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!
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Sweet Snacks
Every year when I make my Christmas Cookies, I try out one or two new recipes. Or new-to-me recipes. Some are traditional cookies, some are modern cookies. One of the two new types that I made this year are these: Speculaas (Dutch) aka Spekulatius (German). They are a traditional Dutch spice cookie, usually rolled very thin and then imprinted with a design. While I have a few imprinting rolling pins, my dough wasn’t cooperating particularly, so instead of the imprinting pin, I went with a Christmas-y cookie stamp. All the same in the end. These cookies are very nice, a lovely traditional spice and will definitely stay in the cookie madness repertoire.
And now for something a little different …. Have you ever eaten roses? Yes, as in the flower that one gives on Valentine’s Day? The flowers turn to fruit (rosehips) which are edible. I commonly know rosehips from tea, but recently while I was in Germany, I found rosehip jam, and of course was curious. It’s a floral flavor for sure, though I am not sure I could identify the taste as ‘roses’. At any rate, I decided to make some of my crumble shortbread bars with the jam and some almonds and they turned out quite nice. I could see them being eaten with tea or coffee in the afternoon.
Often people send me viral photos of cool looking bread design or fancy pie crusts. I love this but one of the things that you often see is the pre-baked pies, but never the end result. Like, what does it look like once You’ve baked it? Is the still as pretty? Or does it all bake together? I decided to give this style of pie — it’s really just a boring old double-crust apple pie, but with the fancy swoosh top crust — a go, and at least with this one, the pattern turned out pretty neat. Pleased with the result.