I love this time of year. When fall rolls around I get even more excited about baking than I do any other time of the year. Summer ends and the real baking begins. The last months of the year are full of special reasons to spend time with family, share smiles, and bake sweet memories.
One of my favorite baking memories is making pecan pies with my uncle. We make them every year around Christmas but I thought I’d share the recipe with you again a little early this year. It’s too good to wait until December.
My grandmother used to make these pecan pies. Her recipe made three perfect pies at a time. She made them every year for family and friends. She loved it. And when she became less able to keep up with the same quantity of pies she liked to make, my uncle Ronnie became the official pie maker. He doesn’t bake and he’s not really a dessert guy but he makes a mean pecan pie. He’s been making them now for well over a decade since my grandmother passed away. He’s continued making them every year for friends and family to carry on his Mama’s tradition. And now I bake with him every year I can and if not I make sure to bake them in my own kitchen. It’s our family’s way of keeping her with us during the holidays.
And the pies are delicious too, so that’s awesome.
Of course, I had to put my touch on them and make them mini. Major cute. But I still wrap them just like she did. Simple and sweet. I love these refrigerated and I eat them like a giant pecan pie cookie.
Here’s the recipe how my grandmother made it and here’s a link to the original post with step-by-step photos demonstrated by my uncle and a little more about my grandmother.
And keep scrolling for a fun giveaway below…
Mama's Pecan Pies
Ingredients
Instructions
In a separate bowl, crack open six eggs. Remove the “roosters” and loosely beat the eggs with your spoon.
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And now, I’d love for you to share your favorite baking memory.
Holiday or any day.
You could be the lucky baker to win a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and a Williams-Sonoma Gift Card.
- Prize includes a KitchenAid Stand Mixer (valued at approximately $650) and a $200 Williams-Sonoma gift card. Approximate Retail Value: $850. Tasty!
- Giveaway runs from September 24, 2012 at 12:00 am ET through October 8, 2012 at 11:59 pm ET. Sorry, Time’s Up! Winner will be announced this week.
- One entry per person. You must live in the U.S. for this one (I’m sorry my international friends) and be 18 or over, too to be eligible to win.
- To enter for a chance to win the mixer and gift card, just leave a comment on the website and share your favorite baking memory. And if you don’t have one yet, the giveaway lasts long enough for you to bake one. : )
- One winner will be chosen at random and announced during the week of October 8th in a follow up post here on the site.
- Note that it may take a few minutes for your comment to display.
Good luck guys and I can’t wait to read your baking memories.
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This post is sponsored by Nestlé® Toll House® Morsels, the perfect special ingredient for all of your family’s favorite treats!
My dad and i would make sugar cookies every Christmas and Easter to hand out to our family.
I remember watching my Grandma make cinnamon rolls and pie crust. Delicious!
I have this great photo of me sitting on the counter helping my mom bake. To this day we still bake every year for Christmas even though I’m too big to sit on the counter to do it!
Every Thanksgiving and Christmas my Dad would make fresh apple pie (he had a pie shop before I was born that unfortunately closed :( ) However, he continued making his delicious homemade pies every holiday and would let me help every year, where I was able to make my very own mini apple pie free formed and put it in the oven with my Dad’s more professional looking pie. I think about that every time I see an apple pie :)
MY favorite baking memory was with my Grandma, who sent so many boxes of her famous caramel corn to me my freshman year of college, I knew I had to learn how to make it.
She wrote out the recipe by hand for me, and went through the entire process (start to finish, about 2 hrs!). It was something she usually only made at Christmas time, so this was a very special thing for me… to be able to have her caramel corn year round.
At the end of the 2 hours, I asked her if her mom taught her how to make the caramel corn. She said “No, it’s a recipe that came in the box of the first air-popcorn-popper I ever bought.”
:)
My mom is not a baker or even a cook for that matter. But every year at Christmas when I was growing up we made a ton of peppermint bark to give out to teachers, friends, neighbors, and anyone else! I can’t wait to make it with my kids someday!
