When traveling in the southern United States, you’ll find pecan pralines as easily as you will find a chocolate bar. Legend has it that this treat originated from nuts accidentally spilling into a vat of caramel. Regardless of how they came to be, they are irresistible and delicious. Pecan pralines offer buttery, sweet and rich flavors that melt in your mouth. It is nearly impossible to eat just one.
Pecan Praline Ingredients
Butter: The butter aids in creating a melt-in-your-mouth caramel that envelops the pecans in this recipe.
Sugar: We use granulated and brown sugar to prepare the caramel for these pecan pralines.
Half-and-half: The half-and-half is essential for creating this recipe’s creamy and rich caramel.
Condensed milk: We depend on condensed milk to provide these pecan pralines with a nostalgically sweet and comforting flavor.
Corn syrup: The corn syrup helps solidify these pecan pralines so they do not fall apart as soon as you pick them up.
Pecans: We mix pecans into the batter of these pralines because they give the confection a necessary crunch.
Vanilla extract: The vanilla helps deliver the warm flavor profiles in this pecan praline recipe.
As a dietitian surviving thriving in cold Michigan winters, soup season is a serious time of year. A steamy bowl of soup warms you from the inside out, and it’s one of the best ways to boost nutrition when fresh summer produce dwindles. These healthy winter soups pack nutrient-rich vegetables, whole grains and lean protein into every comforting bite. From soups made creamy with veggie purees to fiber-rich lentil and chicken noodle soups, you’ll find a flavorful soup here that fits your nutrition goals.
What sets these recipes apart is their focus on whole foods and from-scratch cooking. Using wholesome ingredients like homemade bone broth, herbs, spices and seasonal vegetables, like butternut squash, kale and carrots, these soups deliver valuable nutrition without being difficult to prepare. And because life doesn’t slow down when you’re hungry, you’ll find plenty of one-pot meals and slow-cooker soups that come together quickly, proving that healthy winter cooking can be both nourishing and doable.
Having diabetes can make the holiday season feel more frantic than festive, especially when searching for diabetic Christmas desserts that people actually want to eat. As a dietitian, let me let you in on a little secret: you can enjoy delicious, easy Christmas desserts and treats, even if you’re working hard to manage your blood sugars. While traditional desserts can lead to blood glucose spikes, these diabetic-friendly Christmas treats have all the flavor and fun you need, with a lot less sugar.
From apple desserts to peppermint cookies and eggnog mousse, these blood sugar-friendly sweets are the perfect sweet addition to your diabetic-friendly Christmas recipes. So you don’t have to sacrifice flavor for health, I’ve rounded up the best diabetic Christmas desserts that balance sweetness with nutrition, so you can feel good about your macros while joining in on the holiday fun.
Lavishly dusted in powdered sugar, buttery pecan-packed Mexican wedding cookies are synonymous with celebration. These melt-in-your-mouth cookies are equally beloved in regions around Mexico and the U.S., a staple at weddings, holiday parties and virtually any festive gathering. Texture-wise, the cookies are a lot like shortbread—crumbly rather than chewy, thanks to the fact these tasty treats are baked without eggs.
With their resemblance to snowballs, Mexican wedding cookies are just begging to be included in your Christmas cookie swap, but are delicious any time of year, boxed up as edible gifts or dunked into a cup of milky tea.
We’re counting down the top Christmas cookies—here’s one of them! To join the countdown and for more festive fun, sign up for our Holiday newsletter.
Why are they called Mexican wedding cookies?
Also called Mexican wedding cakes, these nutty, buttery delights are sometimes called Russian tea cakes and polvorones. Look across the world, and you’ll encounter similar cookie recipes: Pecan sandies, Italian wedding cookies, Greek kourabiedes and qurabiya, to name a few. Ingredients vary (more than anything, it’s the nuts used), and sometimes they’re round, while other versions, like this Mexican wedding cake cookie recipe, are crescent-shaped.
The precise origins of this sweet treat are lost to the mists of time. Many food historians believe these cookies have medieval Middle Eastern roots, with recipes spreading to new regions via trade routes across the centuries. They also think the recipe traveled to Mexico with the Spanish in the 16th century. There’s speculation that the name Mexican wedding cakes replaced Russian tea cakes around the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War. Whatever you call them, they’re delicious!
Mexican Wedding Cookie Ingredients
TASTE OF HOME
Butter: I like using salted butter to balance out the sweetness in these cookies. Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt to the recipe if you opt for unsalted.
Confectioners’ sugar: Creaming the confectioners’ sugar with butter helps give Mexican wedding cookies their wonderfully delicate texture. You also roll the still-warm cookies in confectioners’ sugar when they come out of the oven.
Vanilla extract: Along with pecans, vanilla is the main flavor that floods your taste buds when biting into a Mexican wedding cookie. Since it’s so prominent, use the best vanilla extract you can. Almond extract is a lovely substitution, or combine half of each.
Pecans: Both regular and toasted pecans are phenomenal in this recipe. Lightly toasting the pecans for a few minutes in the oven will give them a deeper, richer flavor.
Christmastime gives you loads to look forward to: decorating the tree, making snow angels, listening to your favorite holiday songs on repeat and breaking out those once-a-year Christmas candy recipes. While we love gooey cinnamon rolls before opening gifts and Christmas cookies with a mug of hot cocoa, there’s nothing like biting into a rich fudge square or snapping off a piece of crunchy, nutty brittle.
