As is often this time of year, I am thinking of “stocking stuffer” style gifts and inevitably I make some roasted nuts. This year: Maple Syrup and Bourbon…. a sort of New England meets Kentucky thing. They are delicious, not too hard and quite addictive. I should stop eating them, otherwise I won’t have any more to give away!
Here’s another simple “stocking Stuffer” like idea, if you are looking to make your own foodie Christmas presents this year: Chocolate-Covered Roasted Cashew + Pretzel Rounds Brittle. Takes less than 15 minutes to prepare, an hour to chill/harden and then voila! A homemade present! You can, of course, use other nuts, but I am definitely partial to cashews here. If you want to make them a little cinnamony, that might be a nice twist too.
Completely out of character for my baking and cooking style, but staying on the Halloween and ghoulish eyeball theme, here we have some absolutely delicious Spicy Hot Honey Almond Buckeyes, all decked out for the holiday. Despite being technicolor and ghoulish, they taste really cool — kicked up almond butter with cayenne and honey. And besides, freaking the kids out by biting into an eyeball has to be fun, no?
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, chocolates or fudge. Sometimes Caramels, sometimes Fudge, sometimes Truffles. So this year, I went with another couple of types of fudge: Coffee Toffee Crunch Fudge and Cookies+Cream 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!
I have a tendency to make chocolates or fudge around holidays. It’s often completely impromptu — like I didn’t plan on making these two types until this morning, and had I not had the ingredients in the pantry, I wouldn’t have made them at all. I am very pleased that I did have the ingredients though, especially for the white chocolate coconut fudge as it is incredibly decadent!