- It may be cold outside, but it’s never too cold for Santa and Snowman Milkshakes, like the ones Whisk made as holiday treats. A change from the usual hot chocolate, the milkshakes are made with real vanilla ice cream and milk, then decorated with chocolate syrup “painted” on the inside of the glasses to give the characters some, well, character. Pink food coloring (or perhaps frozen strawberries) will help Santa turn a nice seasonal shade of red.
- Most fruits aren’t at their peak during the winter, so frozen tend to be a better option when it comes to quality and availability. If you’re craving the look of a ripe peach, however, Cafe Chocolada‘s Peach Cookies should do the trick. The cookies aren’t peach flavored, but look just like real peaches. They have a fuzz of fine sugar and a very faint tint of red and yellow to give them a warm color. Two cookies are sandwiched together with a Nutella “pit” (really just a filling that fits nicely into indentations on the cookies) to complete the picture.
- Oatmeal is about as hearty and warm as it gets when the weather is cold, and there are so many ways that you can dress it up to keep things interesting. Following this line of thought, Closet Cooking baked an Apple Cinnamon and Oatmeal Bread. It’s a quick bread that is packed with just about every flavor you’ve ever wanted to add to a bowl of oatmeal, like brown sugar, maple syrup, apples, pecans and raisins. The bread is enriched with whole wheat flour and gets some extra moistness from applesauce and yogurt. Best of all, unlike a bowl of oatmeal, you can share a batch.
- Starting a loaf of bread from scratch is a bit of a time consuming endeavor. Even if you don’t have a lot of “active” time, you still have to wait for at least one or two rises before getting the bread into the oven. The Blue Cheese and Pecan Bread from A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen is a much quicker to bake bread, that uses no yeast and can be ready to serve in short order. The bread has, of course, cheese and pecans, but gets a subtle richness from some butter and buttermilk in the dough, as well.
- I know lots of people that love red velvet cake, but I have never seen a Red Velvet Cheesecake before I read The Recipe Girl‘s recent post. Boy, is it red! The cheesecake uses all the flavors you’d expect to find in a red velvet cake, like buttermilk and a hint of cocoa powder, and of course contains plenty of cream cheese, which is usually used as the frosting for a regular red velvet cake. Most of the color for this cake comes from food coloring, which can also be said for regular red velvet cake. It’s a really unusual take on a classic dessert – and guaranteed to attract some attention at dessert!
- Finally, if you’re looking for a way to spice up your coffee for Christmas morning, take a peek at this Christmas Morning Coffee, which uses whole spices ground alongside the coffee beans for a spicy, rich twist on your usual morning brew.
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December 24, 2008Thank you 🙂 Happy Holidays!