I'm not entirely sure when I started doing it, but every year at Christmas I end up making a truly ridiculous number of various and sundry baked treats. There are some that always make the cut, and then there are the always-rotating varieties. This year I ended up with six kinds of cookies, one kind of truffles, one kind of bread, two kinds of spiced nuts, and of course my Grandma Brown's Gingerbread.
I got lucky this year and had the whole week off work. Usually I have to try to schedule my baking between long shifts, but this time I could spread it out over several days with my only time constraint being it had to be completed some time between when I got home from work Sunday night and I went back Friday evening. Total win!
Some of these pictures are going to be from previous years, because a few of these things I always make and one can only have so many pictures of baked goods. Of course, as I keep getting better and better cameras I'll take more pictures, but for now I'll stick with what I have and edit them.
The picture you see above is my dining room table (and the window sill above it) full of everything I made this year. On the window sill are two loaves of Cherry Pie Filling Bread, as well as batches of Mississippi Spiced Pecans and Five-Spice Pistachios. The back row is a double batch of Chocolate-Mint Snow-Top Cookies, a 9x13-inch pan of Grandma Brown's Gingerbread, a double batch of Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies (which are written as lemon, but I diversify), and a double batch of White Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cookies. Middle row is a batch of Soft Molasses Spice Cookies, a double batch of Reese's Nutter Butter Cookie Truffles, a double batch of Cashew Cookies, and a triple batch of Cream Cheese Walnut Drop Cookies. And in front is another three batches of Grandma Brown's Gingerbread, plated to give as gifts.
DAY ONE
Technically, this was two days as I made the nuts on Monday and the rest of this on Tuesday, but it seemed silly to separate them out just for some nuts.
These are Mississippi Spiced Pecans from Recipe.com (credited to EatingWell), and they're wonderful! I got really, really lucky this year with the weather staying warm and could use fresh rosemary and thyme from my garden even though I've neglected it for a couple of months. These were almost too easy to make, and almost too tasty once they were done. I started with roasted and salted pecans so I skipped the salt, but otherwise I made them exactly as the source recipe is written.
Hello, Five-Spice Pistachios, and thank you EatingWell.com for posting this recipe! A long time ago I needed some Chinese Five-Spice Powder for something, but it turned out we weren't really fans of the flavour. It's been in the cupboard ever since, because I paid a stupid amount of money for it and I refuse to throw things away. Then I found this recipe, and to be honest my first thought was if I still hated it, at least I could bring it to parties and/or work, and other people would eat them.
The pleasant surprise was, combined with the flavour of pistachios, I actually kind of like it! Or it's been in the cupboard long enough it got weak. Either way, these were very tasty! I could only find roasted and salted pistachios, so again I skipped the salt but otherwise made them as written. If you're going to make these, I highly recommend springing the extra money for already shelled pistachios. I spent a good two hours in front of my TV with two bowls shelling three pounds to get the required six cups of nuts.
These White Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cookies from Cookiemama at Recipezazz.com became a must-have on my holiday trays the first time I made them. They're soft, they're sweet (but not too sweet), they've got pecans (or not, your choice), and they're easy to make. What's not to love? I always double the batch, and I think I must make mine a bit smaller than the recipe calls for because I always end up with way more than 48 cookies.
If you're interested in these in-depth, here's the blog post I wrote on them last year.
Grandma Brown's Gingerbread absolutely says Christmas to me. You can read the linked blog post to get the full story, but I found the recipe quite by accident a few years ago and have been making it for my family (and an ever-expanding group of friends) ever since. Grandma Brown was my dad's grandmother, and she passed away before I was born, but I like to think there's a part of her aware I'm carrying on her baking. The 9x13-inch pan was made so I could make a Ginger Trifle for a family party, while the two 9-inch square pans were made so I could cut them and add them to trays.
The original Soft Molasses Spice Cookies recipe, according to Rinder over at Food.com, was from a Robin Hood cookbook. As written, it calls for rolling out the dough and cutting out gingerbread men shapes. Ain't nobody got time for that! Well, I don't, anyway. Instead, I roll the dough into 1-inch balls, roll the balls in granulated sugar, and bake them. They turn out as almost perfectly round, beautifully cracked and sparkling cookies that are soft with a crisp outside edge and remain that way for up to two weeks when stored properly in an airtight container.
Again, last year I wrote a blog post on these if you're interested in the details.
And then we have the Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies. These were originally posted at Food.com by Podapo as Lemon Cream Cheese Cookies. I have made the original lemon more than once as they're fabulous, but I've also used chocolate and now strawberry cake mix instead. Really, with the simplicity of the recipe, any flavour cake mix that floats your boat would be amazing. These don't always make my trays each year, but they do more often than not.
Thus ends the first day, with me in the recliner with my feet up and a giant glass of wine by my side. ☺
DAY TWO
The Cream Cheese Walnut Drop Cookies were originally posted at Food.com by *Parsley*, but I had to make some changes so they'd work. Not major changes, just to leave them on the cookie sheets for a couple of minutes before moving them to cooling racks (they fall apart otherwise). For details, see my blog post on last year's batch. Or batches. I always triple these because they're my favourite.
