Christmas Baking

 Hello Interwebs!

On the Seventh Day of Christmas, my True Love Gave to Me...

Christmas Baking Treats

Baking is one of my absolute favorite activities whether it is around the holidays or not. As a child my grandmother would always bake batches and batches of cookies with me and my brother: snickerdoodles, sugar cookies, and dishpan cookies (everything in them but the kitchen sink). She'd help us do cut-out sugar cookies and my brother and I would decorate them with sprinkles. My favorites were the Peanuts character ones. 

My other grandma did more candylike food items. Every year she'd make dozens and dozens of peanut brittle, peanut clusters, and peppernuts. 

In my own home I bake pies (especially apple), bread, muffins, scones, and other treats. 

I've included some of my favorite recipes and links to them to have the absolute best holiday baking you can. 

• Snickerdoodle Cookies: this isn't my grandma's recipe but it's pretty close including the advice to double roll the cookies in cinnamon-sugar. 
  
  
  
  
• Sugar Cookies: this is a good recipe for sugar cookies that roll out well for cutting out. 
  
  
  
  
• Peppernuts (Pfeffernusse): these are small round hard cookies that are spiced with a variety of spices and are German in origin, which is where my grandmother who was Dutch Mennonite, learned the recipe. 
  
  
  
  
• Apple Pie: this is the recipe from Binging with Babish and it's the easiest pie crust I've ever made. It always turns out perfect. 
  
  
  
  
• Tennessee Whiskey Pecan Pie: this is my dad's favorite pecan pie that I make for him for holidays, the whiskey really cuts through the pie's sweetness. 
  
  
  
• Pumpkin Sugar Cookies: these are served with a cream cheese icing and were a hit at Halloween. 
  
  
  
  

I cheat when it comes to muffins and scones most of the time and use a mix. For muffins I really like the Krusteaz Mix, especially the wild blueberry and the cranberry orange ones. The Krusteaz mixes contain the fruit in a can instead of dehydrated bits. You can buy the mix at pretty much any grocery store. 

For scones I really like the Sticky Fingers mix that you can find at Target and World Marked. We have liked all the varieties we've tried, both sweet and savory. In fact we're planning on having some on hand for Christmas morning and we have a gingerbread one on hand just for that occasion. 

So I hope that once again this post gave you inspiration for holiday baking, both complicated and easy and thoughts for your own baking traditions. 

Happy Reading!

Richelle