Baking Christmas cookies with my kids. They loved helping decorate them. They never looked like the ones in the cookbook but we had fun and they usually taste great.
My mom is not much of a baker or a cook, so I learned everything from my nana. My favorite baking memory is baking with my nana when I was young and she would always let me crack the eggs. I would stand on the chair with her next to me and she would help me.
My grandmother has a wonderful coconut balls dipped in chocolate recipe. It is a family tradition. She is still alive, but no longer able to bake. I am so thankful that I learned how to make those balls as well as her other family favorites. When she passes on, I will continue to live out her legacy by baking these “favorites” for our family.
My favorite baking memory was also during the holidays when my grandmother would bake her “famous” fruit cake. Now, I didn’t like fruit cake and I still don’t but other family members did. She would always let me chop the nuts in this contraption she had. After my grandparents passed away I was handed down her recipes and that nut chopper contraption. Lol. I really miss those days…
My favorite baking memory is baking pumpkin pie with my mom at Thanksgiving! I love it!
Making Divinity with my Grandmother. It turned out perfectly for her every time. I can still see her huge dining room table filled with row after row of delicious candy!
My favorite baking tradition is making gingerbread and constructing gingerbread houses with my children on Christmas Eve.
My dad was a cook in the navy. He cooked all the time, except he would use everything in the kitchen, and then WE had to clean up. Even though I will always miss his cooking, I remember the Christmas he got Mom a new microwave, As mom was starting to prepare all the food, Dad was grabbing things and puting them in the microwave. He was unstoppable! That was 40 years ago and she still has the same microwave. He is gone now, but every holiday, i miss his mess, and still can see all the special dinners and gatherings in my mind.
My mom was not a baker, but when it go close to the holidays she would start baking and making candy. I loved the smell of the house when I would come home from school. She is gone now, but I carry on the tradition of baking goddies for family and friends.
I loved Thanksgiving and Christmas baking with my grandma. She could make the best Black Walnut Cake that would make you want to help crack/hull without complaint (and if you have done this you know what I mean). She always included me in the process and created my love for baking and cooking. My son, who is 14, recently asked me if grandma could no longer bake was I sure that I could make her cake. I told him yes, so I think I will let him help me start the process and pass the love of baking/cooking on to him.
When the kids were little and the birthday request was cupcakes, the person of honor would get to lick the beaters! But more often than not, they would request pie…..most often, banana cream pie! So I tried to include them in other ways! They brushed the milk and sprinkled the cinnamon-sugar on the pie crust cookies! Never a scrap wasted! Good memories…..
My Grandmother always made homemade bread(it was the best) and I remember(to my horror later in life) telling her ‘Oh grandma, your arm feels like bread dough’!Yikes….. My Mom and I always made Thanksgiving together—a HUGE spread of everything under the Sun,Turkey and stuffing,mashed taters and Fruit salad,fudge and pies…….. then we always had trays of salami and cheese for the football games! We had a crowd of a family……… My Mom had a Great time,fixing for our Loved Ones!!
A memory of pseudo-baking…my best friend and I growing up wanted to invent a cookie recipe, so we would mix and bake these ingredients and never once “invented” a cookie because come to find out find out we were missing some basic scientific principles about leveners and such!
I can remember being around baking for as long as I can remember. My Mamaw is always surrounded by vanilla, eggs and Crisco. My favorite memory of baking with her is when she shows up at my house for a visit and comes with a pie shell she made, and informs me we are making a custard pie. I LOVE my Mamaw and will forever think of her when I’m in the kitchen!
Not necessarily baking, BUT, I was able to use the stand mixer to have my grandma teach me how to make divinity two years ago, what a process, and to think that women did that by hand? Arms of steel! It was special because my gramps is diabetic so she hadn’t made Christmas candy in years prior, but thanks to that day she got a few pieces.
