Festive Recipe Ideas

Vegan Sugar Cookies by Renee on FlickrThe holidays are a time when you choose a variety of ways to celebrate your family and what you have been given in life. One small way you might choose to do that is by preparing a hearty meal with treats to match. You probably also decorate your home with festive ornaments. Well, why not meld the two together and make your treats decorative too? The easiest foods to make festive are desserts, though you can implement the idea in other ways too.

A simple and tasty chocolate snowman shaped cake is easy to make and highly festive. Best with Dutch cocoa, you can use coconut flakes to create the coating. You can use black licorice sticks for the arms, black licorice drops for the eyes and peppermints for buttons with gum drops on top. For the mouth, you can use a piece of red shoestring style licorice. Fruit leather makes a great decorative scarf.

Alternatively, or in addition to, you can create a Christmas tree cake with equal festivity. By creating individual cake squares, you can stack these to create a tree-like shape with green frosting and other colored frostings to your liking. You can use candies for ornaments and smaller cake squares decorated with colored frosting to make presents under the tree.

Gingerbread houses are a classic way of creating decorative treats. However, there are more creative ways to make artistic gingerbread treats. One less known design is the gingerbread lantern, created by four rectangular pieces of gingerbread connected by frosting. You can cut holes in the pieces to let the light out, such as stars or hearts. Once settled, you can place candles inside these and use them as actual lanterns.

Another creative design is the gingerbread train. You have a great amount of creative license with this, in that there is room to decide how intricate you want to get with the design. However, there is a minimum amount of intricacy involved. The frosting is used for piping and a combination of circular and rectangular gingerbread cookies create the body. You can use candies, licorice and frosting to decorate it anyway you like. Gum drops work well to top the train while licorice works well for the pistons. You can also decide how long you want to make the train.

If you are looking to go more gourmet than flashy, you can make chocolate espresso snowballs with fair trade coffee. Using cocoa, pecans and sugar you can have a treat both decedent and decorative. There are plenty of ways to brighten up holiday cheer just with culinary creativity.

Toasted Butter Pecan Cake

Toasted Butter Pecan Cake
 
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Ingredients
Cake
  • 1 c. butter, softened
  • 2 c. chopped pecans, toasted
  • 2 c. sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3 c. flour
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 1 c. milk
Frosting
  • 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
  • 1 c. butter, softened
  • 2 lb. powdered sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 2-3 tbsp milk
  • ⅔ c. chopped pecans, toasted
Instructions
  1. In a large mixing bowl, cream sugar & butter. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well. Add vanilla.
  2. Combine the flour, baking powder, & salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. Beat just until combined.
  3. Fold in pecans.
  4. Pour into three greased 9" round baking pans. Bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans; set aside & cool completely.
  5. For frosting, beat the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, & vanilla. Beat in enough milk to achieve spreading consistency.
  6. Spread frosting between layers, inserting toothpicks to stabilize layers.
  7. Frost top & sides of cakes. Sprinkle with pecans. Store in refrigerator.

Photo Courtesy of Richard Elzey on Flickr

Chicken Salad

Chicken Salad
 
Author: 
Recipe type: Lunch
Prep time: 
Total time: 
Ingredients
  • 1 c. chicken, chopped
  • 1 c. celery, chopped
  • 1 c. grapes, halved
  • ⅓ c. toasted pecans
  • ¼ c. green onions
  • ½ tsp salt
  • ⅔ c. Pace Picante Sauce (Mild)
  • ½ c. mayonnaise
  • 1 tbsp honey
Instructions
  1. Mix together the chicken, celery, grapes, salt, & pecans.
  2. Separately, mix together the Pace, honey, mayonnaise, & green onions.
  3. Combine both mixes together.

Photo Credit: Joshua Blount | Flickr

Candy Coated Pecans

Candied Pecans by Julie Magro on FlickrSubmitted by NutsOnTheNet.com
Serves 6-8

Ingredients

1 large egg white ¼ c. loosely packed light brown sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract 2 c. Zenobia Mammoth Pecans
¼ c. sweetened coconut flakes

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 250°F.  Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
  2. Place the egg white in a medium sized stainless steel bowl & whisk until frothy.  Add the brown sugar & vanilla & stir until smooth.
  3. Add the pecans & coconut, if desired, & stir until well coated.  Pour the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet & arrange in a single layer.
  4. Set aside at least 30 minutes & up to two hours.  Transfer to the oven & bake, stirring occasionally, for 1 hour.
  5. Immediately loosen the nuts with a spatula & set aside to cool.

Sweet Potato & Apple Casserole

Submitted by Nicole~
Serves 4

Ingredients

3 sweet potatoes, peeled & quartered ½ c. brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tsp ground cinnamon 1 tsp ground nutmeg
2 large cooking apples ¼ c. all purpose flour
¼ c. additional brown sugar, firmly packed ¼ c. butter
¼ c. chopped pecans

Directions

  1. sweet potatoes and apples by Orbital Joe on FlickrPeel, core, and cut the apples into ¼” rings.
  2. Place sweet potatoes in a large saucepan with enough water to cover. Bring to a boil & cook 25 minutes, or until tender but firm. Drain, cool & cut into ¼” slices.
  3. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Lightly grease a 7×11″ baking dish.
  4. In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, cinnamon & nutmeg.
  5. Layer sweet potatoes, brown sugar mixture & apples in the prepared baking dish.
  6. In a medium bowl, mix flour, brown sugar, butter & pecans. Sprinkle over the sweet potatoes.
  7. Bake in the preheated oven 30 minutes, or until lightly browned.