Holiday Baking

How can you not like this cake?

What is your absolute favorite thing to bake during the coming holidays? Got ideas in mind? Is a Pumpkin Pie or a batch of sugar cookies amongst them? Well when I think of my holiday baking I do with my family Pumpkin Pie is one of the top five and my version of sugar cookies is also there. My favorite by far is German Chocolate Cake. Some of you may have no idea what this cake is; well let me tell you that you should. Here is the recipe for this sumptuous cake.  Then there is Pumpkin Pie as I said and Red Velvet Cake. Then I have sugar cookies. Not just any sugar cookies but citrus sugar cookies with a homemade butter cream frosting. It is to die for. I cannot give you a recipe for I do not have one. My mom found the recipe out of a newspaper article and we decided to try the amazing treat. They are something I make whenever I need to bring food to a party or for my friends.

How this next thing is something that you can have during your thanksgiving dinner with the turkey or next to the ham at Christmas dinner or for desert at either of the two. It is called Sweet Potato Casserole. Smothered with marshmallows and sweeter than some of the things that we put out that are our actual deserts, my dad and brother will have this for dinner and dessert if they have their way.

My baking list for the holidays:

1. German Chocolate Cake
2. Pumpkin Pie
3. Red Velvet Cake
4. Citrus Sugar Cookies
5. Sweet Potato Casserole
6. Almond Crescents
7. Pizzelle
8. Raisin Puffs

The few last ones there you are probably wondering what they are, almond crescents are a cookie I make with my Nana every year that my uncle and I fight over. They are almond extract infused with slivers of almonds within sugar cookie dough; they are cooked for longer so they are harder and then once they are out of the over are covered with powder sugar. A pizzele is an Italian waffle cookie, very thin, buttery with anise infused and also covered with powder sugar. And raisin puffs are a raisin cookie, which are fluffy and are a mixture of allspice and cinnamon. These three are all childhood cookies that I make every year with my Nana and only her. The only reason she still makes Pizzeles is because I ask for them every single year.

I wanted to talk to someone who has had many, many more years of baking than I have, my Nana. The person who has taught me how to make many of those deserts and the other half she taught her daughter, my mother, who then taught me. Since I can remember I have been in the kitchen cooking or baking with one of those women, they are some of my greatest memories. When I was speaking to my Nana I asked if she could tell me something that not many people know about baking and she said “If you are making cookies and it calls for both brown sugar and granulated sugar, use all brown sugar. The sugar will be the same measurements just all brown sugar. If there is 1 1/2 cups of brown sugar and 1 cup of granulated sugar it will be 2 1/2 cups of brown sugar. This makes the cookies chewier This can only be done if the recipe asks for BOTH sugars though.” This is a very useful piece of information I think because people always wanted chewier cookies from what I have seen since I have been baking. Next time I bake cookies I will use this. In the recipe I use for Chocolate Chip cookies it calls for both sugars so I will try it for those. Will you try this?

What do you do during the holiday? What is your favorite thing to bake or your family tradition for baking? Let me know below!

PIE

Who doesn’t love Pie? Apple, peach, blueberry, custard, pecan, pumpkin, they all sound so good. A lot of people bake pies around this time of the year, Thanksgiving is right around the corner and it is starting to get nippy out. A lot of blog posts are dedicated to this some subject of pies. And times like these I am just like everyone else.

I have found two blog posts that are dedicated to the thing that I cannot wait to eat this season, pies. Click here for one that is strictly all about apple pies and here for apple cranberry ginger pie. Both sound amazing.

I think my favorite pie around this season is my mom’s apple crumb pie. It is filled with crunch, soft, sweet Macintosh apples and a crumb top that when you take it out of the oven it is crispy and crunchy and yummy.

Photo taken from
lovefoodlovefitnesslovelife.wordpress.com/

These blogs both have apple in the pies that they discuss. One is strictly apple while the other has cranberry and ginger mixed in, doesn’t that sound delicious? The straight apple pie is a mini pie recipe. They are simple and elegant and I wish I could eat them right off the screen they look so good. There are only 9 recipes for this recipe, how easy could that be? They cook for about 30-40 minutes then you can eat the delicious mini apple pies right up.

The other post has a pie that I would have never thought mixing the ingredients. Apple, cranberry, ginger. It seems like a very fall pie to me, I mean apples AND cranberry’s, if that doesn’t scream fall I do not know what does. This recipe had 14 ingredients which is more than the other, but I bet it is quite worth it. These pies also only have to bake for 20-30 minutes which means the faster you can eat them!

The amount of pies I make a year or at least the time that I am home from college is a little insane. I bake in general but there is just something about a pie. I especially love the nights my mom makes spaghetti and a home-made sauce and then a warm pie for dessert. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Go check out the full recipes of those pies and tell me what you thought about them.

Everyone has a favorite pie, what is yours?

Comment below to tell me!