Christmas cookies

Tasty Tuesday–Festive Feasts and Holiday Baking, 2023 Edition

It’s finally time for a look back at all of the Festive Feasts we enjoyed over the holiday season, and all the baking we did!

Let’s start with Thanksgiving, which was our traditional turkey dinner with the addition of some delicious roasted fennel this year:

And a record-tying nine pies!

Our next big holiday was Nikolaustag, and it’s become a tradition for us to enjoy Döner kebab on that day (or, as was the case this time, several days later, once Bunny got home from college). We also had a gingerbread-based dessert as has become our custom…this time, I made gingerbread bars with a cream cheese frosting that were amazing!

On Santa Lucia Day, we enjoyed lussekattes for breakfast, and potato pancakes with smoked salmon and Kielbasa for dinner (a day early), plus an cranberry-orange layer cake with rosemary for dessert:

On Christmas Eve, we had a peppermint chip cake after church:

And coffee cake for breakfast on Christmas morning:

On Christmas Day, we had the best dinner of the year, the “pick out dinner.”

And then things got kind of messed up because I hurt my back. We postponed the fancy Christmas dinner we were supposed to have on the 27th, but we did manage to have our annual hot chocolate bar on New Year’s Eve:

And I also postponed the (different) fancy dinner we were supposed to have on New Year’s Day, but I did manage to make a gingerbread layer cake with molasses mousse filling and cinnamon whipped cream frosting, garnished with sugared cranberries:

On Ryan’s birthday (which was also Epiphany), I finally made the tenderloin that was supposed to be the star of our fancy Christmas dinner, plus s’mores pie for dessert:

Yesterday, I finally got around to the turkey dinner we were supposed to have on New Year’s Day. We also tried a new recipe for replica Starbucks’ cranberry bliss bars for dessert. I haven’t had the original, but Bunny tells me these are even better, because they don’t have that mass-produced flavor!

Before my back injury, we spent a few days baking our favorite Christmas cookies (and I put together a Bunter Teller!):

And we did eventually get around to the sugar cookies (not the gingerbread, though…we just ran out of time, but at least we had lots of other gingerbread desserts!):

I made kinderpunsch, wassail several times (not pictured), and eggnog over the course of the holiday weeks:

And then there were lots of other festive treats spread through the holiday season, from the weekend before Thanksgiving when we made soft pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to the Valentine’s Day Funfetti Bunny made for us before she went back to school (and also my first attempt at Dampfnudeln, which were amazing!):

By my count, we ended up short one fancy meal, because normally the tenderloin wouldn’t have been available for Ryan’s birthday dinner. We were also short the gingerbread cookies and the cannoli that I had hoped to make for New Year’s Day, since I simply didn’t have the strength or energy to do much the whole week between Christmas and New Year’s. It certainly wasn’t my best effort at holiday food, but at least I hit all the highlights, right?

Tasty Tuesday–A Look Back at Festive Feasts and Holiday Baking

The holiday season is officially over, so let’s take a look back at all of the festive feasts and holiday baking we enjoyed, starting with Thanksgiving. I think the turkey turned out especially well this time around!

We had our “pick out dinner” on Christmas Day:

And our “fancy” Christmas dinner two days later. I never want to prepare a beef tenderloin any other way!

On New Year’s Eve, we had our traditional hot chocolate bar, but we made it fancy, with the addition of homemade hot chocolate bombs!

And on New Year’s Day, we had our traditional pork tenderloin, with an untraditional (for us) side of twice-baked potatoes:

On to the baking. Of course there were pies (seven!) for Thanksgiving:

We made five types of German Christmas cookies in Christmas School:

And another ten types of Christmas cookies besides!

There were eight different cakes throughout the season:

And some other various treats including Christmas cracker candy and lussekattes:

This was a fun and delicious season, but now the kitchen is closed!

Tasty Tuesday–Baking Day

If there’s any day that rivals Pie Day for making our house smell like a bakery, it’s my annual Christmas Baking Day.

Yes, I’ve already been doing some Christmas baking…German cookies for Christmas School, lussekattes for Santa Lucia Day, other various treats here and there. And we’re saving the gingerbread and sugar cookie baking for the week after Christmas. But there’s always one day prior to Christmas each year when I bake all my “fancy” Christmas cookies, and that’s what I did on Saturday…28 dozen of them!

I baked our old favorites (raspberry-almond thumbprints and chocolate peppermint). I made some newer favorites that will probably be old favorites in a few years (chocolate crinkles and linzer). I tried a few new recipes that looked interesting to me (meringue kisses and peppermint meltaways). And I tried to recreate an old, store-bought favorite with decent success (a duplicate of Keebler’s anise-flavored Jingles).

Yes, there was a point when I couldn’t find our kitchen under all the cookies. And yes, it feels like we’re living in a bakery. But I love organizing pretty plates of Christmas cookies, and sampling some along the way!

Tasty Tuesday–A Look Back at Festive Feasts and Holiday Baking

Can you stand one more look back at the holiday season? I hope so, because it’s time to wrap-up all of the festive feasts and baked goods I prepared from Thanksgiving through Epiphany!

