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This year we made a lot of our go to favorite recipes, along with a few new hits. I will have to go back and take pictures at a later date because I was a big loser and didn't take any pictures at the Christmas party this year. This makes me so sad and disappointed, you have no idea.


Our menu was a little funky in terms of what we made as we were cooking for a corn allergy and a soy intolerance. So some items were tweaked to fit the needs of the guests.

Christmas Party Menu 2014:

Appetizers - 
Cheese wrapped in proscuitto platter.
Fiesta Corn Dip with fritos. (Changes made: Drain everything really well so there is less liquid.

Fiesta Corn Dip

Omit bell peppers. Add a can of well drained rotel tomatoes. Add a jalapeno. Great success.)
Cream cheese with a raspberry chipotle jam spread on top served with crackers.

Drinks -
Homemade Crock Pot Hot Chocolate. Really tasty! We had a bunch leftover so I stored it in the fridge and reheated it on the stove the next day.
Raspberry Limoncello Prosecco. This one just didn't work for me. Wanted to love it but it was too strong for my tastes.
White wine

Main Dishes and Sides -
Ham with fresh rolls
San Remo Dip with baguette slices
Broccoli Apple Salad

Desserts and Cookies -

Hot Chocolate Snowballs

Favorite cookie of the year! Soft & Thick Cut Out Sugar Cookies.
Eggnog Gooey Butter Cookies. Good but so intensely strong on the scent. This may have been my fault as the rum extract I used was 4 times as strong as normal extracts and perhaps I added just a touch too much? Not sure. Either way wrap these in their own container or else that rum scent will infiltrate all other baked goods.
Juniors Cheesecake topped with All Fruit Apricot Jam, Fresh Raspberries and stabilized sweetened whipped cream piped around the edges and base.
Hot Chocolate Snowballs.
Holiday Cream Cheese Mints.
Snowball Cookies.
Cherry Kolacky Thumb Print Cookies.
Soft and Chewy Ginger Cookies. I've made 3 or 4 ginger cookie recipes over the past few years and I have decided that my old recipe is by far the best. The texture just beats out all the other recipes.

For our Christmas breakfast tradition we have been making this Cheesy Hashbrown Casserole with Cornflake Topping along with a few pans of orange rolls, coffee, juice and milk. I've spent a few years perfecting the recipe so if you are looking to try out something special and indulgent for Christmas morning, give it a try.

I love it because you can assemble it the night before and keep it chilling in the fridge, then as you are waiting on coffee to brew the next morning, pop it in the oven.

Behold, our new, most favorite, sour cream cookie recipe. I've tried a few recipes over the past two years for sour cream cookies which turned out well, but not amazing. Recently I tried making a McCall's recipe which amped up the amount sour cream a bunch to make the best sour cream cookies we've ever tried.


I used my standard medium sized cookie scoop for these. Watch these closely in the oven. You don't want them to get too browned, just barely on the bottom, edges and tops. Enjoy!


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These delicious hot chocolate snowball cookies have a few surprises inside. First, they are made with hot chocolate mix, meaning you can use a plain mix or jazz things up a bit by using a flavored hot chocolate mix like peppermint.

Second, they have a bit of cream cheese mixed into the dough, giving them a great flavor and texture. I tweaked the original recipe just a bit by making the cookies larger and reducing the cooking time. I like my cookies to be tender so this worked out very well. Many thanks to Melissa's Cuisine for the recipe. Enjoy!


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Almond lovers, cookie lovers, lovers of sweets that taste amazing, let me introduce you to the Soft Almond Pillow Cookies.


This one is for sure going to my top 25 recipes of 2014 list. It is hard to tell from the pictures but they are stuffed full of an almond paste mixture which tastes divine. If you love almond bear claw pastries, it is a similar sort of filling. Many thanks to The Noshery for this recipe.

My only issue came down to the dough, which I think was my own fault. I added the flour too quickly as I was mixing it, and in too large of an amount than I should've. This led to parts of the dough being too dry and other parts feeling too sticky/wet.  Learn from my mistakes and add the flour in small increments.

For all recipes that call for almond extract, I use Almond Bakery Emulsion by LorAnn. I love this stuff! I've seen them sold at Michael's craft store and I'm sure other stores carry them as well. Lastly, as long as you properly chill the dough, these cookies don't spread and should not have any filling leak out. Enjoy!

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We were all a bit skeptical of the thought of potato chips in cookies, but the taste and texture of these cookies were fantastic. The kids loved them, along with the adults. They may seem strange but give them a shot. Be sure to use plain, thin potato chips. Enjoy!

