Podcast S1E5: Holiday Baking

Listen on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube.

Current Projects

Theresa: Cross Stitch Advent Calendar DMC

Cecelia: Finishing up coworkers gifts, homemade vanilla extract!

Fun Question: From childhood, what is one baked good that defines a specific holiday?

Cecelia: Individual birthday desserts. Brother: eclair-ring, Theresa: lemon bundt cake, Cecelia: Brownies, Mom: Cookies.

Theresa: Loved how our mom would make fun birthday cakes for our friend parties. We had homemade 90’s birthday parties. Used Twinkies to make each of my friends as a person sleeping on a sheet cake bed for my first sleepover party. Also made a sunshine cake where each friend got to decorate a ray of the sun.

Holiday Baking

• Why do we think it’s so important?
• Great way to share holiday cheer
  • Best approach is to give during the month of December. Sometimes people have too many sweets by the time Christmas actually hits, but a cookie on December 15th is always appreciated
• Love that there are different ways to manage baking for the holiday season
  • Like to bake a few cookies every weekend and freeze them during December.
  • Or you could do a marathon baking day.
• SHARING holiday baking can be a tradition or EVENT
  • Theresa’s moms group has a cookie exchange every year
  • Cecelia’s friend Maddie is also a baker. The season is filled with baking every time we hangout. Like to bring pre-made dough over and bake it when they hang out.
• TIPS:
  • Make a master holiday baking list and combine all of the recipes into one place. (Easy to reference back to in the future!)
  • Make a Google Doc with a shopping list and any tips for cooking or timing. Love to pair making a no bake (buckeyes) on a day with more heavy oven use (cookies).
  • Make notes of what freezes well.

Cookies

• Family favorites
  • Secret Kiss
  • Buckeyes
    • Traditional and squished between pretzels
    • Easy to make vegan!
  • Spritz
    • Cookie gun with fun shapes
  • Peanut Butter Blossom
    • Easy fan favorite 
  • Shortbreads
    • Our grandparents always brought
    • I would love to get a shortbread mold
  • Grapefruit Sugar Cookies
    • From Bon Appetite, short bread cookies that are just a soft circle, like grocery store ones, with a pink grapefruit icing. Adds a little interest if the rest of the cookies are mainly chocolate or sugar based.
  • Sugar Cookies
• What have significant others brought into the mix?
  • Theresa – sour cream molasses cookies
  • Cecelia – chocolate covered pretzels

Other Sweets

• Eclair Ring (a similar recipe to ours!)
• Cinnamon Rolls
• Hot Cross Buns
• Panetonne

Not Sweet Baking

• Because sometimes it’s just too many sweets
• Not sweet – but ham egg and cheese bake every morning on christmas
• BREAD
  • Lemon Quick Bread
  • Like to share sourdough for friends and teachers – add christmas tree scoring
  •  Recently made Danish Breakfast Rolls, so good and easy, may make those for people.
  • Serve sourdough for Chrisrmas morning and we have leftovers with Christmas Dinner Soup
• Vanilla Extract
  • Cecelia made for gifts, need to start in July
• Simmer Pot
  • Not really baking but something is on the stove
• King Arthur Baking
  • Always have great blog recaps of great recipes and recipes to trust