Before I learned to bake, I was supposed to make brownies for my son’s Pre-School graduation (about 12 years ago) and they were the 1st thing I’d ever baked…they were horrible! They stuck to the pan, (I didn’t know you had to grease the pan), they were hard as rocks (I didn’t know how to gauge if they were done or not) and I think I added too much salt (didn’t know the difference between tablespoon and teaspoon). OH MY GOSH, I still blush when I think of those terrible brownies and people trying to get them out of the pan…luckily I”m a bit better now at baking (trial & error)! Hope I win!
My favorite “holiday” baking tradition was always the fruitcakes my grandmother made each year. Unfortunately no one can seem to find her recipe now that she has passed and I have yet to find one in the store that comes anywhere close to Grandma’s. =(
My mom and I used to make her 7 minute fudge around the holidays. That has become a tradition that I now enjoy with my kiddos. Can’t be Christmas without 7 minute fudge. YUMMY!!
My favorite baking memory is when my great-grandma, grandma, mom and I would make sugar cookies and apple butter from scratch together.
One of my favorite baking memories is baking cookies with my grandma. My mom wasn’t much of a baker so all of my baking experiences came at the hand of grandma. I specifically remember choosing my two favorite spoons (ones that belonged to her father) to scoop out the cookie dough and scrape it onto the pans. :)
My favorite memory growing up (and it still is) has been baking with my mom. She makes nearly a dozen varieties, and now, with our busy schedules, I make a few and she makes a few for us to bring when we visit anywhere for the holidays.
My favorite baking memory is of my cousin Cuppy (9 years older than I am) teaching me to peel an apple into one long ribbon with a paring knife…and then chopping those apple up to go into a huge apple pie. Whenever I am in the kitchen baking I think of her, but especially when I make an apple pie.
My favorite memory is the last time I baked… I didn’t grow up baking with my mom or grandmother, and my kids have never been very inclined to bake with me either. So, every time I walk into the kitchen to bake – it’s a new best memory of making something delicious!!!
Baking Christmas cookies with Mom is my favorite baking memory. I started “helping” when I was too young to really do anything useful, then got more responsibility each year. She taught me a lot. After a long baking hiatus, I baked her cookies for Christmas last year: http://reluctant-domestic.blogspot.com/2012/01/christmas-cookies-and-memories.html
When I was a kid my mom and i would go to a bake in take before Christmas. One afternoon of baking and we had 10 or so different types of cookies for the holidays. Lots of fun, and we didn’t even have to do dishes!
My mom always bakes a wide assortment of cookies every Christmas, and when I was old enough to learn, she taught me the secrets of her Biscotti. She doesn’t like the traditional kind because it was always tough on her teeth. So she adapted it and made something dense but chewy, still dippable but perfect on their own. She never gifted the end pieces, so I have a really fond memory of her delivery a special bowl of just end pieces for me to enjoy. Unsurprisingly, the end pieces are my favorite!
Baking Christmas cookies with my mom and sister… Last year my (now) 3-year-old daughter joined us and I am so excited about starting a new tradition of baking with my children.
My Mom and aunt used to make huge batches of cookies for Christmas every year and my cousin and I (around 5 or 6 yrs old) were in charge of coating the baked cookies with a sugar-cinnamon mixture. Well there was a reason we were put at that end of the table; we used to love to sneak over onto our mother’s side and pinch the raw cookie dough as they were making it and eat so much of it that it gave us tummy aches.
Haven’t though of that in years!
Thank you!
It isn’t actually baking, but it is from the kitchen. My favorite memory is when my grandmother, now passed, taught me to make peanut brittle. Each holiday season she made so many different candies, and peanut brittle was always one of the favorites. I’m so thankful that I learned from the master how to make that recipe.
Baking Christmas cookies with my mom as a kid. So much work but it was always something I looked forward too. Starting the traditions with my son and I can say it’s exhausting and fun.
My earliest memory was my very first cake from a cake mix when I was in Jr. High School. Then I thought how easy it was to bake a cake and was excited with the results. Now I realize it’s really not that much more harder doing a scratch cake. I still use the cake mixes for my cake pops though!
