Sparkle Stories Blog

The recipe below is enough to serve a party of revelers, but it can easily be halved or quartered. It’s also much more method than recipe, so feel free to modify it to suit your tastes or what you have on hand.

I glanced over at a bowl of leftover Christmas oranges and inspiration struck. I usually only have snow cones in July, but why not eat them when the snow is fresh?

Don’t worry—this isn’t a recipe for actual beaver! Beaver tails are a traditional Canadian fried pastry, which is made in the distinctive oblong shape of a beaver’s tail. Covered in cinnamon and sugar—or topped with honey, lemon, or jam—a batch of hot beaver tails makes a cozy winter treat.

Broa is the Portuguese version of cornbread. Unlike American cornbread, flour and cornmeal are mixed together to give the bread a dense texture. Broa is also leavened with yeast instead of baking soda.

Depending on where you live in the world, it may feel like you’ve been transplanted to the Arctic right now, so why not follow Martin and Sylvia’s lead and host an Arctic cookout?

One of my favorite potluck recipes is my grandmother’s Swedish meatballs. Best served out of a warm crock-pot, they’ll continue to soak-in their own gravy as they sit on a buffet table. They only get more delicious as the night goes on!

No need to resort to the microwave stuff — stovetop popcorn takes about the same amount of time and tastes much better. And by popping popcorn on the stove you can also control exactly how much salt, butter, and other toppings you add.

Packed with nuts, dried fruit, and crispy rolled oats, one of our favorite go-to snacks is homemade granola. Here's an easy, kid-friendly recipe that you can make at home!

While you can buy all sorts of mixes and powders, of course, I’ve found that the simplest way of making hot chocolate is to melt dark chocolate chips with warm milk.

Even if you don’t have a maple tree to tap or, like me, your climate isn’t right for the sap to really flow, you can still get in on the fun of sugaring season by making maple syrup candy. You’ll only need three ingredients: pure maple syrup, butter, and a patch of clean snow.