Tomorrow marks one of my favorite days of the holiday season – the start of Christmas baking season. I’m getting a head start this year because our holiday celebrations are happening in two waves. We’ll be visiting my family in Chicago for Thanksgiving (and the exchange of Christmas presents) and then we’ll celebrate Christmas with my husband’s family here in Michigan.
My grandma requests a package of homemade cookies as her gift each year. She freezes the cookies and then enjoys one or two a day until they are gone. It’s always one of my favorite gifts to give because I know how much she enjoys them. To me, it’s an honor to pour lots of love into my baking and then share with my family. I bet everyone that bakes for the holidays feels the same way too. Am I right?
But I’ll admit that as much as it’s an honor for me, I sometimes get a little stressed out by the process. Granted, that stress is entirely my fault since I choose to make so many cookies and so many different kinds. I guess that’s just part of the enjoyment for me though. It wouldn’t feel like Christmas baking without at least a little stress.
Instead of worrying about reducing the stress completely, I focus on minimizing the stress I don’t enjoy. For me, that means making sure I always have all the needed ingredients on hand and that I don’t spend a fortune stocking up on them. Fortunately, this is definitely the time of year I can bake to my heart’s content without breaking the bank.
The best way I’ve found to stay organized and on budget with my baking ingredients is a little labor-intensive, but it works year after year.
A few weeks before I start the actual baking, I write out a list of all the cookies and other goodies that I want to make. Then I go through all the recipes and write out an ingredient list that reflects how much of each ingredient I’ll need to make all of those things. That means I can start watching the ads and coupons and stock up on everything when I find it at the lowest price. I save money this way and guarantee that I don’t run out ingredients before I run out of recipes. It works every time!
How are your holiday baking plans shaping up? What is your best tip for making it as smooth a process as possible?
I put the Keebler elves to shame this time of year! I am the only one who bakes in my family (my side and my husbands) so everyone requests goodies as their gift. I make about 50 gift baskets each Christmas for friends and family…..my mom also gives them to the girls in her office. I make a list very similar to yours and start stocking up. I’m about 1/2 way there with ingredients and just started today with the packaging. I usually do 5 or 6 kinds of cookies, 1 flavor of caramel corn (this year is gingerbread) 1 kind of bread of muffin, something savory, some kind of fudge and a candy. And about half way in the stress starts, by Christmas eve I swear I’ll never do it again and by spring I’m testing new recipies!! Good luck with your baking! I’m nervous this year with a 2 year old….last year he was still happy just to watch =)
I tend to just wing it — when the mood strikes, I bake! But there were a few stellar stand outs from last year I want to make again (gingerbread butterscotch cookies & butter pecan fudge) and a few new recipes I’m planning to tackle this year (Italian rainbow cookies & pumpkin fudge). I do a cookie exchange every year — the biggest issue there is deciding what to make!
I love baking year round and will always use things like flour, butter, sugar and evaporated milk so I just stock up like crazy when all of the holiday baking supplies go on sale. If I don’t use them all by Christmas it’s just an excuse for me to make lots of cookies in January and February. Since I then have the basics on hand I can bake on a whim without worrying about breaking the bank. The other thing that I find helps reduce the stress of the holiday baking season is my cookie press. With it I can make 9 dozen tasty, pretty cookies in about an hour so I use that as a back-up when I suddenly need cookies for something. I also do fancier cookies when I feel like it, but one batch of dough can be turned into two types of “fancy” cookies by simply adding coco powder to half of it and changing the disk when you change the color.