My favorite baking memories are anytime I am with my mom and sister. It doesn’t happen that often so when it does it is just that much more special!
My favorite holiday baking memory is when my then 2 and 4-year old daughters and I were decorating Christmas cookies. I prefaced our cookie-decorating by giving them one rule: no eating cookies or decorations until we were all done. I left them to decorate at the table as I put another batch of cookies in the oven. When I checked on them a minute or two later, I noticed that my 4 year-old was happily sprinkling away red and green sugar crystals on her Christmas tree cookie. My 2 year-old was sprinkling away just as happily as her sister, however I noticed that she had white frosting and multiple colors of sugar crystals and confetti on her little face. I went on to ask her if she was eating the decorations and without missing a beat, she said, “Nope.” and continued decorating. I asked her again and another “Nope” came out. All I could do was laugh!
Beautiful pies! One of my favorite memories is making seven-layer cookies (those yummy yummy rainbow colored almond flavored chocolate covered little cakes) with my sister at Christmas time. One year she was eager to try making them with “natural” colors . . . they turned out, um, interesting looking. Luckily, they still tasted delicious!
My favorite baking memory is a very easy one to recall….baking lemonade pies with my grandmother when I would visit during summer vacation. Happened every year from when I was five until she passed away when I was 19. To this day, I still make one every summer just for her. :)
My fav baking memory was at my culinary high school. A few of us culinary arts kids stayed after school every day for a week with the chefs to bust out hundreds of pies for Thanksgiving to sell and raise money for new equiptment. Good people, blasting some holiday music…it was such a carefree awesome week.
My favorite memory is when my mom was getting ready for a cookie swap at holiday time. My mom would enlist the two neighbors to let us use their ovens. She would start a batch in our oven and then my sister and I would run between the houses and check the other ovens, bringing the finished ones back to our house, load up the pans and run the next batch over….remembering that I live in Nebraska and that time of year there is usually snow on the ground!!!
Later, mom would let our friends come over and decorate the sugar cookies and we always watched movies and ate cookies that night!
My favorite baking memories are in my Grandmother’s kitchen. I would love to bake “Cupid’s Cake Magic” one more time with her.
My favorite baking memories are baking with my daughter, we had baked almost every flavor cake mix, brownies and cookies. Recently we decide to try to bake from scratch but as soon as we start making the icing my hand mixer burn out. But we were please with the end result a complete homemake cake, your recipe, thanks for your blog is helping us believe we are bakers.
My mom is a great baker but was always busy working. However, the weekend before Christmas we’d make cookies. We’d make several types but my favorite were the ones that you’d crank of out the little handheld press. She’d do that (the hard part) and my job was to decorate! with sprinkles! I loooved all the colors. To this day I am unusually fond of sprinkles (and colorful things in general).
It’s hard to choose just one, but I especially loved the time I got to have a Master Class with my aunt who has been decorating cakes for nearly as long as I’ve been alive. We spent the entire day in my kitchen and she revealed many of her baking secrets and lots of decorating techniques, too. She was the one who inspired me to want to learn in the first place, so it was a sweet time and a precious memory to me. :)
My sweet grandmother made a dessert she called “Butter Roll”. I guess the closest thing to it would be a Cinnamon Roll, but it’s not a Cinnamon Roll. She rolled out an unbelievable delicious dough, sprinkled it with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg, then very generously dotted it with pats of butter. Then it was rolled up, cut, and placed in a pan — like cinnamon rolls. But then (here’s where the big difference comes in) she poured sugar/water syrup all around them. The aroma when they were baking was like a drug to me — trance inducing! But wait — there’s more! While they cooled (only slightly!), she made the white sauce to pour over them — sugar, flour, milk and lots of nutmeg. The buttery goodness would have put Paula Deen to shame! I’ve made these on occasion but no one in my family has the memory of them that I do. And, although they are good, mine don’t have my grandmother’s touch — love.
