On today’s Tuesday’s Tip with um.. me (grin) I’ve put together some of my best baking tricks and tips that can transform a plain ol’ dessert into something beautiful and colorful.

So Christmas is only 13 days away! Dear Lord I’m so not ready! I still have cookies to make, struffoli to fry up, cheesecakes to make the man and oh yeah, presents to buy. I need another 2 weeks before Christmas.

♥ Don’t buy premade colored sugars, make your own!

♥ Chocolate Curls – All you need is a Giant chocolate bar, potato peeler and a fridge. Pop the bar in the fridge for an hour, no more; just an hour. When you pull it out, unwrap it, take the potato peeler and shave along the side pulling up towards you to make the curls. Do a few practice curls. When you’re ready to decorate that cake or brownies, just shave the curls over top of the dessert as they are really delicate. You don’t want to touch them with your hands.

♥ Seriously the easiest icing – Just grab marshmallows, top each cupcake or cookie with a big fat marshmallow, toss it back in the oven for 30 seconds to a minute just until it melts. Easy quick frosting!

♥ Drizzles – Use condiment bottles filled with icing to decorate cookies. These are found in the dollar store and are easy to control the stream of icing.

♥ Chocolate Drizzles – Still use the condiment bottle to help control the flow but to keep the chocolate fluid, put the condiment bottles in warm water when not in use. Just be sure not to let water get in the bottle or the chocolate.

♥ Grind up candy canes to make a delicious sprinkle for cakes and cookies! Candy Cane Kissy Face Dust rocks!

♥ Roll out your sugar cookie dough between 2 pieces of parchment paper BEFORE chilling it per Ms. Dorie Greenspan! Chill the whole thing (parchment and all) in the fridge for an hour, cut out your cookies and bake!

♥ Use the a Gingerbread man cookie cutter to make 2 types of cookie shapes – gingerbread men and once, turned upside down, reindeer!

♥ Bark – okay seriously, if you can melt chocolate, pour it in a pan and toss whatever you want in it, you can make bark. It’s the EASIEST thing to bake er um.. make! It’s a great gift and it’s totally customizable.

Do you have an easy holiday baking hack?

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