Monthly Archives

December 2017

Breakfast/Brunch, Sweet Snacks

Cranberry Chocolate Chip Tea Bread

Here is a quick little recipe that ends up feeding a crowd. This Cranberry Chocolate Chip Tea Bread is quick to make (no mixer needed!), not too sweet and delightful for a snack or breakfast. It’s also festive and seasonal for this time of year! Note that you can halve this recipe is you only need one big loaf (or two smaller loaves).
Continue Reading

Candy, Sweet Snacks

Holiday Chocolate Combo:
Dark Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Fudge and Toffee Crunch Fudge

Long time followers of my website know that the other thing that I have a tendency to make around Christmas Time (in addition to the mountains of cookies) is candy or chocolate. Sometimes Caramels, sometimes Fudge, sometimes Truffles. So this year, I went with another couple of types of fudge: Dark Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Fudge and Toffee Crunch Fudge. It’s a super-simply, absolutely foolproof fudge recipe that turns out great every time. And ready in a very short time frame. Try it!
Continue Reading

Cookies, Sweet Snacks

Rosemary Apricot Pinecones, with Toasted Pinenuts

This is a new type of Christmas Cookie. You see, every year, I experiment with one sort. Sometimes they are a success, sometimes not. And sometimes, while I love the cookies themselves, they are too much of a pain in the neck to make +/- 300 of them, so they don’t get included the next year. This year, I decided to go with a distinctly non-German type recipe — if anything, these Rosemary Apricot Pinecone, with Toasted Pinenuts, almost have a Mediterranean feel to them. They are not too sweet and definitely have a rosemary finish. Most of the sweetness does come from the apricot jam. While the verdict is out on whether they will become part of my regular rotation, they are quite lovely.
Continue Reading

Cookies, Sweet Snacks

Nougatkipferl (Nougat Crescents)
(New Recipe: December 2017)

Nougatkipferl have never been my favorite of my Christmas Cookies to make. There are a number of things wrong with the recipe that I have been using for years, not the least of which is that nougat is really hard to find in the US. Substituting Nutella has usually worked, however this year, Nutella’s ingredient / composition changed somewhat (to much controversy, actually), and that made it more difficult to bake with. So, after a fail or two with the dough, I started from scratch and came up with this recipe. It has a little bit of corn syrup in it, which is not my favorite thing, but seemed to help with the dough’s consistency when I was rolling it out.
Continue Reading