Holiday Baking
 

I am starting my list of things to bake for the holiday.
What does everyone make? I need ideas....

My new item for the yearly list is vodka chocolate covered cherries. Regular homemade chocolate covered cherries, but I pour the cherry juice out of the jar and refill it with vodka and let it sit for a week. Then make them like normal.

Regular items include:
spritz cookies-- white wreaths with candy cherries and green xmas tress.
sugar cookies with a hersey kiss
peppermint bark
chocolate chip cookies
haystacks
peanut butter cookies
sugar cookies with colored sugar

I know there are other things I normally bake- I just cant remember what those are... please give me some ideas

I just make these:

White Lace Inn Oatmeal Choc-Heath Bar Cookies

Ingredients:
2 c. Butter
2 c. White Sugar
2 c. Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
3 Tsp. Vanilla
4 1/2 c. Flour
2 Tsp. Baking Powder
2 Tsp. Baking Soda
7 c. Quaker Oats Old Fashioned Oatmeal [I use a bit less.]
1 7 oz. Hershey Milk Chocolate Candy Bar, chopped into large pieces
6 Heath Candy Bars, chopped [I use a bit more.]
1 c. Nuts, optional [I use walnuts.]

Directions:
Cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Set aside. Mix together flour, baking powder, baking soda. Fold this into butter mixture. Add to this the oatmeal, candy bars, and nuts (if using nuts).

Make large cookies and bake in a preheated 375° oven for 8-10 minutes (note: it is best to underbake a little). Also, you can use 1/2 butter/1/2 margarine. Makes 4 doz. large cookies.

One year I made "Ebony and Ivory Chocolate Truffles". But I think we'll be making sugar cookies (decorate your own) and peppermint bark this year. I don't know.

I usually make cappucino chocolate chip cookies for parties and such. I'll see what inspires me this year.

My family doesn't really bake too often nowadays, but back when I was growing up, my father's family loved to make those things called 'Hello Dollies". I'm not sure if it's a family reciepe or not, but it was basically like a layered bar with graham crust, chocolate chips, coconut shavings, and some kinda caramel or something to layer each other up and bond. It was delicious, and if you ate too many, you'd get stick. =)

I am known for my Bacardi Rum cakes and my Chocolate pecan pies :D

Well, I'm not allowed anywhere near the kitchen. But my mom makes Pumpkin Rolls that are really popular with those who like them. That, and candy glass. When my dad taught in a middle school for 3 years she made them each year for his homeroom. Making candy glass is.a.big.stucky.mess. I honestly can't eat it anymore.

I try to make

frosted sugar cookies
peanut clusters
almond bark cookies
almond poppyseed bread
buckeyes

This year I'm also attempting gingerbread men

OMG, I love those or something similar to those. My family referred them as "Chippy Dippy Bars," though I think everyone else calls them "Hello Dollies" We always put butterscotch chips in them too, in addition to the chocolate chips. We used sweetened condensed milk instead of caramel to adhere everything together. Eagle Foods actually has a 'kit' nowadays that has all the ingredients in a box in case you don't want to buy it all seperately. And now I'm craving some of those.

As far as baking, I'm planning on making some fudge this week and maybe some peanut butter balls (aka buckeyes). I also volunteered to make a huge decorated cookie for work in a jelly roll pan to give to another department, similar to what you'd get at your local cookie store. I'm attempting to recall my skills from a college job where I worked in a cookie shop and used to make those regularly.

Every year I bake at least one pumpkin pie (not from scratch- I do buy the pumpkin in a can). This year I already have made two- one for the young adult ministry Thanksgiving dinner and one for a colleague's farewell. And I'm making another one next week for my job's Christmas party.

Southern Cornbread Dressing:

1. Make basic cornbread:

4 tablespoons shortening (or bacon drippings, lard, or butter)
1 1/2 cups white self-rising cornmeal*
1/2 cup self-rising cornmeal
2 eggs
1/2-3/4 cup buttermilk, or regular milk
Preheat the oven to 425°.

Put 3 T of the shortening in a cast-iron skillet (Or baking pan) and place on medium heat or in the oven. Melt the other T of shortening. Combine the shortening, cornmeal and flour, then mix in the egg and milk. Add milk slowly, until the mixture is pourable (like thick pancake batter). Add additional milk, if needed. Take pan out of oven. Immediately pour the batter into the hot pan. Place back in the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the outer crust is golden brown.

2) Immediately crumble cornbread into a large bowl.

3) Add:

1 can of cream of chicken soup
1/2 c of cream of celery soup
1/2 of chopped onion
Sage and black pepper to taste
Turkey or chicken broth (You'll need about 1 c)

Mix all of these together until you get a moist mix. Make sure that you have added enough water. Mix should be moist and pourable, but just barely pourable. Add extra broth if needed.

