Christmas Confections

I love baking any time of year but baking for Christmas is something special. There so many themed recipes, fun cookie cutter shapes, and festive decorations to choose from. Whether you are baking treats for your coworkers, participating in a cookie exchange, or stocking up to have plenty of sweets on hand for family, the creativity and effort put into baking this time of year is appreciated by all.

I would like to share with you 4 new recipes that can easily be added to your cookie platter. I think they will be a hit!

Christmas Light Sugar Cookies

These sugar cookies are super simple to make and even more fun to decorate! I used store-bought sugar cookie dough but if you have a favorite recipe you can definitely use that instead. Store-bought dough is nice when you don’t have a lot of time or don’t want to make a mess of your kitchen. It’s also a great way to get the kids involved and teach them to bake by easing into the process. I was going for a simple approach for the cookie itself but did make homemade frosting.

The frosting is a mixture of powdered sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla and is amazingly delicious! I went with a plain white frosting, but you could add food coloring if you want the frosting to be a bit brighter. I used black cookie icing and mini M&M’s to create the Christmas lights. If you like to be generous with the amount of frosting on each cookie (like I do), you probably want to double the recipe just in case 🙂

The recipe can be found here and makes 48 cookies.

Holiday Chow

This is a classic dish that is great for a crowd because it makes a lot, kids love it, and it can be used as a snack or put out for dessert. It reminds me of my childhood and is full of chocolatey/sugary goodness 🙂 It takes about 10 minutes to put together. I thought it would be fun to use red and green colored chocolate to create a festive look. Keep this in mind for future holidays – orange and black for Halloween, red, orange and green for fall, etc. You’ll be able to chow down on this snack for any holiday!

The recipe can be found here and makes 8 cups.

Reindeer Peanut Butter Blossoms

These were really fun to make! Traditional Peanut Butter Blossoms are a peanut butter cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss in the center. I thought it would be fun to put a festive spin on that tradition. Instead of using a Hershey’s kiss, I used a red M&M for the nose, mini chocolate chips for the eyes, and broken pieces of pretzels for the antlers.

The cookies are moist, and the crunch of the candy and pretzels adds a nice touch. Hopefully these cookies go down in history (get it?) 🙂

The recipe can be found here and make about 24 cookies.

Spritz Cookies

A classic holiday cookie. Not too sweet, perfectly buttery, and available in a variety of holiday shapes. This was my first time making Spritz and they were actually quite simple. Basically, you mix the dough together, add the dough to a cookie press, and “spritz” the cookies onto a baking sheet. I divided the dough into 2 bowls after mixing so I could add food coloring to part of the dough. Afterward, I dipped the cookies in some melted chocolate and added sprinkles. Yummy!