I love many things about Christmas – the lights, the baked goods, the presents (duh!), but one of my very favorite things is my family’s traditional Christmas morning brunch! This year I’m serving up some Christmas mimosas to accompany our morning festivities!
These are very similar to a traditional mimosa, but have one extra ingredient. Cardamom bitters! Cardamom pairs so deliciously with orange, and is perfect with the sweetness from the champagne. I love that these are so easy too – no need to break out any fancy cocktail shaking equipment for this Christmas cocktail!
Ingredients:
1/3 cup chilled champagne
1/3 cup orange juice
2-3 shakes cardamom bitters
Directions:
Combine all the ingredients in a champagne flute, stir gently and serve! Easy enough, right?
I love biscotti, because they’re such simple yet delicious cookies. They are soooo good enjoyed with a hot cup of coffee or tea, and are a perfect afternoon treat!
I used to not really like biscotti, because they all seemed kind of dry and flavorless to me. Then I started experimenting with making them myself, and discovered that a fresh, homemade biscotti is nothing like one from the store or coffee shop.
These biscotti cookies can be stores in an airtight container for up to three weeks, so they’re really perfect for impromptu guests or just enjoying a quiet moment to yourself.
Did you know? Biscotti in Italian actually means twice baked, and these cookies are appropriately named because, you guessed it, they’re baked twice! Biscotti are very easy to make, but I’d recommend reading through the directions before getting started if you’ve never made biscotti before to familiarize yourself with the steps.
I seriously debated dipping these in dark chocolate, and you totally can! But sometimes I think there’s something really nice about a simple recipe. I really enjoy the subtle almond and bright cherry flavors in these, which would be overpowered by chocolate.
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 large eggs
1/2 cup chopped almonds
1/2 cup dried cherries
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350, and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Whisk together the dry ingredients, flour through cinnamon and set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix together melted butter, vanilla and eggs. Add the flour mixture in two batches, mixing until just combined. Dough will be sticky! Add almonds and cherries, and mix until they’re all incorporated.
Moisten your hands, and separate the dough in two. Form into two logs on the prepared baking sheet, about 8 inches by 3 inches, continuing to moisten hands as needed to prevent the dough from sticking to you. As you can see in the photo below my logs were not exactly even, and that’s ok.
Bake for 35 minutes, or until the logs are lightly browned. Remove from the oven, and allow them to cool about 20-25 minutes, or until they’re just warm to the touch. Then use a serrated knife, and cut the logs into 1 inch slices. I discard the ends (by discarding I mean I eat them then and there haha!), just because they’re not as pretty.
Arrange the biscotti slices flat side down on the baking sheet, and bake again for about 15 minutes or until golden.
Serve with tea or coffee, and enjoy!
It’s been a while since I shared a new cupcake recipe with you! I’ve been working on this gingerbread cupcake recipe for a few weeks, and have been doing lots of taste testing haha! This is the perfect holiday party recipe, because the cupcakes are such a traditional Christmas dessert flavor, but in a new form. I also love that when I serve them as mini cupcakes they’re so easy for people to eat in a party setting.
What I found interesting in making these cupcakes is that I needed to tone down the traditional spices quite a bit compared to what you would find in a gingerbread cookie recipe. Now they’re still definitely present, prominent and flavorful, but not overwhelming.
My other “secret” ingredient is coffee. I tested this recipe with milk, buttermilk, water, eggnog (not even kidding haha!), and coffee. They all turned out well, but using coffee added a delicious level of richness and depth to the gingerbread flavor that I loved.
Aren’t the sprinkles on these so fun? I can’t not mention them, because I think they’re so cute! They’re such a perfect finishing touch and really elevate the final product. When I served these cupcakes this past weekend, so many people commented on how cute the sprinkles are.
Makes approximately 12 regular cupcakes or 36 mini cupcakes
Gingerbread Cupcake Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup coffee
1/2 cup molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cloves
Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
1/2 cup (1 stick) salted butter, softened
8 oz full-fat cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups powdered sugar
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350, and line two mini cupcake tins with liners.
Whisk together the dry ingredients, flour through cloves, and set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the softened butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egg, vanilla, molasses and coffee, mixing until combined. Your batter will look kind of piecy at this stage, and that’s ok! It will all come together in the next step.
Add the dry ingredients in two batches, mixing on low speed until just combined and making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl often.
Fill mini cupcake liners about 2/3 full each of the batter, and bake for 7-9 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs. Allow to cool completely before frosting.
To make the frosting: beat together the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, mixing on low. Add the vanilla extract and mix until combined.
At this point you can add a little more powdered sugar if the frosting needs to be thicker, or a little bit of milk if it’s too thick. Beat on high for a few minutes to fluff up the frosting, and then fill a piping bag and frost your completely cooled cupcakes.
There’s really nothing better than a beautiful tea party! It’s such a fun occasion to put on a cute dress and serve all the tiny bite-sized things! And champagne, of course! Oh and tea.