Oh, the Cashew Cookies. I have to admit I was less than impressed when I first made them, and as I sat there looking at a double batch that used a LOT of cashews (read: expensive) I kind of wanted to cry. But, live and learn, right? If you're going to cook, you're going to have recipes that just don't work out for you.
Turns out if you wait a few days, these just get better! I made them on Tuesday, and by Sunday they were in my top five. So if you're going to make them, I highly recommend doing it several days before you want to actually eat them. It's not that they're bad when they're fresh, they're just...meh. You know? Also, 8-9 minutes is better than the 10-15 in the recipe. I checked my first batch at 10 minutes, thank goodness! They were a little burned on the bottom. I also didn't get as many cookies as I was expecting; doubling the batch got me 90.
I thank Mikekey at Recipezazz.com for posting these, and while they probably won't make the trays every year they didn't end up in the circular file, either.
These Chocolate-Mint Snow-Top Cookies came from Recipe.com, which credits Better Homes and Gardens. All I know is they're amazing! Because really, how do you go wrong with double chocolate cookies rolled in confectioners' sugar and baked? Answer is, of course, you don't. Unless you're one of those freaks of nature who doesn't like chocolate. And if you're not a fan of mint, either use another extract or leave it out entirely. Whatever floats your boat! I already have a mental note to try cherry, almond, and coconut.
Other than doubling the batch and using a bit more chocolate chips than it says so I didn't have to deal with a partial bag being left, I followed this exactly as written. However, it claims a single batch is 54 cookies, and doubling it I only got 72. I may have made them slightly bigger, but not that much, as the finished cookies were maybe two inches across.
The last thing I did on Tuesday was the Cherry Pie Filling Bread. I always make this, sometimes at other times of year than Christmas as well. Once I made it using blueberry pie filling and walnuts instead of cherry pie filling and pecans, and it was pretty good. Not as good, but still pretty good. I usually slice it in half lengthwise and then into slices to put it on my trays. I have occasionally sprinkled the top with confectioners' sugar after baking, or poured a glaze over it. Doesn't really need it, but looks pretty and tastes fantastic! Each batch makes two loaves of bread.
DAY THREE
Technically, there's a little white lie in the picture here, too. I made the truffles the night before and "just" dipped them in chocolate on this day. Whatever... they were done on the third day so that's when I counted them.
Speaking of the truffles, these are Reese's Nutter Butter Cookie Truffles from Six Sisters' Stuff, and they are some kind of tasty! In fact, I brought some to the bar one night and a friend immediately took the container and kept it near him like you would a small child, and only very grudgingly let anyone else have one.
I made them almost exactly as written, except I doubled the batch and there was no "stirring" to be had when I got to adding the peanut butter cups. Instead, I kneaded them in with my hands. I got right around 95 truffles, and used not quite two 12-ounce bags of chocolate chips to coat them. That was the other thing! Since I was making so many, I melted the chocolate in a double boiler instead of in the microwave, and thank goodness I did! It still thickened quite quickly because the truffles were frozen, with only the first 5-6 being actually dipped. The rest I sort of rolled in chocolate. The plastic fork trick was amazing, though!
Everything else on the table from this day is either not worth posting or already has been. I made the two additional batches of gingerbread for gift-giving (I really need to buy a fourth round cake pan), and then I made a couple of boxes of Jiffy cornbread for a Corn Bread Salad to take to a family party. Probably I should have made my own, but I was tired and the recipe said Jiffy, so was I to argue? You know I never change a recipe from how it's written! ;)
Oh yeah, I knew I was going to add another thing! When I went to make the White Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Cookies, I discovered my little jar of pumpkin pie spice was almost empty. No big deal! It is astonishing to me how much they want you to pay for a jar of pumpkin pie spice at the store! Last time I looked, you got about a quarter-ounce for about five bucks. That's nonsense!
As you can see, I'm really, really picky about buying the best brands of spices... or something. Two of those are store brand, one came from Dollar Tree, and the other came from Aldi. Whatever. Fact remains I can make my own pumpkin pie spice in about two minutes using things I already own that collectively cost less than a jar of pumpkin pie spice from the store.
4 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon nutmeg
And you're done. It makes about 1/4 cup, which I keep in the small glass jar I originally bought full of pimientos. Why pay for the premixed stuff when you can make your own? Seems silly to me.
Thus the Great Holiday Baking Extravaganza of 2015 comes to a close. An interesting thing happened this year! I had two different people approach me about buying an assorted box of baked goods from me. Neither of them seemed picky about what was in it, so while it didn't work out this year since none of us had enough warning, next year it could very well happen! I usually give away a great number of trays and/or boxes anyway, but it would be neat if I could recoup some of the expense for something I'm going to do anyway. I've made a mental note to talk to them when I start figuring out what I want to make next year.
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