I’ll never forget that I was 8 (which is when all of memories occurred) and I asked my mom to make me Pillsbury sugar cookies with Pillsbury strawberry icing. I don’t know if it was the oven or her baking, but they always came out a bit too brown (they were burned). I couldn’t take it anymore! So the next time, I made them myself. And that’s how I learned to love baking (aside from my Easy Bake Oven, that is). This is the same story I hope to feature in my future bakery.
I cannot really say I have a baking memory with my Mother or Grandmother as my Mom hardly baked……well other than a store box cake mix. And my GMother worked at a restuarant in a kitchen so she never baked. I do love to cook and bake. Guess, I got it from my GFather who was a Chef!!! My favorite time to bake is in FALL as I love everything Pumpkin scented!!!
My grandma had a secret family recipe for doughnuts that we made every Christmas. The kids were only allowed to touch doughnut holes, so my Grandpa could horde the rest to dunk in his morning coffee.
She passed away this summer, and to remember her, I’ve decided that once I get up the gumption to deal with it, I’m having her doughnut recipe card (on which she even writes that the secret ingredient is love) printed onto fabric that I’ll make into tea towels for everyone in the family.
I imagine that she might be furious about this, because it’ll mean sharing the secret family recipe.
My favorite baking memory is making all types of cookies with my kiddos–Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, you name it! It’s awesome to get them involved in the kitchen and instill in them to love baking!
We have a family roll recipe that we make every Christmas eve together. They are so delicious with Christmas dinner and I especially love them Christmas morning with a little jam.
When I was a young mother I thought I would bake some treats for my kids. I was using a hand mixer and when I bent down near the bowl somehow my hair got near the beaters and my hair got stuck in the beaters and my face in the bowl.
I love baking Mississippi Mud with my Grandma!
My favorite baking memory is baking cookies with my daughters. My second is baking cookies and cakes and giving them away. The joy that it brings is unsurpassed.
My mom didn’t bake much, but my neighbor did when I was growing up. She used to invite us over and make chocolate chip cookies with her! Sadly, she passed away when I was in high school. I have fond memories baking with her.
I love to bake but never had the opportunity to do any baking with my mom or grandma when I was younger. Now that I am older, I love getting my nephew involved in the kitchen. The first time he ever helped me I was making gingerbread cookies. He helped me measure everything into the bowl and mix away. It was so heart warming to finish a step and have him say, “what next Aunt Mimi?” Now whenever I say I want to make something he jumps up and washes his hands and tells me to wait so he can help me. Memories I will never forget and I hope he won’t either.
I am the pie baker in my family and love to come up with a different pie every year for the holidays. It’s always a variation on the traditional pie themes, but I change it up a bit with different crusts, fillings, etc. I LOVE PIE!
My favorite baking memory was when I was making cookies with my friends. We had doubled the recipe, but we lost track of how much flower we had put into the bowl, and the dough was super wet. So, we played around with the batter and ended up making some pretty awesome cookies in the end!
My favorite baking memory is from my childhood. Before Christmas, my mother and I would have a full day of baking giant gingerbread men (and women) , decorating them, and wrapping them. We would then deliver them to friends, school teachers, Sunday school teachers and neighbors. It was so exciting to knock on the doors and present our gifts. I loved being in the kitchen with my mom, and delivering them to our special people.
I used to love making Chocolate Chip Cookies with my mom. Those were the best during Christmas! We’d have so much fun. Maybe I should start doing that with her again :)
After attending candlelight Christmas Eve service and riding in the car (with the dogs) to see the Christmas lights nearby, my mom and I stay up way too late baking and frosting sugar cookies. Mine are always appropriately frosted, while Mom’s has a bit more artistic flare (a tie-dyed Christmas tree with a purple star, why not?!?!). No one but Santa is allowed to eat a cookie on Christmas Eve, but Christmas morning we each eat our BIG cookies while we open stockings. And yes, even the dogs get a sugar cookie bone to eat that morning. :o)
I loved making cookies with my mom, then i shared baking with my kids and now I am baking with my grandkids. We always make such a mess but they love it and so do I =D
My favorite memory is baking peanut butter birthday cake with my boyfriends 3-year old daughter. She is so curious about the whole process and loves making something tasty for her daddy.
