Ingredient: sugar

Instant Mocha Mix

Mark and Katie gave us this recipe. Everyone likes as is, but I prefer it with whipping cream to make it creamer and thicker.

Experiment with different powdered creamers and omitting or swapping the spices.

Burnt Almonds (Gebrannte Mandeln)

We discovered this recipe while looking for German Christmas recipes. Many “Weihnachtsmarkt” (Christmas markets) serve these cinnamony nuts. While it would make sense to share the recipe for Christmas, we decided to wait until National Almond Day, which is the 16th of February every year.

To keep from burning, the mixture needs to be stirred continuously.

Valentine Popcorn

The first time Andrea made this was for a Valentine’s day soccer game treat. Thus, “Valentine Popcorn”. Though Megan insisted it was Princess corn.

Pistachio, Cranberry, White Chocolate Biscotti

Andrea decided we needed some biscotti for our tea. Instead of using plain white chocolate, she caramelized some. She found many different recipes for caramelizing white chocolate online. It made the biscotti extra good, but the cookie was a little sweeter than we liked. Next time we make this, we plan to reduce the sugar some.

Laugenbrezel (German Soft Pretzels)

This is not the super soft, sweet pretzel that many malls offer. This has a bagel like texture that is much better I think! Salt as much or as little as you like and serve with a favorite mustard or cheese sauce.

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffin

These muffins are a wonderful fall treat. My mom was given this recipe years ago when she spent the day with her cousin Kathy. They made a few muffin recipes and other fun fall treats. This is probably my favorite. Not only do these freeze well, they are also good for a few days after baking and toast nicely.

You can use all purpose flour, but these are also great as a 50/50 mix with AP flour and 50% white whole wheat. We rarely use the full amount of sugar. They are good with or without the steusel. If you chose not to add the streusel, they are even less sweet, which is a nice change sometimes.

If you prefer to make a loaf of bread, pour into a greased and lightly floured pan and bake for about an hour.

Apple Crisp

We do not follow this recipe precisely. Depending on who is making the crisp, and how many apples we have, we often fill our pan 3/4 of the way full because we really like apples. Instead of cutting in cold butter, ours is usually softened and we just mix it with the topping ingredients. Since we do not like super sweet apple crisp, we use one cup sugar in the topping, but use more if making for company. If the topping seems a little dry, we add extra butter to the top when we put the apple crisp in the oven.

While this is great for dessert with vanilla ice cream, we often eat it for dinner. We also enjoy it warm for breakfast with milk.

Salted Caramel Sauce

We have made this recipe many times! It will burn quickly, so do not get distracted.

This is really good on ice cream, but we also enjoy it with hot chocolate, cheesecake and other desserts.