding
Irish Bread Pudding with Caramel Whiskey Sauce – Want to wow at the end of the meal? Try this Irish classic that Stef describes as “creamy, warm, sweet yet savory and insanely good”.
Carmel Pecan Torte – Impress your guests with this fancy looking, caramel torte. Bonus: Have guests with diet restrictions? It can easily be made gluten free!
we heartsters – what are your favorite holiday sweets & treats?
Omg @tyna , my self-control just jumped out the window. YUM! I am a cookie fiend and this collection of recipes has sent me into a frenzy. While I never met a cookie I didn’t like, traditional sugar cookies are truly irresistible to me at this fattening time of year.
Happy to aide in your cookie addiction @turboterp! Now start baking.
I am like you @Turboterp! I don’t know which recipe to click on 1st! I am quite intrigued by the Nutella cookies….hmmm! choices, choices!
That’s a good first choice @glamazon56 – Nutella makes everything (even cookies which are already great) better!
You had me at Nutella. Oh my those sound fantastic!!
OMG @kari – me too. I get excited at just Nutella and a spoon. Put it in a baked good and it’s over!
Well, a lot more people are officially getting baked goods for their presents this year! This is all fantastic, @Tyna!
Thanks @marissa! I’m sure your friends and family will love some baked goods and sweets – who doesn’t? Let me know which recipes you end up trying out – and of course, how you package them (I’m a gift wrapping fiend).
Um, cookies? I love cookies!
Every Christmas though, I am in charge of making PIES AND COOKIES. UGH!!!!!!!!!!! I love making cookies, okay, but pies? PIES?????? I don’t want to make pies during the Christmas season! In my defense, I did that just a month ago (I made an apple crisp AND apple caramel pie. This “chef” is all out of pie juice.)
I love making (and eating) chocolate chip cookies, peanut blossoms, the old-fashioned German spritz cookie (top secret family recipe), peanut butter cookies….I’ll make just about any cookie if I can eat the dough while making it and while I’m on the Cookie Cooking Spree (TM)! I have a huge distaste for making sugar cookies though! I love them (and I love the dough!), but they just take. too. long. I eat my grandma’s. Ha ha!
I hear you @katezena! I was thinking of adding pies into this round up as well, but justified being lazy and skipping them since we just shared our pie recipes for Thanksgiving. And like you, I’m a little pie’d out. It’s cookie season now.
@tyna – Believe it or not, I very much dislike pie. I just make them. It doesn’t make me anymore pie’d out. Cutting off all of the apple skins, coring the apples, cutting the apples, arrange slices in pie crust, make caramel, pour caramel, cook pie, guard pies from warring parents until Thanksgiving….and they want me to repeat that for Christmas? NO WAY JOSE.
Oh, and then there’s the cookies. Allow me to tell you how cookies are in this house. I make the cookies, my mom steals spoonfuls of dough while I’m baking cookies, cookies are stolen from parchment paper from parents, GUARD COOKIES FROM WARRING PARENTS UNTIL CHRISTMAS EVE (okay, I do let the dogs have one jar otherwise they look forlornly at normally six nesting jars of cookies like Zena looks at the Greenies box.) This includes taping giant signs on cookie jars that say, “THESE COOKIES ARE FOR GRANDMA’S HOUSE ON CHRISTMAS EVE. OPEN AND DIE.” taped in a such a manner that only I know if said jars have been opened and cookies have been stolen by thieving parents or brother.
That probably makes them want to steal them all the more! :) Forbidden cookies are more delicious.
@stef – Hey, I give them one jar! They know how to share! Ha ha ha. I have been known to thwart them by buying “doggy Christmas cookies” for Zena and putting those in one of the jars. I love seeing them bite into them and seeing their faces transform. It’s SO FUNNY. My brother falls for it all of the time.
I’m definitely making the oreo truffles, my wife and I are oreo fiends!
Me too @lucylemonade – in fact, I’ve had to stop buying them because I couldn’t stop myself from eating half a package at a time! But I’ll be back to the Oreo goodness soon – it’s impossible to stay away.
Glad all you ladies enjoyed this cookie and treat round up!
I was salivating working on it and looking at the pictures of all the fab sweets. (Then proceeded to plop down in front of the tv and eat half a package of Trader Joe’s Peanut Butter Cups – heh).
I think I need to do some baking this weekend.
MMMMM everything sounds so good. ESPECIALLY the Irish Bread Pudding with Whiskey Caramel sauce. My fiance would just love that…
My go-to treat is chocolate chip cookie s’mores bars. I buy it all premade and then just layer and bake it. It’s like crack. Seriously. A layer of cookie dough on the bottom, then marshmallow cream, then a layer of graham crackers, a sprinkling of mini chocolate chips, a layer of mini marshmallows, and then a layer of cookie dough. Bake until done in the middle. It’s not an exact science. And yes, it sounds like something a 5 year old would think is awesome. But it’s soooo good.
Mmmm, the spice cookies and Irish bread pudding are going to the top of my baking list, can’t wait to try them over Xmas break!