I have lots of fond memories linked to baking! One of them is quite recent, my boyfriend and I attempted to make sugar cookies for the first time. Of course, we didn’t own cookie cutters, but decided we could freestyle our own shapes. Obviously hilarity ensued and our favourite cookie of all was the ‘Harry Potter Wand’ or French Fry, as you can surmise, it was basically a long skinny rectangle!
My favorite baking memory was when it was that time of to make holiday fudge with my Nan. We made Choc, white choc, pb, mint…you name it! And it was always so amazing. Now its my memory to make with my daughter. And the PB fudge is our favorite.
My favorite baking memory is baking Christmas cookies with my mother. Every year, my mother tries to cut down on the number of cookies we make, and every year, my brother sneaks extra recipes onto our list.
Love this idea of posting everyone’s favorite memories!
I am a big holiday baker, I begin baking cookies about 3 weeks before Christmas. Family favorites are anise, butter cookies, raspberry filled , chocolate crinkles, Mexican wedding etc etc etc. too many to list….
I have 4 children 2 of which are military so they cannot wait till Christmas Eve to take part in seeing what type cookies I’ve made. I make sure I bake ALOT as they all get some cookies to take home…..Good Luck to all ?
My mom taught me how to bake. We used to make pumpkin pies together from early childhood on. In elementary school, I would give my teachers pies for Thanksgiving. We were known for our delicious and spicy pumpkin pies. I knew we had enough “spice” when the back of our throats tingled from the ginger! Now my daughters pride themselves on their pumpkin pies!
My all time favorite baking memory is when I was a kid, I used to go apple picking with my grandma every year, and we would come home and immediately make her famous apple pie. The crust was always from scratch and the filling was always perfect. That must be why I love fall time so much!
My favorite baking memories are from when I was a little tyke and we would make Christmas cookies. It felt so magical! I can’t wait until my kiddos are old enough to start helping me in the kitchen!
My best baking memory is when I was around 8 yrs old. I wanted an easy bake oven really bad and my 9 yr old brother saved up his money to get me one. I was so excited when I saw that little cake bake up with just a light bulb in a plastic oven. I will never forget my brother’s kind gesture.
Every year, my grandma would start making sugar cookie cutouts around this time of year and freeze them. A few weeks before Christmas, all of us grandkids would go to Grandma’s to decorate cookies. Grandma would stick some back in the freezer to keep for Christmas day and package up the rest to deliver to the little old ladies at church.
I have a great tradition with my nieces and nephews around Halloween where we get together and bake bloody finger cookies (shortbread with a blanched almond) and eyeball rice krispie treats. Then we carve pumpkins and if there’s time, we decorate sugar cookies. It’s a fun way to celebrate fall!
My favorite memory growing up was my grandma baking her famous chocolate chip cookies and just before they came out of the oven she would call my dad to come pick them up so my brother and I could have them warm and gooey!
She just lived one street over and when my Dad got them home to us they were warm gooey and so delicious I’m certain that this was the reason I love baking…I sure miss my grandma :))
I’m a grandma now and that memory is still like it was just yesterday..I am trying to fill my grandkids up with many memories!
The year my mom and I made Portugese sweet bread because my dad had injured his arm and couldn’t use it at all. My mom and I weren’t going to go a Christmas without the bread so we made it, under “light” supervision from the master! It turned out pretty good. I still have the recipe with his handwritten notes in the margins.
i didn’t realize it at the time, but my grandmother was trying to teach my mom the best pie crust recipe. i was little so I didn’t understand that I should be taking major notes, but i do remember my grandmother saying to not handle the pie dough a lot (now I know it’s cause you want the butter to stay chunky). The best part of that lesson was when my grandmother let me make brown sugar crusties with the scraps. It was like our little treat.
