Holiday Baking Ideas For A Festive Christmas
Nothing signals the start of the Christmas season like the smell of fresh baked cookies, pies, and holiday cakes. Almost every family that celebrates Christmas has their own favorite holiday baking tradition. For some families it might be making pecan pies, and for others it might be frosting gingerbread or mixing up some fudge. Whatever it is that your family craves during the holidays, it’s likely that Christmas just wouldn’t seem like Christmas without it.
Traditional Cookies
In my family, cooking has always been a major part of the holiday season. My mother has made the same Christmas cookies every year for as long as I can remember. When we were younger, my siblings and I would sneak bites of dough or make a mess in the kitchen trying to help our mom pour in the flour and sugar. Now that we are all adults, we are slightly more helpful with the holiday baking, even if we do still sneak a little of our mom’s dough now and then.
Baking Childhood Memories
During the Christmas season, the women in my family always make peppermint candy-cane cookies, gingerbread, and pecan sandies. Sometimes we add sugar cookies or some kind of chocolate variety to the mix, but those three types of cookies have been the staple of our holiday baking tradition for as long as I can remember.
Peppermint candy cane cookies were a childhood favorite of mine, and every time I smell them baking in the oven, I am brought back to the magical Christmases of my youth when I would bake these delicious cookies with my mother. My favorite part was dyeing half of the dough red and then twisting the red and white dough together to make the shape of a candy cane.
When I was younger, I thought that these homemade candy canes were just about the most amazing thing on the planet, and I loved to help make them. I didn’t feel like it was truly Christmas until we were crushing up peppermints to sprinkle on these delicious treats. Gingerbread men were of course fun to decorate, and pecan sandies were delicious, but neither could compare to my magical candy cane cookies.
Sweet Gifts
