Aaaand here is another stocking stuffer idea: Buckeyes! Yes, just another excuse to make sweets really. And these are sweets with a kick. If you’ve never heard of Eliot’s Adult Nut Butters, you should definitely seek them out. Peanut butter, Almond butter and Sunflower seed butter with a kick — they make honey sriacha, garam marsala and the type I used here, chocolate chili. Very yummy. I added a little bit of additional chili powder and sprinkled on some sea salt to round out the sweet and salty combo. Very yummy!
Sweet Snacks
It’s getting close to Christmas so here is a great idea for a stocking stuffer: Absolutely fabulously delicious roasted nuts. They are to die for yummy! Sweet from the honey, flavorful but not really spicy from the cinnamon and smoked paprika. They are both sweet and savory. You can use any type of nuts, but I went with cashews, almonds and pecans, but walnuts and even macademias would be lovey too. They’ll stay fresh for a couple of weeks, if they last that long!
Every year, right around the holidays, I try my hand at making another variety of chocolate truffles or fudge. Fudge is my old standby though, as I have a great base recipe that I have been using since high school and it is very easy to adapt with some new flavors. This year, I made Winter Spice Fudge, which has a lot of gingerbread and cinnamon flavors and Irish Cream Coffee Fudge, which isn’t very boozy but ended up very yummy. Very easy to make and very foolproof with just a few ingredients.
So what do you get when you cross pumpkin pie, pecan pie and crumble bars? Well…these things! And I threw in some maple syrup just for good measure! I had found pumpkin butter at Trader Joes, and without any idea what to do with it, I bought a jar. While it has the unfortunate consistency of baby food, it tastes amazing (and *nothing* like baby food!) so I decided to make these Maple Pumpkin Butter and Pecan Crumble Bars. They are simply fab! Perfect thing to add to your Thanksgiving dessert and can be made in advance.
Sometimes you just need something easy but still homemade to bring to an event. Enter this recipe for a Quick and Easy Apple Streusel Pie. While there are really impressive decorations for pies these days, this is just a basic “coffee cake-like” streusel on the top. Think of it a little like a cross between a pie and a crumble. It does take about 2 hours, start to finish (if you count the hour-ish of baking time), but it really is fool proof.












