No-Bake Vegan Apple Butter Truffles: A Festive Holiday Treat

Indulge in these delightful no-bake vegan apple butter truffles, crafted with almond flour, aromatic spices, and decadent dark chocolate. This easy, gluten-free recipe is the perfect holiday dessert!

The festive spirit is gradually filling our home. With the holidays fast approaching, we are preparing to welcome my partner’s parents and brothers from Germany. The excitement is palpable as we get ready to share this special time together.

I’ve been dedicating my time to deep cleaning, rearranging furniture, and meticulously planning the dishes I want to prepare and share. While our Christmas tree isn’t up yet, the stockings are hung with care, and Christmas music is playing constantly.

The holiday tunes fill the air during cooking, cleaning, and even recipe testing! There’s something truly special about introducing my partner’s family to American holiday traditions for the first time. It’s making this holiday season feel even more enchanting.

In true holiday fashion, I’ve started experimenting with cozy and shareable treats for our guests. These Apple Butter Truffles were among the first recipes I created. They encapsulate the perfect welcoming dessert: simple to make, festive in presentation, warmly spiced, and meant to be shared from a platter by the fire, accompanied by mugs of hot cocoa or mulled wine.

If the essence of fall comfort could be condensed into a bite-sized dessert, these truffles would be it. They are rich, infused with spices, naturally sweetened, and coated in a luscious layer of dark chocolate, making them the ultimate no-bake treat.

These truffles embody everything I adore about the season: the comforting warmth of cinnamon, the subtle hint of nutmeg, and the slow-simmered richness of apple butter, all harmonizing in every bite.

These apple butter truffles are perfect for holiday parties, gifting to loved ones, or simply keeping a batch in the fridge to brighten up the busy days ahead. Best of all, they require only one bowl, no baking, and can easily be adapted to be gluten-free and refined sugar-free, depending on your choice of chocolate!

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The Ultimate 2025 Holiday Gift Guide: Thoughtful Presents for Everyone on Your List

Discover a curated collection of my 2025 favorites, designed to spark meaningful gift ideas for your loved ones this holiday season. Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays, friends!

The holiday season is officially upon us! Here at Flora & Vino, we’re excitedly preparing to host Marco’s family who are traveling all the way from Germany. As many of you know, with Flora, our beloved Australian Shepherd, in the picture, taking long international trips has become a much more involved process. In years past, we’ve typically alternated Christmases, spending one year here with my family and the next in Germany with Marco’s. This year was originally slated as a “Germany” year, but when you can’t make it to Germany… you bring Germany to you! (That’s the saying, right?!). I’m genuinely thrilled to immerse them in some of my most cherished American Christmas and New Year’s traditions, just as they’ve generously shared their German customs with me throughout the years. I even got the “Christmas box” down from the attic even *before* Thanksgiving. And, because we’re hosting this year, I’m putting even more time and thought into decorating, which I’m finding to be quite enjoyable.

I’ve also started compiling my gift list much earlier than usual this year. I’m overflowing with fantastic gift ideas! I’m eager to share some of my favorite discoveries from 2025 with all of you. I hope that these recommendations will help you find that perfect something special that will light up the faces of those you care about most. For even more amazing gift inspiration, be sure to check out my 2023 Holiday Gift Guide and 2024 Holiday Gift Guide. Wishing you a very safe, happy, and healthy holiday season full of joy, warmth, and connection!

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The Ultimate Vegan Applesauce Gingerbread Loaf Recipe

Cozy up with this Vegan Applesauce Gingerbread Loaf that’s moist, warmly spiced, and naturally sweetened with a maple cream cheese frosting.

The weather is getting colder, and I have officially traded in my ice cream for warm, comforting baked goods. Ice cream will always be one of my favorite desserts, and I typically enjoy it all year round. However, with cooler temperatures, nothing beats a slice of warm baked bread.

If you can enjoy cold treats and still stay cozy, I commend you! I, on the other hand, need to actively seek out ways to keep warm. Now is the time for seasonal baked goods!

If you’re craving something warm, comforting, and subtly spiced, this Vegan Applesauce Gingerbread Loaf is exactly what you need this season. It’s moist, tender, and naturally sweet and it fills your kitchen with the irresistible aroma of cinnamon and ginger as it bakes.

