Holiday Treat Roundup

It's no secret that I have a heck of a sweet tooth. What better excuse than the holidays to whip up bunches of sweet treats to share with everyone you know? Below you will find some of my all time favorite recipes for making up cookie plates for the holiday season!.

I replaced half the chocolate chips in these cookies with red and green M&M's for a more festive look.

If chocolate and peanut butter are your style, whip up these quick bars that my sister and I lovingly dubbed "Sugar Shock" bars, due to their super sweet richness!

You can't go wrong with these soft double ginger cookies!

We begged my mom every year to make Mounds Bars for the Christmas cookie tray. Add some colorful sprinkles for an extra fancy touch!

Almost nothing is easier than a batch of these Dark Chocolate Peppermint Truffles. Put them on the cookie tray or give them as gifts!


What are your favorite holiday treats?

Vanilla Sugar

I've been working on tons of projects lately, and feel like I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew. I'm going to use the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday to play a little catch up (as well as do lots of cooking and eating). Here is a recipe for vanilla sugar you can make ahead and use in some of your holiday baking, or give as gifts!

To make your own vanilla sugar at home you will need:

granulated sugar
vanilla beans

I ordered my vanilla beans online from Beanilla. I would recommend them (especially if you want to make up a ton of this for gifts). They have great bulk prices and my beans arrived super fast (the shipping was also free!).


Cut open your vanilla beans lenthwise and scrape out all of the caviar (all the little bits inside the bean) with a small spoon. Add the caviar and the vanilla pods to your sugar and mix together very well. I generally use one vanilla bean for every 1-1.5 cups of sugar. Put your sugar and vanilla bean mixture into an air tight container and store in a cool, dry place (preferably out of direct light as well). Allow 2 weeks for the vanilla to properly flavor your sugar.


Add this to any recipe calling for sugar that you'd like to add a little extra vanilla flavor to. You may add more sugar and vanilla beans as necessary (if you use a vanilla bean in something else, put the pod into your sugar--add more sugar as space allows and stir well).

If vanilla sugar isn't your thing, you can try your hand at making your own vanilla extract instead!

Easiest Mug Cake Ever

Anyone looking through the recipes I have posted here in the past may notice that I have a bit of a sweet tooth. I also like things to be easily accessible. Enter this awesome mug cake, introduced to me by some of my coworkers.

To make this at home you will need:

1 box Angel Food cake mix
1 box any other flavor cake mix (I used spice cake)
1 microwave safe mug

To start out, you will mix together your 2 boxes of cake mix. I usually put mine in a large freezer bag (you can store it in the bag for a short period of time, I usually put mine in a small Tupperware container.

I've seen this recipe on some other sites called 3-2-1 cake. The reason for this is that once your cake mixture is created to make your cake you use 3 Tablespoons of the mix, 2 Tablespoons water and microwave your cake in a mug for 1 minute on high. I let mine sit in the microwave an additional minute or 2 to cool.

I have tried several cake flavors, and I have to say that you will probably be disappointed with any kind of chocolate cake. It just doesn't have the chocolatey flavor when mixed with the angel food cake. My favorites have been carrot cake and spice cake. Fruit cake mixes (lemon and strawberry) have also been tasty. You can also add frosting or whipped cream to your final cake--I like strawberries sliced onto the lemon cake MMMM.

This is a great option if you like dessert but don't necessarily want a whole cake sitting on your counter tempting you. It makes about 24 servings of cake and each serving is around 100 calories (without frosting added). Also, since you mix it with water only there is no added fat or oil-- you can feel a little less guilty. :)