Easy-to-Make Holiday Treats

The winter time is the best time to spend hours in your warm kitchen cooking up all sorts of new desserts, snacks, and tasty meals. When in the kitchen, try some new recipes and share them with your friends and family. Below are some classics as well as some new recipes you may never have heard of! Check out this link for more easy treat recipes if you want to experiment even more this holiday season!

CHRISTMAS TREE CUPCAKES

To make this dessert, choose any flavor of your liking (boxed mix or from scratch) and make your cupcakes! While letting the cupcakes cool, make a green frosting out of powdered or confectioner’s sugar, milk, or cream, and an extract of vanilla. Find a recipe for homemade frosting here. After mixing the frosting and getting it to the consistency you want, mix in some drops of food coloring to achieve the green you hope to ice your cupcakes with. Top with the frosted green cupcakes with sprinkles to resemble ornaments and a little star sprinkle at the top. 

CHOCOLATE & PRETZEL M&MS

Chocolate and Pretzel M&M’s are by far one of the simplest recipes you’ll find for the holiday season. This recipe requires only 3 ingredients: pretzels, Hershey Kisses, and M&Ms. (You can even buy M&Ms in green and red or simply just pick the green and red M&Ms out of a larger bag with all of the colors). To make this dessert, lay parchment paper on a large baking sheet and place pretzels down with a little space between each one. Then take a Hershey Kiss (any flavor of your choice) and place it on the center of the pretzel. Then put the sheet in the oven at a low temperature for 5-10 minutes to make the chocolate soft. When cooled from the oven, take an M&M and press it lightly on top of the softened Hershey’s Kiss to press it into the chocolate. Then place in the fridge to cool. 

PEPPERMINT MILKSHAKE

The peppermint milkshake that comes out once a year from Chick-fil-A is such a hit, so try recreating their festive treat at home! All you need is a blender, ice, icecream (vanilla or even a tub of peppermint ice cream), peppermint flavor extract (if you can’t get minty ice cream), candy canes, and chocolate syrup of chocolate chips/shavings to top it off! Mix any festive flavor of ice cream you desire in a blender with crushed candy cane pieces and peppermint extract if you were unable to find a peppermint-flavored ice cream. Add any sort of chocolate topping and serve with whipped cream and a fun straw!

GINGERBREAD COOKIES

It isn’t the holiday season without having a gingerbread contest with your friends and family to see who can build the best house (and one that will stand up on its own, too!) What better way to end the night than with little gingerbread people to “live” in your little houses?! Gather your ingredients and make little gingerbread cookies with a recipe found here. Then frost your little gingerbread people in any way you desire! Add eyes, a smile, clothes, shoes, etc. You can even get sprinkles to decorate your cookies with!

CHRISTMAS FUDGE

Another iconic and seasonal treat you have to make his holiday season is fudge! It’s easy to make and easy to transport in case you hope to bring some to your friends and family! This recipe (which can be found in full here) only requires 3 ingredients: chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, and vanilla. Microwave a mixture of chocolate chips and condensed milk and then make sure it’s melted before mixing in your vanilla. Pour it into a square pan to let it cool and cut it into cubes when fully cooled down! You can cool this in the fridge if you want to speed up the process, but leaving it out on the counter to cool also works. While it’s cooling, you can top it with anything your heart desires – M&Ms, Christmas sprinkles, nuts.. the list is never-ending!