This roundup has festive candy treats for all skill levels, whether you have experience cooking sugar for chewy caramels or want a simpler melt-and-mix style candy. You’ll find the holiday flavors you crave around Christmas, like peppermint, cinnamon, eggnog and chocolate. You can also use this holiday season to iron out common chocolate truffle mistakes or teach yourself to make your favorite copycat candy bars for gifts.
Making these homemade Christmas sweets can be a fun activity to do with your friends and family. Spend time creating and decorating the treats together, and then set out supplies for these creative food gift wrapping ideas to package them into delicious and memorable presents!
You’ll need just four ingredients to make these delightful lemon snowflake cookies. Confectioners’ sugar highlights the cracked tops to give them their snowflake appearance. —Linda Barry, Dianna, Texas
We love how incredibly soft and chewy these white chocolate cranberry cookies are. Best of all? No dough chilling time required!
These white chocolate cranberry cookies offer tidings of comfort and joy to any Christmas cookie tray. Each cookie is thick and incredibly soft with sweet white chocolate chips and tart dried cranberries dotted throughout. Their red and white coloring looks so festive for the Christmas holiday, but they’re so good that we eat them all year round!
Ingredients for White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies
Butter: The key to making a fabulous cookie is starting with softened butter. If you forgot to soften it, fret not: here’s how to soften butter quickly.
Brown sugar: Brown sugar adds more moisture to the dough than white sugar, resulting in a chewier, softer cookie.
Egg: One egg binds all the ingredients together perfectly.
All-purpose flour: All-purpose flour is the goldilocks of flour for cookies. It’s not too soft like cake flour, but not too tough and dense like bread flour. All-purpose flour adds just the right amount of structure to a cookie while still allowing it to be soft.
White chocolate chips: Overwhelmed by the amount of white chocolate chips at the store? Our Test Kitchen pros found that the best white chocolate chips are Ghirardelli Classic White Chips.
Dried cranberries: We love the beautiful maroon hue, tart taste and pleasant chew that dried cranberries add to these cranberry white chocolate cookies.
From no-bake fudge and truffles to spiced cakes and chewy cookies, these easy Christmas desserts make enjoying sweet treats simple and stress-free all season long.
For many years, my next-door neighbor gifted my family a beautiful, homemade Yule log cake to enjoy on Christmas—meringue mushrooms and all! It was extra-special to me because, in my chaotic house, we relied on easy Christmas desserts that could be made in a flash. But I’m not complaining. As this collection shows, quick Christmas treats are just as festive, beautiful and delicious as more labor-intensive ones. Christmas dinner is great, but no-fuss holiday desserts are the real stars of the day.
We compiled simple Christmas dessert recipes that can be prepped in 20 minutes or less and are full of seasonal flavors. There are rich, chocolaty treats that taste like hot cocoa, red and white swirled minty bites, and pretty Bundts that practically decorate themselves. If the oven is full, try a no-bake treat, like fudge or truffles. And, of course, we include Christmas cookies, from jammy thumbprints to sugary snowballs and buttery shortbread. All that’s left is to make a batch of homemade eggnog and enjoy the holiday.
On Christmas, after indulging in all the Christmas ham and side dishes that can fit on your plate, there’s always a bit more room for dessert. And while Christmas cookies, cakes and homemade candy tend to get all the glory, there’s nothing better than Christmas dessert pies.
These festive Christmas pie recipes include classics like chocolate cream and cranberry pie, plus new favorites like candy cane and eggnog. There’s plenty of variety, whether you’re choosing between an all-butter crust or a crumb crust, a no-bake ice cream pie or a double-crusted slab pie, or a fruit pie or a custard-filled one.
If you need to make any of these holiday pie recipes dietary-friendly, we have gluten-free pie crust and vegan pie crust recipes to help alter as needed. Of course, serve your hot pies with a scoop of the best vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream, and save salted caramel sauce or hot fudge for the cold pies. Go ahead and set up that second dessert table, you’re going to need it!
Expect a sweet, festively red maraschino cherry in the center of each of these melt-in-your-mouth cherry snowball cookies.
Every good Christmas cookie tray has variety, often including at least one type of confectioners’ sugar-covered bite. With a tender cookie and gorgeous cherry in the middle, these cherry snowball cookies are a strong contender for the coveted tray spot. Plus, four ingredients make them so easy and cost-effective—a must when there’s so much time and money spent on the other Christmas cookies.
Russian tea cakes, crescent-shaped Mexican wedding cookies and pecan-studded snowball cookies are the usual players on a Christmas cookie tray, but every single one includes some kind of nut. These cherry snowball cookies are nut-free, so whether you’re feeding someone who’s allergic or just simply doesn’t like them, these are the best choice.
Ingredients for Cherry Snowball Cookies
Butter: Bring two sticks of butter to room temperature. You can soften butter quickly by cutting it into smaller cubes or shredding the sticks on a (very clean!) cheese grater. The smaller pieces will come to room temperature much quicker than whole sticks.
Confectioners’ sugar: Instead of granulated sugar, we use confectioners’ sugar to sweeten the cookie dough, which makes for a much more tender, melt-in-your-mouth cookie. Make sure you have enough to coat the outsides of the cookies too.
All-purpose flour: The cookie’s texture is integral to the eating experience. It can’t be too dry or it will fall apart after the first bite. Measure the flour properly so you don’t accidentally add too much to the measuring cup.
Maraschino cherries: Stores will sell maraschino cherries with or without stems. For ease, buy the de-stemmed cherries to save time later on. Drain the cherries from their juice and cut each one in half.
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