Christmas Baking Ideas

My kitchen is all set and I have already started my Christmas baking. My first project is to make Christmas treats and cookies.

I love the hustle and bustle of Christmas in the kitchen. It is funny that whenever I am making Christmas sweets, the kitchen seems a little more crowded!

I love Christmas baking. For the last thirty years, I have spent three solid weeks baking for our Christmas party, and this year it’s going to be a little different. Instead of cooking and baking for 250 Christmas party guests, I am going to bake and package Christmas cookies and dessert treats for our friends to enjoy instead.

I partnered with JCPenney and am very excited to share my Christmas baking ideas with you today. 

There are a few baking essentials that we all need for holiday baking. Even though I have a pretty well-stocked kitchen, I shopped at our local JCPenney store and found some amazing items for Christmas baking. 

Everything on the island is from JCPenney. I love their low prices, great brands, and that I can find everything I need in one place.

As you can see below, I found a wonderful Cuisinart Set of Three Mixing Bowls with Lids and two Cuisinart Silicone Baking Mats. I also found a KitchenAid rolling pin and Kitchen Shears.

I also found a set of Nordic Ware cookie sheets, Silicone Oven Mits, a fabulous Cordon Bleu White Cake Stand, red napkins, and some very fun Certified International Holiday Plaid Plates.

This year we have decided to scale down our Christmas party from 250 guests to six. (We are a family of six.)

I promised my boys I would still cook most of the food but in much smaller quantities. Ok, tiny, tiny quantities. Compared to normal. 

There is something I am still going to bake for all of our guests, and that is desserts! I am going to bake all of my favorite holiday desserts, package them up, and let our friends know they can come to pick up a dessert pack on the “night of our party.”

All of that means it is time to start baking!

The first item I made is my best friend Mary Liz’s favorite cookie recipe, Brown Sugar Crinkles.

This two ingredient recipe is not only easy to make but it tastes so good. And TWO ingredients? That almost seems impossible.

We baked cookies all afternoon and we just kept adding the warm cookies to the cookie racks to cool.

I finished decorating my favorite Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing. I made them in the shapes of holly leaves and berries. I love how great the cookies look on the white-footed round platter.

One of the tools I use the most often is my cutting shears. I  love these shears so much!

Once the cookies cooled, we started to box up the desserts. My goal is to fill about 75 boxes for all of our friends that are invited to our holiday party. They will be available for pick up on the day we would normally host our party.

I love that my holiday baking included some creative packaging this year.

Don’t these look adorable?

I know this isn’t anything like our huge Christmas party but it seems like a nice thing to do to bring some cheer to all of our friends.

My boys are coming home soon so I decided it would be nice to have some cookie samples waiting for them. I love these plaid plates and red napkins I found at JCPenney.

With a cup of milk, these will be so delicious. As you prepare to start planning your Christmas baking, don’t forget JCPenney for wonderful shopping at great prices.