I’ve seen ideas for Christmas teas for years, and always thought it would be so fun! So this year I decided to begin an annual Christmas tea tradition, and I won’t lie – I already have next year’s all planned out! Today I’m so excited to share pictures and details from this year’s Christmas tea party.
Read on, or scroll to the bottom for my quick tips on hosting your own easy and beautiful tea party!
I had so much fun putting the table together for our Christmas tea. My inspiration started with the beautiful Teleflora floral arrangement. I love how traditional it is with the winter greenery, red roses and even a few pine cones! I always have such a fun time perusing the Teleflora website, knowing that I’ll get exactly what I order.
I also picked up some super fun decorated sugar cookies, and no tea party would be complete without macarons, am I right?? I got an assortment, and we had so much fun trying the different flavors and sharing what our favorites were (for those curious, the winner was the peppermint candy cane)!
I put a small bottle of La Marca champagne at each place setting, for mimosas of course, and tied each of them with a little red ribbon. I loved that guests could pour their own drinks, as much or little as they wanted, or even take them home for later!
For favors, I opted for small boxes of Frans Chocolates salted caramels. If you haven’t tried Fran’s salted caramels, do yourself a favor (ha, get it?) and order them right. now. They are by far the best salted caramels ever, and I loved gifting each of my friends such a fun and delicious favor!
Since I hosted this party around lunch time, I knew we wouldn’t survive off of cookies and champagne alone. So I put together some quick and easy tea sandwiches for us. I made them all open faced, and served them on my favorite tiered stand I’ve had for years. I did traditional egg salad sandwiches topped with sprouts, cream cheese and smoked salmon sandwiches garnished with fresh dill, and little cheese sandwiches that were a slice of parmesan cheese and a small dollop of my favorite peach jalapeno jelly! All really simple, all really easy, and all really delicious!
Tips For An Easy and Beautiful Christmas Tea
1. Decide on the color scheme/inspiration. I got my inspiration from the beautiful Teleflora floral arrangement I found online, and fashioned all the other decor around that.
2. Keep it simple silly! Don’t try to do everything at once – you’ll drive yourself insane. I opted to order the sugar cookies and macarons instead of make them myself, because I wanted to focus on setting the table instead. Especially now that I have a toddler running around I definitely know I can’t do it all, and that’s totally ok!
3. Use what you have! I didn’t buy a single new dish. My tiered serving dish was perfect for sandwiches, I used my favorite cake stand for the macarons, and the cute polka dot Kate Spade dishes I received as a bridal shower gift.
4. Use favors to help decorate the table! I love how adorable the little Fran’s chocolate boxes are, especially wrapped in their beautiful red ribbon. Everyone was so excited to sit down to a little gift at their place. They have so many box and ribbon options on their website, so whatever your color scheme is, you’ll find a favor to match!
5. Serve drinks at the table. The cute mini champagne bottles were a perfect addition to the table decor (see tip #4!), but they also made my job as hostess a lot easier! Instead of getting up to refill everyone’s glasses, I could pour drinks while enjoying the event and my friends’ company, and they were happy to mix their own drinks at the table as well!
6. Have fun! We joked at the tea about the etiquette of tea cup holding and all practiced holding out our pinkies haha! But just remember that you invited your friends over to have a good time, and nobody expects your event to be absolutely perfect. They came for you!
This simple banana bread recipe is quick, easy and oh-so delicious! I’m always on a mission to create a moist banana bread recipe, and have found one easy trick is to add fresh berries (you may remember my blueberry banana bread recipe – same concept!). Since we’re in the middle of fresh cranberry season I decided to use cranberries in this bread, and I love how they add a pop of bright flavor to every bite!
Quick breads are one of my favorite things to make, because they’re…well, quick! It’s always nice to have recipes that are super easy to throw together when you have company in town or just get a sudden hankering for something sweet with your coffee. If you’re new to baking, this is a great recipe to learn how to make banana bread. It’s such an easy banana bread recipe, and pretty dang foolproof.
Ingredients:
Bread
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup milk
2 eggs
2 large bananas
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped fresh cranberries (frozen can be used too)
Streusel
3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter, cut into pieces
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350, and grease a loaf pan.
Whisk together the dry ingredients, flour through cinnamon, in a medium bowl and set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy – about three minutes. Add the milk, egg, banana and vanilla to the sugar and butter, mixing until combined.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in two batches on low speed, mixing until the batter is just combined. Overmixing is what makes breads dry and tough. Gently fold in the nuts and cranberries, and pour into the greased loaf pan.
Rub the streusel ingredients together with your fingers until it comes together in crumbs. Sprinkle streusel on top of the banana bread batter, and bake for about 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick comes out with moist crumbs.
Allow the bread to cool in the pan for at least 15-20 minutes before cutting in, and then enjoy!
