Have a Healthier Holiday with Blue Diamond

Ho ho ho! Happy Holidays.

Almost, at least.

No matter how early we are, it is never too late to start celebrating the holiday season. What’s your favorite part of the holidays? Is seeing family or traveling? Maybe it’s getting some days off work. Whatever your reason, the holidays are a season of joy for many people.

Unsurprisingly, our favorite part of the holidays is definitely the food. I mean, who can resist a good ol’ stuffed turkey or indulgent Christmas cake? Not us, obviously.

But, there is nothing wrong with eating a little extra during the holidays (or, for us, year-round!). However, for those who want to manage what they eat a little more, we came up with these healthier holiday treats with our friends from Blue Diamond! With tasty recipes such as Gingersnap Cookie Wreath and Holiday Crunch Bars, there is something everyone in your family will love!

Okay, now we got that out of the way, get eating!

Almond Flour Cone Trees

Difficulty: Medium • 12 Servings • Total Time: 1 Hour 15 Minutes

Ingredients:

Cupcakes

• 1 Blue Diamond Almond Flour Chocolate Cake Mix 
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• ½ cup water

Tree Topper

• 4 tablespoons Blue Diamond Almond Flour
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 egg white
• 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted 
• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Frosting

• 1 ¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3 ½ cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 4 drops of green food coloring

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. 
2. In a bowl simply add Blue Diamond Chocolate Cake Mix, eggs, vegetable oil, and water. Whisk together until smooth.
3. Using a medium sized cookie scoop fill the lined cupcake pan. Bake the cupcakes for 16 minutes.
4. While the cupcakes are in the oven, you can prepare the almond cone batter to make the adorable tree toppers. First, in a bowl add 1 egg white and whisk until soft peaks form. Then add sugar slowly, continue to whisk until glossy.
5. Next, add Blue Diamond Almond Flour, vanilla extract, 2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter. Fold ingredients together until smooth with no clumps. 
6. On a parchment paper lined baking sheet, add a spoonful of cone batter. Use the back of the spoon to create a 2 ½ wide circle.  Repeat this process 12 more times. Bake the circles for 6 minutes at 350 degrees fahrenheit.
7. While the cupcakes cool you can make the buttercream! In a bowl whisk softened unsalted butter until it becomes a whipped consistency. Add powdered sugar and milk. Continue to mix until frosting becomes light and fluffy.
8. Add ¼  of frosting to a separate bowl and mix green food coloring to it. Fill green frosting in a piping bag fit with a small star tip and the rest of the white frosting with a medium sized round tip. Set aside.
9. Now that the almond cones are out of the oven, quickly and carefully roll the dough around a large piping tip to create a cone shape. Hold the cone together until set and repeat the process to make 12 cones.
10. Pipe white frosting onto each cupcake and top with a cone. Now take your green frosting and cover the cone with little stars. Once covered the cone will look like a little tree .You can top your tree with an edible pearl sprinkle and dust with powdered sugar to look like snow. Enjoy these delicious Blue Diamond cone tree cupcakes!

Almond Flour Shortbread + Decorating Hacks

Difficulty: Easy • 12 Servings • Total Time: 1 Hour

Ingredients:

Cookie dough

• 3 cup Blue Diamond Almond Flour
• ½ cup powdered sugar 
• ½ cup unsalted butter 
• ½ teaspoons Vanilla extract

Royal Icing 

• 2 cups powdered sugar 
• 3 tablespoons milk
• Food Coloring (red, blue, brown, black)

Directions:

1. In a bowl add Blue Diamond Almond Flour, powdered sugar, unsalted butter and vanilla extract. Mix until a dough forms and it pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Chill dough for 30 minutes. 
2. Preheat the oven to 325 degree fahrenheit.
3. Roll out chilled dough between two sheets of parchment paper to a ¼ inch thickness. 
4. Next, a fun holiday decorating hack! If you don’t have any holiday cookie cutters it’s ok, you can use a heart, gingerbread man and a star cookie cutter instead. Press down into the dough to make each shape as usual. Transfer the dough to a parchment lined cookie sheet. You can also use a circle piping tip to make a hole into each cookie, so once baked you would be able to make cookie ornaments!
5. Bake almond cookies for 14 minutes or until lightly golden.
6. While the cookies are cooling we can make the royal icing. In a bowl mix powdered sugar and milk. Add icing to 5 separate cups evenly. Mix in the food coloring and leave the last cup of icing white. Then separately add each icing into a piping bag.
7. First, we are going to make Santa out of an upside down heart shaped cookie. Santa’s hat will be the pointy part of the heart. The beard will be the two round edges and the eyes will be in the center. Next, we are going to make a snowflake out of a star cookie cutter. Fill in the star with blue frosting, then create the snowflake lines in the center with white frosting. Lastly, we are going to transform a gingerbread man cookie into a reindeer! Flip the gingerbread man upside down and the reindeer antlers will be the legs. The ears of the reindeer will be the arms of the gingerbread man and the face will be the head. 
8. Let the cookie icing dry and either hang them on your tree as an ornament or enjoy them with family and friends.

