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Holiday Baking: what to make?

mary kate

mary kate

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I love baking for the holidays, but this year I want to cut back. If I make too many different things, some of it just sits there uneaten over the holiday season, and then I have to reluctantly throw out half a tin of rock-hard cookies and a pan of stale brownies in early January! And with inflation, and the higher cost of butter, eggs, and so on, I don’t want to be throwing out food in early January…

So I’ve been thinking about my must-makes when it comes to holiday baking. And I think I have two, both of which are super-easy to make: 1). peanut butter blossoms (peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses in the middle = my son’s fav!); and 2). Magic bars (aka 7-layer bars, aka Hello Dolly bars). I think I might do one more thing. Gingerbread cookies? Shortbread? Still haven’t decided.

What about you? Are you cutting back or going all-out? What’s on your must-make holiday baking list?
 
My must-make is snickerdoodles for Santa. Or sugar cookies. Or rice crispy treats. I don’t do a lot of baking so I never go all-out.
 
I don't ever have to do any baking for the holidays because my MIL makes so much stuff and brings it all to our house. :giggle I do the cooking, she does the baking. :agree I love her fudge and the mini banana bread loaves that she brings. I have a recipe for mint brownies that are super yummy too though.

ETA: oh! and my all time favorite are frosted sugar cookies. SO yummy, but also way too much work.
 
We are baking this year. Baking is my stress relief. So, I send extra over to the neighbors. That's if my household, and munchkin's friends don't eat it all.
On my list: homemade caramels - my favorite. Frosted Sugar Cookies - Munchkin's favorite. Snickerdoodles - a secondary favorite. Nick likes all cookies, but has requested peanut brittle this year. Should be interesting. I've considered Almond Roca if I can find almonds at an okay price.
I'll probably end up making something else more chocolately, but not sure what yet. I don't like to make fudge. I'd rather buy it from the good candy shops since it's so rich! No one can get through it before it gets hard.
 
I will probably only do our dessert for Christmas- sticky toffee pudding and may make shortbread. I used to make lots of cookies over the years, but not any more!
 
Karen said:
frosted sugar cookies. SO yummy, but also way too much work.
Click to expand...

Yes! I remember trying to reproduce something I saw in a Christmas-themed magazine...I had four bowls of different coloured frosting, and then several icing bags (one for each shade), and it was just such a huge mess!
 
I love baking, for me is a kind of therapy, and Holiday Baking is one of my faves, I love all the smells, the gingerbread cookies, but my favorite is a typical cake that Finns do,
bc8b7698db10057dd0930b2f6e4551b6.jpg

here the recipe in english, if someone would like to give it a try.
https://www.food.com/recipe/finnish-date-cake-taatelikakku-196321
 
I'm planning to try something new this year, and I am HOPING it turns out at least decent. I LOVE white cake Little Debbie Christmas tree cakes, but I have only found 1 box of the chocolate cakes so far. They are seriously like a mythical unicorn that doesn't actually exist... or may loch ness with a few rare sightings. So I found a recipe to make our own Christmas tree cakes... I'm hoping they at least don't suck! (Trying to keep the expectations low and realistic!! LOL)
 
My hubs makes jam-jams (his mom's recipe from when he was a kid). I make rice krispie squares (another fave of my hubs), keto brownies (for my daughter and I) and at least one or two cookie recipes, usually chocolate chip and a snickerdoodle type but I think this year I will make a keto almond butter/choc cookie and something else. This year is all about changing things up for us.
 
I don't really do any baking, but there are a couple of things I do make every year for treats...
Puppy Chow (aka Muddy Buddies) and Cinnamon & Sugar Roasted Pecans

I am baking 6 loaves of Amish Friendship Bread in different flavors this weekend and plan to freeze some of them for gifts.
 
I think I won’t be baking this year other than for the actual holiday meals. For health reasons, I’ve recently worked hard to take off the 10 pounds I put on thanks to COVID and hubby’s doc told him to lose weight so I don’t want a lot of sweets around to nosh on. Sigh.
 
well, today we tried two new treats... the first is called Graham Cracker Crack (basically graham crackers, toffee, and chocolate), and the second is like homemade 3 Musketeers bites. I think BOTH have turned out fairly well and may be keepers!
 
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