Easy And Festive Sweets That Put You on The ‘Nice’ List

By Lucia Rossi

Christmas dinner can be difficult to prepare for, some even say it’s worse than Thanksgiving. While you’re busy perfecting your main course, here are some cute and easy ways to get through dessert.

If you really have no time to bake at all your best bet is to just buy some desserts from your local supermarket. Buy it the day before for ultimate freshness. This is obviously your last resort  but have no shame, hungry people shouldn’t complain. If they do, give them coal for Christmas. I got really cute cookie pops from Target, they make for a nice center piece too.

If you want to spend less money and make it look like you worked very hard, try these donut treats. For the chocolate reindeer donuts you’re going to need: mini chocolate donuts, white large sprinkles, green and red M&M’s (I used pretzel but you can use whatever you want), and regular pretzels. Assembly is simple, the M&M is for the nose, the white sprinkles are for the eyes, and the pretzels are for the antlers. I warn you, breaking pretzels perfectly in half was difficult.

For the snowman donuts, you need: mini white powdered donuts, orange candy or orange melting chocolate/frosting, and mini chocolate morsels. For these little guys all you have to do is press down the chocolate morsels, pointy side down, into the donut and shape its mouth and eyes. For the nose, I used orange melting chocolate in a piping bag and piped it out in a rounded triangle shape with a really small tip. The hat is optional if you have the time, I melted some of the regular chocolate morsels, put it in a piping bag with the same small tip, and piped out hats on wax paper. Then I put the hats in the refrigerator for 20 minutes to harden and stuck them into the donuts.

Pillsbury and Toll House ready-to-bake cookie dough is a really great fix if you’re in a rush for Christmas cookies since in the package they’re ready to break apart and place on a cookie sheet. I used the Betty Crocker decorating cookie icing to pipe out quick little trees. I then added some different Wilton Christmas sprinkles to each one. The cookies came out super soft and chewy.

If you have more time and are willing to get a little fancy, these Santa cupcakes are for you. Bake any flavor you like, I chose red velvet because I thought it was a good fit for the theme. You can make the cupcakes from scratch if you like, more power to you, but in a rush I would go for the box mix. After your cupcakes are baked and have cooled completely, ice them with and frosting you choose with a spatula or knife or piping bag.

For the decorations you need mini marshmallows, a clean scissor, red candies, regular sized chocolate morsels, and red sugar sprinkles. For the hat portion, cut some marshmallows in half sideways so the pieces are long and skinny. Then place them going across the top of the cupcake. Next, you can either dip or sprinkle on the red sugar above those marshmallows. For Santa’s  beard, cut the mini marshmallows in half so that each half is a big circle shape and is short. Place each half along the bottom of the cupcake and place two on top for his moustache. Top it off with a red candy nose and two chocolate morsels pointy side down for his eyes.

If you want something even more difficult try piping a wreath with green frosting on the cupcake. I didn’t use Wilton brand piping tips so I’m sorry I can’t tell you which one I specifically used. Just try piping using a tip that has pointed edges like a star shape. Try to pipe small green dollops of the frosting in the shape of a circle. You can add sprinkles, a red bow made of frosting, or both like I did. I thought the middle of the cupcake looked a bit empty so I added some Wilton snowman decorating candies and Santa/reindeer toothpicks.  

Christmas shouldn’t be stressful and cooking should be fun. Take your time to enjoy this because the love you put into it is the best ingredient.

Have a wonderful holiday!