Pour into casserole dish and cook at 375 for 45-55 minutes or until sides are crispy and top has golden brown color.

I MISS DO-BIZ!! :(

Awww, I love buckeyes! My supervisor back when I was an RA used to make buckeyes for us from time to time.

When I go to Florida next week, I am making gingerbread men with my crazy-ass niece and nephew. I am getting boy and girl cookie cutters. I hope they like it!

OK, I need some holiday cookie-baking advice...I want to make gingerbread cookies, but I want them to come out chewy. This is apparently very hard to do. My grandmother's gingerbread men were always hard as rocks, and my mom doesn't like to make gingerbread because she thinks it never comes out right (even though she makes great desserts!). I know I'm probably biting off more than I can chew, but I'm going to a Christmas party and I was asked to bring Christmas cookies. Any advice on how to make these things so they don't break your teeth?

Sugar cookies (made today, will frost tomorrow night)
Spritz cookies
peanut butter/hershey kiss cookies
lemon bars
buckeyes
a cookie we call "Mary Lou's cookies" because a neighbor (Mary Lou)of my mom's gave us the recipe and it had no name, but it's a layer of pastry, then a layer of chocolate chips, then a layer of walnuts/eggs/sugar stuff, baked in layers
Pistachio coffee cake
"grandpa's" fudge (which we found out recently was simply the Hershey's cocoa fudge from the old cocoa tins.. after thinking it was some secret family recipe for decades!)

I'm making a cheesecake for our work holiday potluck dessert contest.
I have to make a dessert for an alumnae club meeting and a dessert for my daughter's Girl Scout progressive party. Haven't figured out WHAT I'm making for either of those yet... I have a lot to do, and not a lot of time left here! I'm way behind with the baking this year!

I've never heard of those bars with the name "Hello Dollies", we call them Magic Cookie Bars, and the recipie came off of an Eagle brand canned milk label. I've also heard of them as 7 layer bars.

My sister and I make stained class cookies, which are sugar cookies with open areas broken up hard candy is put into, and then it melts and cools flat. We also make rosettes, which are deep fried and covered in powdered sugar (yum!).

For the work party next week I am making a cranberry cherry pie instead of my usual trite yet tasty jello salad.

Hey, gimme that recipe.

It requires a special rosette iron (with different shapes). I'll find one online and send you a link to it. They keep really well too, so you can make them days ahead of time or mail them to people.

ETA: I found that they have expanded the kinds of irons one can get, and includes all kinds of holidays. There isn't a crown for Zeta, or a squirrel for Alpha Gam, but you can get bunnies and eggs for Halloween, and spiders and bats for Halloween. There is also a Texas shaped one, wtf.

these are the easiest cookies to make ever: (i don't know what they're called... but they're good!)

1 box of cake mix - whatever flavor you like, i prefer lemon or strawberry
1 tub of cool whip
powdered sugar

mix the cake mix and cool whip together, make into balls and roll in powdered sugar. bake for 10-15 minutes (depends on your oven) at 350...

the balls will flatten a little and the cookie will peek through the powdered sugar, giving it a cracked look.

they're a lil gooey and absolutely delicious!

Man that sounds good!! I will have to try that with the strawberry cake!

I posted this in the other thread, but for all you bakers with not enough time - I found Pillsbury Sugar Cookie SHEETS at my Sam's Club. They have 3 packages inside - each with 2 sheets. They are small & rectangular - the same size as the package. I made the Pampered Chef Apple Taffy Pizza for an event, and you start with a cookie cake base. Usually you have to make the dough, roll it out - all that stuff - but this was simple. I put two side by side on my small baking sheet, pressed them together down the middle and popped it in the oven for about 12 minutes - perfect! No muss no fuss. They are made so that you can use your own cutter & depending on the size, they make about 12 cookies per sheet. Plus, they come with packs of red & green frosting if you want really super simple.

These sound awesome!

I won't do any baking until the 20th, when my holiday break starts (yay for a 12 day closing!). I always have to make:
Amish sugar cookies (soft w/ a cake-like texture...to die for)
Pumpkin bread
Cranberry bread
Fudge
Pumpkin pie
Sweet potato pie
Booty cake (What my daughter calls it...Actually "Better than sex" cake ;))

I'd love to have that link, too, if you don't mind. I used to make those years ago (for the Nationality Rooms), but would love to have my own rosette iron (and the recipe)!

I'm making:
Lemon Squares
Rum Balls
Kahlau Balls
Thumbprint cookies with jam
Some cookie cutter cookies
Black tie cookies
Tea Cookies
plus, one recipe I've never tried before.

I have a friend who makes chruscki (an awesome Polish cookie, also known as Angel Wings), and she'll make us 4 dozen for 4 dozen of my brownies!