Whether you’re looking for a delightful breakfast, an afternoon snack with a cup of tea, or a comforting dessert to share with loved ones, this loaf is the perfect choice. The easy maple cream cheese frosting elevates it to the next level, adding a touch of sweetness that makes each bite feel like a treat (but not overly so!).

This recipe is easy to make, simple to adapt, and completely plant-based, meaning you can feel good about indulging in a slice (or two!) whenever you need a little comfort and warmth.

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Nourishing Black Sesame Noodle Bowl with Roasted Fall Vegetables: A Cozy Vegan Delight

Savor the rich, nutty flavors of this Black Sesame Noodle Bowl, featuring tender soba noodles and perfectly oven-baked seasonal vegetables, all bathed in an exquisite Black Sesame Butter Sauce. This vegan and gluten-free dish is your ultimate comfort food for a cozy autumn evening.

          

As the air turns crisp and the leaves begin their vibrant dance, there’s nothing quite like gathering in a warm kitchen, filled with the aroma of comforting fall dishes. This week, as we celebrated Halloween with pumpkin carving and autumnal treats, I found myself drawn to creating a meal that encapsulates the season’s magic—something both nourishing and wonderfully cozy. While our house strangely remains a trick-or-treater-free zone (despite our best efforts and glowing pumpkins!), the spirit of the season still inspires delicious culinary adventures.

Pumpkin carving, though messy, is a cherished annual ritual. It’s a delightful chaos of pumpkin guts, sticky seeds, and orange goop, transforming our living room floor into a festive (if temporary) disaster zone. My role usually involves the less glamorous task of scraping out the stringy insides, a job that requires stamina, arm muscle, and a surprisingly high tolerance for slime. But the effort is always worth it when those grinning jack-o’-lanterns cast their warm, inviting glow from the patio, a perfect symbol of fall’s enchanting charm.

Just as those carved pumpkins glow from within, this incredible Black Sesame Noodle Bowl is designed to make *you* glow from the inside out! It’s the perfect wholesome, plant-based meal to embrace the cooler weather and celebrate the bounty of the harvest season. These comforting Black Sesame Noodle Bowls are crafted with wholesome soba noodles and a medley of oven-baked, tender vegetables, all brought together with a truly exceptional, creamy Black Sesame Butter Sauce. I prepared this dramatic and flavorful dish as a special Halloween week dinner, and it was an absolute hit!

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Easy Single Serving Fried Rice: Quick & Delicious for One

Transform leftover rice into a vibrant, flavorful single serving fried rice with fresh vegetables and simple seasonings – the perfect easy meal for one!

Life can be busy, and sometimes, you just need a quick, satisfying meal without the fuss of cooking for an army. Enter the savior of solitary eaters and busy weeknights: Single Serving Fried Rice. This recipe is designed to deliver maximum flavor with minimal effort, making it the ultimate solution for those times when you’re cooking for one and crave something both comforting and fresh.

My journey to perfecting this single-serving delight began out of necessity. Last spring, our kitchen experienced a dramatic event – a “POP!” inside the oven doors, signaling the unfortunate demise of both our oven and stove cooktop. As a recipe creator, my immediate thought was, “How will I continue developing recipes without a functioning kitchen?”

Our proactive landlord quickly came to the rescue with a portable induction cooktop, a small but mighty appliance that kept our culinary experiments going. That week, without a workable full-size oven, fried rice became our nightly staple. We tried boiling pasta once, and it came out a little crunchy (though my partner, M, still ate it!). However, the cooktop truly excelled at making incredible fried rice.

When the new, full-sized oven finally arrived, I admit I felt a pang of sadness letting go of that efficient induction cooktop that heated pans to temperature on command. But its legacy lives on in this recipe, as it taught me the art of cooking delicious, single-serving meals with precision and ease. Today, I’m thrilled to share the secret to perfect Single Serving Fried Rice with you.

You might wonder, “Why single serving, Lauren?” The small burners on that temporary induction cooktop meant M and I often cooked our fried rice in separate skillets to maximize cooking surface area. This savvy approach, born from a temporary situation, perfectly translates to real-world scenarios.

Imagine those moments when you have just a small amount of leftover rice in the fridge with no particular plan for it. Or perhaps it’s a quiet evening, and you’re cooking solely for yourself, desiring a delicious meal without an abundance of leftovers. This Single Serving Fried Rice is your answer – an incredibly easy way to create a wholesome, flavorful meal for one, utilizing leftover rice, your favorite chopped vegetables, and a simple blend of seasonings!

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