Gingersnap Cookie Wreath

Difficulty: Easy • 12 Servings • Total Time: 1 Hour 25 Minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cups and 1 Tablespoon Blue Diamond Almond Flour
• 6 tablespoons Coconut sugar 
• 2 tablespoons Molasses 
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla extract 
• ¼ cup Unsalted butter (room temperature)
• ½ teaspoons Cinnamon 
• ¼ teaspoon Allspice 
• ¼ teaspoon Salt
• ¼ teaspoon Baking Soda 
• 1 egg

Royal Icing 

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 Tablespoon milk
• 2 drops Green Food Coloring
• 1 cup of red and green M&M’s

Directions:

1. In a mixing bowl cream together butter, sugar and vanilla. 
2. Add Molasses and mix until smooth. 
3. In a separate bowl combine all your dry ingredients. 
4. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix until flour is barely visible.
5. Add egg and combine until a soft dough forms. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Roll out the dough between two sheets of parchment paper ¼ inch thick. 
7. Use a scalloped circle cookie cutter to make the outer edges of the wreath and use the bottom of a piping tip to make a hole in the center. 
8. Transfer cookies to a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes.
9. Once out of the oven arrange the M&M’s around each cookie wreath while they are still warm. 
10. While the wreath cookies cool, in a small bowl mix together powdered sugar, milk and green food coloring. Add the green icing to a piping bag and on each cookie wreath add a little bow at the bottom. 
11. Enjoy these yummy cookie wreaths!

Holiday Crunch Cake

Difficulty: Easy • 6 Servings • Total Time: 4 Hours 10 Minutes

Ingredients:  

• 2 cups Blue Diamond Almond Flour
• 2 cups granola 
• ½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• ⅔ cup sugar 
• 8 oz whipped cream topping 
• 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature 
• 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ⅓ cup red and green sprinkles

Directions:

1. In a bowl mix together Blue Diamond Almond Flour, granola, butter, and sugar until a sand-like consistency forms. 
2. In a greased 8” by 8” square pan, pour in half of the mixture and press it down to make an even crust on the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
3. In a bowl, add cream cheese, whipped cream topping, condensed milk and vanilla extract, mix until smooth. Add red and green sprinkles and lightly fold into batter. Then pour over the pressed crust.
4. Evenly spread the rest on the crust on top of the batter. Set in the freezer for 4 hours or overnight. 
5. Once solid, slice in bars and enjoy these creamy treats with a crunch!

Easy DIY Holiday Tree Toppers

Difficulty: Easy • 8 Servings • Total Time: 1 Hour

Ingredients:

Cake

• 4 ½ cups Blue Diamond Almond Flour 
• 8 eggs 
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 
• 1 cup powdered sugar 
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
• 4 teaspoon Baking powder

Frosting 

• 2 cups unsalted butter
• 5 cups powdered sugar 
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla extract 
• 3 tablespoons Milk
• ½ cup crushed peppermint 
• 2 cups sweetened coconut flakes

Tree Toppers 

• 5 gluten free pretzel sticks 
• 1 cup green candy melts, melted 
• ¼ cup holiday sprinkles 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. 
2. In a bowl add Blue DIamond Almond Flour, eggs, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and baking powder mix until well combined.
3. In three 6” inch greased round cake pans distribute the batter evenly. Bake for 25-27 minutes. 
4. Add melted green candy melts to a piping bag and carefully pipe a tree over a gluten free pretzel stick that has been set on a cold plate. Then drizzle some holiday sprinkles on top and let dry.  Repeat the process 5 times then set the tree decorations to the side.
5. In a bowl cream butter to make the frosting for the cake. Add powdered sugar, milk and vanilla extract and mix until fluffy. 
6. Frost and stack the cake adding crushed peppermint between each layer. Once the cake is completely frosted add coconut flakes on the top and up the sides. 
7. Lastly, take the candy tree decoration you already made and add them to the top of your coconut snow cake. 
8. Enjoy this slice of holiday magic!