As Christmas approaches and many family members are stuck at home together, now is a great time to try out some festive homemade holiday desserts to make with everyone.
Check out some of these festive Christmas Desserts you and the family can make together. These are courtesy of FoodNetwork.com.
When you want to transform your holiday dessert spread into Fantasyland, serve some traditional French “buche de Noel,” or yule log cake. Rich chocolate genoise (sponge cake) is rolled in a coffee- and brandy-flavored buttercream, then decorated with marzipan berries, pinecones and mushrooms. Your guests’ faces will surely light up when they taste this. You can find the complete recipe here.
Strawberry Santas are delicate holiday treats that are great for brunch or as a light dessert. For assembly, you can pipe rich mascarpone cheese frosting onto cut strawberries, and use the strawberry tip for Santa’s hat, topped with another drop of frosting. For Santa’s eyes, use a couple of mini chocolate chips! You can find the complete recipe here.
Whip up some gooey Sticky Toffee Pudding – cake made with sweet rum-soaked dates and generously topped with toffee sauce. For 3.5 cups of sifted flour, you can use two cups of pitted dates, pureed in a food processor after boiling them in ¾ cup water and about ¾ cup rum. Add a half teaspoon of ground cinnamon before mixing in the batter. You can find the complete recipe here.
White Chocolate Holiday Bark is a simple, crowd-pleasing sweet. This version is made with white chocolate and studded with red cranberries and green pistachios.You can find the complete recipe here.
If you have some basic chocolate cupcakes, transform them into a Cupcake Christmas Tree – a stunning centerpiece for your Christmas dessert spread. Generously coat the frosted tops with green sprinkles or jimmies and fasten them onto a styrofoam cone using toothpicks.You can find the complete recipe here.
A No-Bake Chocolate Mocha Yule Log is a show-stopping holiday cake that require no baking – you can use chocolate wafer cookies, such as Nabisco Chocolate Wafers – and is packed with luscious chocolate and coffee flavor. Make it up to one day in advance to save yourself some time on the big day. You can find the complete recipe here.
Alex Guarnaschelli’s recipe on FoodNetwork shows that making Homemade Cannoli is a breeze. Her No. 1 tip? Don’t fill the shells with the cream until you are ready to eat them. A quick dusting of powdered sugar gives these traditional Italian pastries a snow-coated feel, festive for the holidays. You can find the complete recipe here.
A Holiday Berry Meringue Wreath looks almost too pretty to eat, but seriously, it’s too tempting that you should just dive in. Crisp and crunchy meringue lies beneath a ruby red cranberry, raspberry and pomegranate sauce in this unique holiday dessert. You can find the complete recipe here.
Want something German? Stollen, a traditional German dessert, is dazzled with candied fruit and nuts and can be served plain or topped with powdered sugar or icing. Check the recipe here: www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/stollen-recipe-2047642.
Whatever you decide on, make sure to get the kids involved in your dessert planning so they learn to engage senses other than taste.
Have your child knead the dough, rip greens such as lettuce or kale, rinse fruits and vegetables, and sift flour through their fingers. Let them smell fragrant herbs or extracts such as mint, basil or vanilla. Expose them to an array of colors, and let them hear the crunch of fresh fruits and vegetables.
To teach them some mindfulness outside the kitchen, try simple activities like learning math concepts in every recipe: counting, measuring, addition and fractions. Talk about how food grows, how temperature changes food properties, their state changing from solid to liquid to gas, or explain the nutrients their bodies get from different food groups and why they are important.
Recipes also teach reading and planning skills so make sure cooking is part of the family culture and of building a healthy home environment.
