I’m getting so excited for Christmas baking. I love spending a day in the kitchen with my KitchenAid mixer making delicious sweet treats.
Baking during the holidays always brings back great memories of baking Christmas cookies with my mom and dad, brother, aunt and cousins. Some of my favorite holiday cookies from my childhood include peanut butter blossoms, peanut butter balls (for some reason my family calls them zit crunchies), cherry mash and homemade Mounds. When my grandfather was alive, he would make homemade fudge and chess pies. So delicious!
Although I have lots of great memories from the baking process and from enjoying my family’s treats, I also remember overindulging in sweets and feeling sick, lethargic, bloated and gross. So a few years ago, I started making some of my own healthier sweet treats using less sugar or natural sweeteners. I found that I didn’t indulge in as many cookies, but I still felt like I was getting a special holiday treat.
I recently made these dark chocolate cups, and they are so delicious. They only have three simple ingredients – dark chocolate chips, coconut oil and pomegranate seeds.
When you bite into the chocolate you get the burst of pomegranate seeds, which adds some tartness to the treats.
I love these because I you get the antioxidants from the dark chocolate, some healthy fat from coconut oil and tons of nutrients from the pomegranate seeds. So you can truly eat these without guilt!
Side note: Make sure you use sweetened dark chocolate chips and not baking chocolate!
What was your favorite Christmas cookie when you were a child?
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