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Another classic Christmas recipe from the Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. This version takes Ethel's Sugar Cookies and tweaks the recipe just a bit to make delicious Chocolate Pinwheels.


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This Yule Log cake isn't just for decoration. It is fantastically delicious. I wasn't sure what to expect but I was blown away by how light and delicious this dessert is. Great for Christmas when you have had a big dinner and want something that isn't too heavy for dessert. Make this a new Christmas tradition at your house, it is amazing!

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These tender Cherry Almond Cookies are a favorite every year at Christmas. They are pictures above with the cherries.

My mom always made them as sliced cookies and rolled the roll of cookie dough in chopped walnuts that had been colored green with food dye. I'm not sure where that came from, it's just always how she made them. Many thanks to Spice Gals for this recipe. They were very tasty cookies. Enjoy!

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Punch is something that I consider mandatory for parties. Does anyone else feel that way? I love it. Typically punch recipes make a ton, they are delicious, and they are very adaptable so if you have random juices in your freezer or fridge, they tend to taste great no matter what you use.

This recipe for Holiday Punch comes from Dessert Now, Dinner Later. I actually added a bottle of cranberry-apple juice to this just to stretch it. Next time around I will make it with just the called for ingredients to get just the pineapple and tropical punch flavors.


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Another cookie that made an appearance this Christmas were these Cinnamon Chip Snickerdoodles. They were supposed to be chewy and soft, but I think I made my cookies too small because they weren't either of those things.

Don't get me wrong, they were tasty, but big, chewy and soft snickerdoodles they were not. I did like the cinnamon chips in the dough, so I would probably try these again, a half batch, and see if I can get them to be a better texture if I make them larger sized. For the recipe, please visit Averie Cooks.

I loved and hated this recipe. The taste was great but the fussiness of fudge almost had me chucking it in the trash before I had it all cut up. The recipe had been reviewed as oh-so-easy as it was made in the microwave. That should have been my first red flag.

I had read that it could be hard to cut through the gumdrops in this fudge and I thought to myself, oh really how hard could it be? Pretty damn hard is the answer. In the picture above you may notice a piece of fudge that has a white piece in it. To clarify, that is not a white chocolate chip, it is a piece of gumdrop. I bought a box that had red and green tops with white bottoms.

Not only was it pretty hard to cut, which by the way required washing my knife after every single cut to get a clean cut, it was also pretty hard to get it to release from the tin foil. The consistency even after refrigerating overnight was extremely soft. After cutting the fudge I dropped the pieces into small paper liners and let them sit on the counter. After several hours uncovered they had lost their stickiness and were able to be picked up and eaten.

So in the end, I was wishing I had gone with my tried and true Creamy Dreamy Fudge instead of the fussy gumdrop. The good news was that even though it was a giant pain, the fudge was well received and loved by all the kiddos.

I think if I ever try this again I will go with a different recipe that is more of a traditional cook on the stove top style of fudge like the one posted at Shugary Sweets. The consistency of that fudge looks much better my microwave version. Anyhow, live and learn! For those brave enough to try, the recipe follows.


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My two favorite cookies this Christmas were the Snowball Cookies (no nuts) and these Chocolate Orange Butter Cookies, courtesy of Clawson Live. Be very careful not to over bake. My oven is very temperamental so I had to adjust both the temp and the time. Knowing your oven is half the battle when it comes to baking! If baked properly they will be tender, rich and delicious.

I will be making these again to get better pictures. I would have rolled them in powdered sugar but I already had two other kinds of cookies rolled in powdered sugar so instead I melted chocolate chips with cream and put that on top. If you love chocolate and orange and a deep chocolate flavor, you will love these.


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Another classic from the 1963 Betty Crocker's Cooky Book. These cookies aren't overly sweet. You could just sprinkle a bit of sugar on top before baking if you like, but we went with a basic powdered sugar glaze and sparkling sugar.

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This recipe, along with many that we made this Christmas, comes from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book, published in 1963. They were good but I would probably try other recipes just to see if I liked the texture better on another recipe. Other people in my family liked them much more than I did so it is probably just a preference thing. It is a classic recipe with a great star rating so I'm chalking this one up to just me being weird about the texture of my cookies. Enjoy!


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The family had a Grinch afternoon where we watched the Grinch (the Cat in the Hat version) and made a Grinch cake together. The cake was a basic yellow cake mix with two mashed bananas added. Otherwise you just make it the way the box says.

You can add green food coloring to the batter after it is in the pan but I thought it was unnecessary as the frosting covers it up for the most part.  I mixed in real chocolate jimmies with the frosting and also added extra on top. The kids had a tricky time pronouncing "Grinch" and kept calling him the "Grunch."  It was really cute!

Recipe from Oh Bite It!