Nothing puts us in the holiday spirit more than whipping up all varieties of Christmas cookies. The best homemade recipes are worth eating by the dozen until you begin to resemble Santa himself, but certain holiday treats are definitely inferior to the rest. What can I say? That's just how the cookie crumbles. Here I countdown the worst holiday treats, ever thankful that they only show up once a year.
Florentines
Shout out to anyone who's actually had one of these bad boys. I read once where they were described as "chewy, luxurious biscuits," as if that doesn't say it all right there. The lacey edges and layer of chocolate on these thin cookies definitely make them look tasty, but when you first take a bite it's easy to fall out of love. The candied orange peel in them reminds me too much of fruitcake (which I'll get to) and while they're meant to be chewy, they usually end up too sticky to handle.
Candy Canes
It's like eating a breath mint for 12 hours, except that it stabs your jaw awkwardly. Not worth the fight.
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
When it comes to cookie mix-ins we're all about chocolate chips, sprinkles and even the occasional nuts, but dried fruit need not apply. Plus, oatmeal cookies taste like breakfast, not dessert.
Pre-packaged Cookies
Store-bought cookies are already a bit of a cop out already, so the least you could do is get some decent looking ones. The holiday-edition tubes of slice-and-bake cookies give you a choice between sad snowmen, droopy Christmas trees or very manic looking reindeer. Yikes.
Christmas Pudding
Christmas pudding is so bad that it literally has to contain the promise of physical currency for anyone to want a slice.
Gingerbread Cookies
A little family of cleverly decorated gingerbread men (and women) is definitely cute ... but not quite cute enough to eat. The weirdly spicy combination of ginger, nutmeg and cloves is an acquired taste best used to build gingerbread houses.
Ribbon Candy
It looks so beautiful and is both tasteless and hazardous to your teeth. What a tease...
Snickers Salad
https://www.tasteandtellblog.com/snickers-salad/
A Snickers bar doesn't need apples, whipped cream, pudding, sour cream and/or mayonnaise to make it shine. In fact, anything added actually takes away from its delightful chocolate-caramel-peanut goodness. Also, hot take, Snickers and the word 'salad' should not be in the same sentence.
Werther’s Originals
The caramel candy is an O.G. sweet, and it's always clutch to have a bag stored in your glove compartment. But it sucks to get them as a gift from your grandparents, especially when you can easily cop some from CVS literally any day of the year.
Geletain Molds
I honestly shouldn't even have to write about this one. A jiggly wheel of aspic containing anything from canned pineapple to whole shrimp is enough to make anyone hurl. These recipes are best left in the past.
Fruit Cake
Fruit Cake is like JV bread and JV cake all at once. It is bad no matter how you slice it. How can something that sounds so delicious taste like alcohol-heavy cough syrup in solid form? I'm hurt.
These desserts take the cake (haha) for the worst of all time in my book.
Hopefully your family subtracts these lack-luster desserts for the holiday!
