Baking during the holidays

When I think of the holidays, I envision sitting by a crackling fire—enjoying a cup of piping-hot hot chocolate with sugar cookies. When I think of wintertime, I picture being surrounded by friends and family in the snow—ready to build snowmen. Now, a concoction of these two cherished moments would make for the perfect holiday treat: snowmen sugar cookies. For these cookies, I used a classic sugar c...

One of my favorite things to do to celebrate the winter holidays is to bake for my family and friends! I was so excited when I saw Eastside was hosting the baking competition for holiday themed desserts. I decided to test out a design on a cookie cake that I’ve never tried before. I made a menorah out of cookie dough and put that on the cookie cake. It came out just as I expected and I love ho...

It may sound silly, but baking ugly sweater sugar cookies this weekend brought back so many wonderful memories. Every year at the beginning of December, my family friends and I would spend a whole afternoon baking away to make different-shaped sugar cookies and decorate them. Afterwards, exhausted as we were, we would sing our hearts out to Christmas songs while the fragrance of cookies baking and...

When decorating my cookies, I wanted to denote the holiday season with festive ornaments we see around this time of year, such as Christmas lights, trees, and gingerbread houses. For my first cookie, I piped and filled a red box for the bottom of the gingerbread house, then piped a scribble in white frosting for the roof and chimney. I placed larger sprinkles in the shapes of a gingerbread man...

To me, the holidays are all about tradition and family. There are certain things I do for the holidays every year, such as going to Hershey to see the lights or baking these double chocolate cookies. These treats are a family recipe that my mom came up with when she was in college. They quickly became a hit, and now we make them each year during the holidays for everyone (and Santa) to enjoy. M...

These soft vanilla sugar cookies are one of my favorite cookies to bake during the holiday season. You can make these sugar cookies all year round, but it's a family tradition to make them this time of year. It’s a time for my sister and I to bond and decorate them together. We bake, laugh and listen to our favorite songs while decorating creatively with our cookie frosting. Overall this is a simp...

In my family, baking Christmas cookies any time before December 20th is a great way to make sure there will be none left by the holiday morning. Since we’d rather wait a few more days to bake than risk eating all the treats too early, finding something else to make in the pre-Christmas weeks often satisfies our baking urges. This year, I made peanut butter snowballs, which have a sweet and cre...

I originally wanted to make a mug chocolate chip cookie but unfortunately, we didn’t have any chocolate chips and so I had to settle for an old fashioned sugar cookie, and it was actually very good. I wanted to go for a mug cookie too because you don’t see those everyday, and I personally think those are so cute to make. It was simple, quick and fun to make. But of course, a plain sugar cookie, no mat...