Our Thanksgiving dinner was fairly standard, although I did make a second kind of stuffing, and instead of just roasted carrots, I made a blend of roasted winter vegetables (which did include carrots):

Our pick-out dinner is always my favorite meal of the year, and I thought it was extra special with the full charcuterie board I prepared:

Our fancy Christmas dinner (which we had on the Sunday after Christmas) featured beef Wellington:

Our New Year’s Eve hot chocolate bar looked a little different this year, but it was still delicious!

Pork tenderloin is becoming something of a tradition on New Year’s Day:

And finally, our most recent “festive feast,” Ryan’s birthday dinner last week:

I made ten pies over the holidays (with a lot of help from the girls):

We baked more cookies than I can count, including several new varieties, my favorite of which was the Linzer Augen:

“Only” six cakes this time around (do Yule logs count as cakes?):

And some other assorted treats, including my first attempt at cannoli and gingerbread Oreo truffles:

It’s not like I’m going to stop cooking anytime soon, because we still need to eat, but I’m looking forward to planning some simpler meals for a bit!

Tasty Tuesday–A Look Back at Festive Feasts and Holiday Baking

I often take a look back at the holiday baking I did from Thanksgiving through Epiphany; this year, I thought it would be fun to look back at all of the holiday meals and treats we’ve enjoyed, starting with Thanksgiving dinner:

We had our pick out dinner on Christmas Day this time:

And our fancy Christmas dinner on the Sunday after Christmas:

Of course we had our traditional New Year’s Eve hot chocolate bar:

And a special New Year’s Day dinner to start the new year right:

And finally, our Ryan’s Birthday/Epiphany feast:

On to the baking. There were pies for Thanksgiving:

And several cakes throughout the season, for St. Nicholas Day, Santa Lucia Day, Jesus’ Birthday, the fancy Christmas dinner, and New Year’s Day:

We baked so many Christmas cookies!

And an obligatory “other” section, for things like lussekattes, coffee cake, and even some special holiday beverages:

I put in a little extra effort this year, to make up for the fact that we couldn’t go anywhere or do most of our normal Christmas activities. In the end, I think we’ll have a lot of delicious memories from this holiday season!

Chickadee Thursday

Here’s a look at two of the Christmas cookies Chickadee decorated yesterday…she really likes red hots!

This evening, Chickadee and I visited Ryan’s Animal Crossing island for the New Year’s countdown…we all wore masks to commemorate the year!

2016 Christmas Cookies

It’s been two weeks since I finished our Christmas cookie baking, but we just finished our share of the cookies a few days ago! This year, I baked somewhere between 50-60 dozen of seven different kinds of cookies…sugar, gingerbread raspberry-almond thumbprints, chocolate peppermint, cranberry white chocolate, chocolate chip peppermint m&m (which we used to make ice cream sandwiches on Christmas Day!), and Saltine Christmas crackers.

It took about three days to bake all these cookies…and they were very full days! We watched a lot of Christmas movies throughout the baking process, especially different productions of the Nutcracker. Mostly, though, it was a fun family tradition, that looked a lot like what we made last year, plus a little something different, just for fun!

Tasty Tuesday–Christmas Baking 2015

On the twelfth day of Christmas, the Christmas baking is finally done!

I think this was a record year…I baked over 60 dozen cookies. About 15 dozen each of raspberry-almond thumbprints and chocolate peppermint cookies (the two most popular that I bake), Another 12 dozen or so each of gingerbread and sugar cookies, plus kolaches and hot chocolate cookies. I also made two trays of Christmas cracker candy, which are kind of cookies and kind of not.

Our big family baking day is always so much fun!

We’ve really upped our decorating game! Turkey made Mario and Luigi snowmen, and Bunny made the “leader of the hosen”…I really liked that she included a feather in his cap! And we also added actual ninjabreadmen cookie cutters, which provided even more opportunities for creative decorating…

There were other special baked goods, as well, including our St. Lucia Day lussekattes, baklava for Epiphany, two birthday cakes (one for Jesus and one for Ryan), a bûche de Noël, my first-ever lattice top pie, a trifle, and a coffee cake:

I even baked one savory item…smoked Gouda cheese straws:

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The Markel Bakery is now temporarily closed…but I’m sure it won’t be too long before I get the itch to bake something again!

Baking with Chickadee

Chickadee had great fun with her first Christmas cookie baking experience! She used her wee rolling-pin, just like Princess Estelle:

And helped cut out some of the shapes:

And, of course, everyone’s favorite part of baking…eating the cookie dough!

Maybe next year, she’ll help with the decorating, too!

Christmas Baking 2013

This was another successful season of baking, although, this year, we didn’t get it all done before Christmas. We ran out of time for the cut-out cookies, so we saved those for a “12 Days of Christmas” activity, which we just wrapped up today! Other than the cut-outs, we managed to give most of them away, thankfully…we made a lot of cookies!

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Here’s the rundown on what we made:

3 trays of peppermint bark:

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2 trays of Christmas cracker candy:

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1 pan of baklava:

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1 plate of chocolate dipped pretzels:

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13 dozen raspberry almond thumbprints:

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12 dozen chocolate peppermint cookies:

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Two and a half dozen sugar cookies:

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2 dozen gingerbread cookies:

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And, one plate of mint truffles (which I will never, ever make again! It’s back to Oreo truffles next year!)

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So, that’s it for this year. As always, I’m a little bit tired of baking!