The Pioneer Woman Shares Her Favorite Holiday Desserts, From an Ugly Sweater Cake to Peppermint Fudge
The Pioneer Woman star Ree Drummond has created dozens of great holiday recipes. From an Ugly Sweater Cake to Peppermint Fudge, here are some of the celebrity chef’s favorite desserts for the Christmas season.
Ree Drummond’s Ugly Sweater Cake
Ugly sweaters have become a holiday staple. And Drummond has a fantastic recipe that brings the charm of an ugly sweater to a sweet dessert.
As detailed in an episode of her hit Food Network series, The Pioneer Woman, Drummond starts making her ugly sweater cake by baking a sheet cake. The cake can be any flavor preferred. And home chefs can make it from scratch or use a boxed cake mix.
Next, Drummond mixes store-bought icing with green food coloring (but any color would work). She spreads the icing on the cooled sheet cake until fully covered (check out the video here).
Using white store-bought icing, she creates a fluffy neckline and sweater closure. To complete the ugly sweater cake, Drummond uses candy and chocolate to mimic buttons and holiday baubles.
The Pioneer Woman’s holiday peppermint fudge
Drummond’s peppermint fudge is perfect for those looking to make a quick and easy holiday dessert. And best of all, it requires only three ingredients.
To start the fudge, Drummond sets up a double boiler in which she melts chocolate chips. Milk chocolate and white chocolate chips could be used for a sweeter fudge. And for those wanting a more intense flavor, dark chocolate chips would work well.
Once the chocolate chips melt, Drummond adds in a can of condensed milk. She stirs the mixture together well.
And once it’s all incorporated, she quickly transfers it to a greased foil-lined pan and spreads it out. Drummond then finishes the fudges with a dusting of crushed peppermint candies and puts it in the fridge to set.
Ree Drummond’s Christmas cherries
One of Drummond’s favorite holiday desserts is Christmas cherries. On The Pioneer Woman, she revealed that the colorful cookies remind her of her childhood. And she noted that they bring back memories of her family delivering trays of sweets around the holiday season.
“Anytime I bake these cookies, I know Christmas is just around the corner,” Drummond shared on The Pioneer Woman.
To start the cookie dough, Drummond whips up eggs, sugar, and butter, later adding double-sifted flour, lemon zest, and orange zest. She then puts the dough in the refrigerator for an hour to cool.
Drummond then rolls balls of dough and places them on a sheet pan. She tops them up with halved Christmas cherries and puts them in the oven to bake.
The Pioneer Woman’s chocolate mousse
Drummond’s chocolate mousse recipe is not just easy to make, it’s also a pretty dessert that will dress up any holiday spread. On an episode of The Pioneer Woman, the celebrity chef noted that she likes to elevate the mousse by topping it with chocolate curls.
To make the curls, Drummond melts both white and dark chocolate with coconut oil (which she says helps keep the chocolate flexible) and then spreads them together on the back of a plastic wrap-lined cookie sheet.
The sheet goes in the freezer to cool. Once chilled and set, Drummond scrapes the chocolate into curls and puts them back in the freezer.
For the mousse, Drummond beats heavy cream, while slowly adding in sugar (agave syrup can be used as well), and continues until stiff peaks form. In a separate bowl, she whisks together egg yolks and vanilla. And on a double boiler, she melts chocolate and butter.
Drummond tempers the egg mixture by whisking in a little bit of heated chocolate mixture. She then slowly combines both, and then carefully folds them into the whipped cream.
The mousse is then served in individual glasses and topped with Raspberry jam-marbled whipped cream. To complete the mousse, Drummond adds a few chocolate curls to each glass.
Ree Drummond’s pumpkin rum cake
Many may think of pumpkin as a fall flavor. But Drummond uses the versatile squash in a rum cake that is great for the winter holiday.
When making her pumpkin rum cake, Drummond starts by mixing flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Separately, she combines buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, vanilla, and maple extract.
In a saucepan, Drummond melts butter and cooks it at medium heat along with pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice, and water. She then stirs the pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture, followed by the buttermilk mixture.
Once the batter is well mixed, Drummond pours it into a greased and floured bundt pan. The cake goes in the oven for about 45 minutes.
Drummond then makes rum syrup by heating salted butter with sugar, water, rum, and vanilla in a saucepan. Once that is done, she pours the syrup into the empty bundt pan and puts the cake back in to absorb it. When serving the cake, Drummond tops it with spiced whipped cream.
