Christmas Baking Overload

Note: I will be away Dec. 20th - Jan. 3rd with limited Internet. So I apologize in advance for not checking your blogs. Hope everyone has a great holiday!


For Christmas I typically give out boxes or tins of homemade goodies. So that's what I've been up to the past few weeks. Here's what made it into the gifts this year:

Pumpkin biscotti, a recipe from Katie up on Everyday Dish. I omitted the nuts and then coated 2/3 of each biscotti in more chocolate. Because you can never have enough chocolate. Why hasn't anyone told me before how well pumpkin and chocolate go together?


Sparkled ginger cookies from Vegan with a Vengeance. I see now why these get such rave reviews...they are extremely addictive...

Gingerbread men from the Post Punk Kitchen. I really like this recipe for cut outs, it rolls out thin and is crisp, not cakey like some gingerbread recipes I've tried.

Sugar cookies decorated with a simple royal icing I made out of powdered sugar, vanilla, and soymilk. I wasn't sure what to expect with that recipe as it has powdered sugar in it, but I think this is my "go to" recipe from now on. They are nice and thin and crisp, which I like. The cookies do spread a bit though when baking, so watch out for that.

Chocolate fudge. I used plain soymilk and added a bit more vanilla to compensate and it's divine. It's perfect at room temperature as well, so it's great for presents. Unlike my previous attempt...

Walnut-caramel-chocolate thingies from Mihl. These things are amazing. Amazing.

Snickerdoodles by Lolo. These are pretty good. Mine didn't turn out as pretty looking as her's, but they taste good and that's what really counts, right?

Last but certainly not least, caramel corn. I made a version with peanuts and a version without. It reminds me of Crunch'n'Munch...I used to love that stuff. Yes it has corn syrup, so if you avoid corn syrup you may want to avoid this recipe. The way I look at it, I hadn't touched my bottle of corn syrup since last Christmas so I don't really feel too bad about it.

Vegan Caramel Corn:
-7 qts. plain popped popcorn
-2 c. peanuts (optional)
-2 c. brown sugar
-1/2 c. light corn syrup
-1 tsp. salt
-1 c. Earth Balance
-1/2 tsp. baking soda
-1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Place popcorn and peanuts on two shallow, greased baking pans. Set aside.

2. Preheat the oven to 250 F. Combine brown sugar, corn syrup, Earth Balance, and salt in a medium saucepan. Bring mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring often. Once it begins to boil, boil for 5 minutes. Stir constantly.

3. Remove saucepan from heat and add baking soda and vanilla. Pour this mixture over the popcorn and peanuts in the pans and stir to coat. It probably won't coat all of the popcorn at this point but don't worry about that.

4. Bake for 1 hour. Every 15 min., remove pans from oven and stir. This will make sure all of the popcorn is coated. After 1 hour, dump the corn onto waxed paper and let cool. Store in an airtight container.

**This recipe makes quite a bit. It halves great though.