Christmas Treats 2020 - Photo Post

Merry Christmas everyone! Another year, another round of holiday treat decorating :) 

First up - a "gingerbread" house made of Speculoos cookies glued together with royal icing!

Sprinkles and food coloring to decorate, and a roof made of rolled wafers:

And plenty of powdered sugar "snow!"

I ended up breaking down this house to make these cookie balls (which are also what the snowmen in the first photo in this post are made of)!

I thoroughly crushed the cookies in a ziploc bag with a rolling pin, then mixed in an 8oz block of softened cream cheese.

After the mixture was shaped into balls and chilled, they went for a dip in chocolate with some sprinkle garnishes!

Up next, with just one pic: mint chocolate brownie trees! I made these using my favorite quick brownie recipe, adjusted to add 1/2 tsp of mint extract. I then melted white chocolate with a couple of drops of mint extract as well to pipe on little garland details :)

Last but not least - shortbread cookies decorated two ways! I wanted to try something a little different from my usual sugar cookies, and since I tend to like eating shortbread better, I tried out Smitten Kitchen's shortbread recipe as my base template. 

Some rounds I decorated as reindeer (a mix of Rudolph and the others!) with drawn-on chocolate antlers and eyes, plus a mini M&M as the noses.

For the rest, I used chocolate to doodle on Christmas trees, some with sprinkle ornaments!

 Hope everyone is having a lovely holiday season - and happy new year!