- Spicy Gingerbread Cookies (Smitten Kitchen) -- our old standby. I never get tired of how they taste with cream cheese frosting, and we keep coming up with new and/or funny ways to decorate them.
- Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cinnamon-Sugar Rugelach
- Decadent Hot Chocolate Mix (Smitten Kitchen)
- Homemade Marshmallows (Alton Brown) -- we cut these into bigger marshmallows for the hot chocolate instead of mini marshmallows to save time. Use the best quality vanilla you can get your hands on, and don't bother with corn starch, use all powdered sugar. They were really good and I was sad when they were gone, so I made another batch and shared them with my work colleagues, who were surprised that you could make marshmallows at home. They taste so much better than store bought. They're also really kid friendly! My colleague's 7 year old daughter absolutely loved them.
- Linzer Torte (Maida Heatter via Smitten Kitchen) -- absolutely amazing, so good I wanted to cry. This is permanently going on my list of must-make holiday treats, whether I make it with my friends or not.
- Hazelnut-Orange Biscotti (Paul Hollywood via BBC)
- Espresso-Chocolate Shortbread Cookies (Dorie Greenspan via Smitten Kitchen) -- for the chocolate part, we opted for milk chocolate with toffee bits, and I think that was a good choice because they were kind of bitter otherwise.
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