Candy-inspired treats make the holidays sweet
What happens when you take a Snickers bar and flip it inside out? You get a delicious holiday cookie called a Caramel Peanut Thumbprint.
For this holiday baking season, Associated Press recipe developer Alison Ladman looked to popular candies for inspiration.
If you crave the pillowy softness of whipped nougat shrouded in milk chocolate, aka a 3 Musketeers bar, you'll love her delicate meringue-based Triple Musketeer Puffs. If the minty sensation of a York Peppermint Pattie is more your speed, try her simple drop cookies that are simultaneously delicate and fudgy with a heady punch of mint. They beg to be paired with hot cocoa.
Her bar-style cookies with chocolate, caramel and puffed-crisped rice cereal capture everything you love about 100 Grand bars. And while you may not lay a finger on anyone's Butterfinger, you will want to grab a plateful of her Butterfinger-inspired holiday bark. Like the candy bar, this sweet treat is jammed with peanut butter, has a satisfyingly crunchy-flaky bite and - of course - sports plenty of chocolate. But to keep your enamel intact, she made it slightly less sweet and a little more grown up.