Just Baking

Cookies.  Who doesn’t love them right?  As a very passionate baker, I’m not sure which I love more eating cookies or baking them.  Probably the latter of the two.  For most of us when we think of the holiday season we also think of all the delicious food that goes along with it.  Or atleast that’s much of what us grown ups think about.  Me personally, I get the holiday baking bug right around Halloween.  I get excited about baking festive Halloween cupcakes or cookies, then as soon as those are gone I’m dying to bake my family’s traditional Thanksgiving dessert - sweet potatoe pie. 

The real fun starts as soon as the Thanksgiving leftovers are gone.  My self-imposed rule is that I wait atleast until the turkey is all gone before I start the Christmas baking.  Then I start buying up all the Christmas related food magazines I see that have anything to do with baking, and I start gathering up cute containers and packaging.  Nice presentation is a must.  Besides the magazines I’ve got two other great resources I’m hooked on.  Every year I look forward to the FoodNetwork’s 12 Days of Cookies newsletter.  Each year the FoodNetwork gathers up 12 new cookie recipes that haven’t made it on the 12 Days of Cookies lists in any of the previous years and they send the recipes right to your inbox.  The thing I like so much about the newsletter is that for each recipe you get to see a photo of the cookie.  I like to get an idea what the finished product looks like before I make something.  If it doesn’t look so appealing no matter how good the recipe sounds, chances are I’m not going to try it out. 

Last year I discovered Christmas-Cookies.com a collection of over 500 Christmas cookie recipes.  The site was developed and is maintained by Mimi Cummins, a wife and working mother of three children who just happens to love Christmas cookies.  The recipes are broken down into categories by the type of cookie, and are rated on a 1 to 5 scale and reviewed by readers.  No photos to be found on the website, but with reader ratings and feedback I can live with that. 

So with the 12 Days of Cookies newsletter and Christmas-cookies.com added to your sources for festive Chrsitmas cookie ideas, are you still not sure what to bake this year?  Me either.  But I’ll keep you posted.  And we’d love to hear from you if you’ve got any other great resources for holiday baking recipes, so drop us a line in the comments section.