Recently my kids and I had the chance to get together with friends to make these sweet little ornaments and some delicious, lightning fast fudge. Both recipes were found on Real Food blogs and utilize ingredients that the co-op offers, so we thought we’d spread some holiday cheer!
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These cinnamon-scented Gingerbread look-a-likes have only three ingredients, unless you opt for the extra spices mentioned below. The recipe we used comes from Cara at Health Home Happy. We had to tweak the recipe a bit to get the dough the right consistency, so I’m including our adjustments in the recipe below. One recipe yields about 10 regular sized ornaments or 20 minis, depending on your cutters. All ingredients except for the glue are available through the co-op’s online shop. The kids measure and mixed, the moms rolled the dough out and the kids cut the shapes out with cookie cutters. We found that cutting the holes with the straw was more of a mom job, too. Hope you have as much fun making these as we did!
Cinnamon Ornaments
- 1 cup cinnamon
- 1/4 cup applesauce {we used 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons water}
- 2 tablespoons white glue (optional)
- 1 teaspoon cloves, ginger, and/or nutmeg (optional)
- Parchment paper
- Rolling Pin
- Cookie Cutters
- Straw to cut a hole for hanging
- Ribbon for hanging
In a small bowl, add wet ingredients to cinnamon and other spices and mix with a fork until a dough is formed. Roll out between parchment paper to 1/4 inch thick. Cut out shapes with cookie cutter, poke a hole for hanging. Repeat rolling out remaining dough until all is used up.
Place in oven at lowest temperature on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, for 1 hour or until dried through {since we added more applesauce and some water to get the dough to hold together, ours took a few hours to dry}.
Tie ribbon through hole and hang.
These can be stored and brought out for next year’s decorations too- they still smell amazing year after year!
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This fudge, from Kendahl at Our Nourishing Roots, comes together in the blink of an eye, especially if you have a food processor. But if you don’t, no worries – it is still quite easy to mix by hand. If you prefer a thicker fudge, double the recipe but keep the pan size the same, or use a smaller pan for the recipe below. This recipe is great to make with kids (heavy supervision if using a food processor, of course) as it’s basically just measuring and dumping the ingredients, then mixing them all up and pouring into a pan. This is a fabulous last minute holiday treat, and makes a nice gift too!
Chocolate Peppermint Coconut Fudge
- 1/2 cup coconut butter {super easy recipe}
- 1/2 cup expeller-pressed coconut oil
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup thick, raw honey
- 2 teaspoons peppermint extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut
- In a food processor, combine coconut butter, coconut oil, cocoa powder, honey, peppermint, and vanilla until very well-combined. Add shredded coconut and pulse in 1 second intervals until just combined.
- Spread mixture into 9 x 9 pan lined with parchment paper, smoothing the top evenly. Refrigerate for 30 minutes. Lift the parchment from the pan, and cut fudge into squares (if it’s too stiff, then let sit 10 minutes at room temperature and try again). Store in the refrigerator in a container. To serve, remove from the fridge and let the chill come off for about 20 minutes {or eat them straight out of the fridge, like me}.