I'm looking at these lists and wondering how long it's going to be before we see a recruitment thread with Christmas cookie types as the code names... :p

I don't do a whole lot of baking. I usually just make an apple pie for Thanksgiving, and that's about it. This year, I didn't make the pie for Thanksgiving, so I might make one for the December holidays.

I'm really surprised that we haven't had one with condom brands as code names yet. I really liked Trojan's skit. It showed what their sisterhood is all about.

I'm gonna go make these right now. I feel very domestic today...doing my boyf's laundry, making cookies...

This thread is making me crave buckeyes!

Here's a great recipe that I got from Southern Living. Everyone at the annual Kappa cookie swap loved them:

Flourless Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies

Prep: 10 min., Bake: 12 min., Cool: 5 min.

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 cup chunky peanut butter
1 large egg
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk chocolate morsels

1. Stir together first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl, using a wooden spoon. Stir in chocolate morsels.
2. Drop cookie dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

3. Bake at 350° for 12 minutes or until puffed and golden. (Cookies will be soft in the center.) Cool cookies on baking sheet 5 minutes. Remove to a wire rack.

Yield: Makes 1 1/2 dozen

I'm an idiot and misread the recipe for the gingerbread men and had to make a double batch. I now have a veritable army of little brown cookies mobilized in my kitchen.

As far as keeping gingerbread men soft, you can either try and underbake them slightly (go about a minute under the lowest recommended baking time -- they'll still continue to bake after you take them out) or put them in a container with a slice of bread. The cookies absorb the moisture from the bread and it keeps them soft. (you can also do the same with brown sugar).

Or you can withold their ginger viagra....



(ok, I'm in a silly mood...I admit it)

Haha alphafrog, your hormones are making you say funny things...or something. I LOL'd pretty hard at that.

I'm about to go make the cake/cool whip cookies, I picked up chocolate and strawberry cake mixes. Hooray for simple cookies.
I'll take pics and post them so you can see how great they look and how awesome sapphiresphinx9 is for the recipe.

Making them tonight when I get home.

I love these! I've always made them with strawberry cake mix, but I bet the lemon ones are amazing, too.

Wanting to go to a cookie exchange in the worst way after reading this thread! :) My friend, Gina, and her three sisters-in-law used to get together and bake one entire day. They used to make twenty different varieties of cookies. That was a definite perk of being her friend - I could always count on getting a package of assorted homemade cookies. My favorites were her rumballs!

Oh yea, and one of my coworkers' wives brought in a huge plateful of assorted cookies today, so that's been my breakfast, lunch and snacks.

I just made them and holy hell...what a mess. My tips-let the cool whip come up to room temperature, add a little bit of oil to the mix and use a spoon to drop the mixture into the powdered sugar and then roll it around with your hands. I ruined the strawberry ones but the chocolate ones should come out nicely.

Oh, they're supposed to be gooey and look like they didn't set, right? So hard trying to use a recipe from teh intarwebs...

Possibly this spring, but even odds for next fall! :D

Heaven willing, I'll be baking cookies this weekend. On the menu are peanut butter kiss cookies, toll house cookies, and chocolate and butterscotch chip cookies (take the good old toll house recipe and use 1/2 semi-sweet and 1/2 butterscotch). Will also make mini-banana breads, some with and some without chocolate chips (but no nuts). If I get motivated may also make some m & m brownies, but the boys ate all of the m & m's this weekend!

So far this year I'm making truffles (milk chocolate and vanilla cream) and cookies but I'm not sure what kind yet.....I'm waiting to see how some of your cool whip/cake mix cookies turn out and may do that one since it's so easy!

Recipe? I'm still looking for an awesome sugar cookie recipe, I have other great ones for seemingly every other type of cookie imaginable, but all the sugar cookie ones I try turn out flat and crunchy. Boo. :(

I think that the recipe said gooey... but how did you ruin a batch? I'm the type who will mess things up so better to know ahead of time...

Me too, I picked up a tube at Hy-Vee when I was back in Iowa in October and made some Garbage Greats for the family. And in regard to my cookie decorating skills, I apparently should have practiced more, the first try was a disaster. Hopefully round two tonight comes out better.

And I agree with whoever said that reading this thread makes you want to do a cookie exchange in the worst way.

yes, they look like they're not "done" & they come out a lil gooey.

sorry that i didn't warn about the messy aspect!!!!

how did the strawberry ones get ruined??

For Kiki
 

2 eggs
1 1/2 C. sugar
1 C. butter
1 C. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
4 C. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cream of tartar
2 scarce tsp. baking soda

Pre-heat oven to 350. Beat eggs 1 minute. Add sugar and butter to eggs and beat 1 minute. Add vanilla and milk, beat until mixed. Mix all dry ingredients together and add gradually to liquids while mixing. Spoon by teaspoons onto baking sheet. Bake at 10-15 minutes or until golden brown. If desired, frost when cooled.