The holiday season is just around the corner. This can be quite an expensive time of the year considering the gifts, food, and decorations that need to be bought. Non-gift items that include decorations and food alone are known to cost approximately $215!
Preparing Christmas treats at home is a great way to save money during this time. With a few store cupboard staples, you can prepare a number of desserts and treats in the comfort of your own home.
Here’s a holiday checklist of baking ingredients you need:
Eggs are a staple for most baked goodies. They are needed in cookies, cakes, mousse, pudding, soufflés, etc. During the festive season, you can use up a couple of dozen eggs for preparing treats. We suggest our customers pick up larger packs of eggs for the holiday season. Eggs have a much longer shelf life than we think and they’ll easily last you through December!
Flour is the ingredient that gives every dessert its texture. It’s such a versatile ingredient, when mixed in different proportions, it can form crisp biscuits, chewy cookies, airy soufflés, and decadent cakes.
Flour is known to be a ‘dry’ ingredient and hence it can be kept for many months at room temperature in a dry place. Make sure you aren’t using any moist spoons or measuring cups in the flour; that could promote worms and bugs from getting in and spoiling it.
If you need to prepare gluten-free desserts, we carry a number of flour alternatives like almond meal. We offer natural almond meal as well as blanched almond meal in Los Angeles.
Milk is the ingredient of choice to thin out any batter. It’s a staple for preparing moist cakes and, therefore, is needed in abundance during the festive time. Milk can spoil relatively quickly so it’s better to finish a carton at a time first. Always have enough, in case the kids want a cup of hot chocolate!
Spices are the crowning glory of any Christmas dessert. They add warmth and depth of flavor that differ ordinary desserts from festive ones. Spices to stock up on for the winter months are cloves, ginger, cinnamon, star anise, candied peel, dried orange, candied ginger, and nutmeg. They can be used for gingerbread, Christmas pudding, mulled wine, and much more!
You can never go wrong with chocolate. It’s the one ingredient in your kitchen cabinet that will never go to waste! Keep an assortment of chocolates in your kitchen so that you’re prepared for any dessert you want to make. White chocolate is great for blondies, dark chocolate and milk chocolate are ideal for any dessert or even for some hot chocolate!
Get your festive season staples from Divine Specialties. We carry a wide range of baking supplies online for your convenience. These products are delivered to your doorstep in Los Angeles so that you don’t have to step out in the cold weather!
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