My two daughters, my sister and my brother’s girlfriend get together a few weeks before christmas and do a massive baking that we all split. That way we get so much more done than we would have baking by our selves and we have so much more fun. My mom is moving back to SC from TN and she’ll be able to join in with us.
Baking with my brother, he likes to experiment so we have had many terrible outcomes and some fantastically good ones!
One of my fondest memories was baking chocolate chip cookies with my Mom at the age of three during Christmas time. To wake up to the smell of freshly baked cookies, then to rush down and help her bake was so memorable and continued every year.
At Christmas time every year my mom, two sisters and I spend the day together baking Christmas cookies. My favorite memories and many many laughs!
My favorite baking memory is making thumbprint cookies and decorating sugar cookies with my grandma.
My absolute favorite baking memory is and always will be making cookies with my grandma in her tiny kitchen. She had so little counterspace that there was a pull out board that we would ahve to do all the cooking and baking on. I would get up on the stool next to her and stir the bowl while she measured out the ingredients. To this day she is my inspiration for baking, and one of the strongest role models. I hope someday to be able to teach not only my childern a love for baking but also my grandchildren.
What a lovely post! My favorite baking memory is definitely my dad making his blue-ribbon biscuits. He would always give me a little bit of the sweet dough at the end, even when there was enough to make just one more biscuit. He’d have some, too.
I love the holidays, especially Christmas! Making and decorating cookies is always a favorite!
Holiday season meant baking season in my house, but Thanksgiving was even more special for my mom & I. Starting the night before Thanksgiving we would, and still do, begin to bake. Pies, cookies, cakes… you name it, we’ve baked it!
I hope to one day continue this tradition with my children.
I love the memories and traditions that revolve around food this time of year. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t have a specific food or dish in their family associated with the holidays. It’s just so lovely having food that joins family and holidays together.
my mom is a little insane (in a good way!) and often makes plates and plates of cinnamon rolls for her 30-40 friends and neighbors for christmas. i love the way it makes her house smell and seeing all the pretty plates.
My mother was a single mom, worked, & cared for her four children + a grandchild but ALWAYS made time for baking especially at Christmas. Our home was filled with sweet smells of sugar cut-out cookies, kolacky, Russian Tea Cakes, & thumb-print cookies filled w/jam. At my mother’s funeral, a good friend of mine shared with me how she loved coming to our home at Christmas time because of our cookie baking. Her mother never did this with her, she said, and thought “when I become a mom, I’m baking with my daughter like Kathy’s mom does with her.” Thus, she began the tradtition with her daughter each Christmas (her daughter is now married with a baby ready to start this tradition). I never knew my friend, Sharon, felt like this, & my mother would have been happy to know her infuence on my friends. This was the one experience many shared with me — all the time my mother spent with all of us and her baking at Christmas,and she made her fun (her sense of humor & joke playing are things to remember)!! I still bake at Christmas having sweet memories of my mother!
My mom and dad didn’t really bake, they leaned more toward savory recipes, but every winter we would all make these amazing pecan nougat chocolates. We made a LOT to give away to family and friends. They needed to set up in the fridge but there was never enough room, so we would set them in the garage (it is freezing cold in Kansas in December!) After hand-dipping hundreds of them and placing on waxed paper covered cookie sheets we would stack them around our garage… on top of the freezer, the car, anywhere there was a flat surface. I still think about that when I pull out that recipe and it makes me smile.
I remember baking with my Grandmothers and my Mom around christmas time. My Granny made the best pecan pies and my Grandmother made to DIE for Hershey’s chocolate drip cake. Delicious…One day i hope my children have good memories of christmas baking with myself and my mom.
Back when me and my sister were in college, we’d come home and bake up a storm! We went to different colleges so during breaks when we were home we’d catch up and talk talk talk all through baking…we always had so much fun :) We still bond over baking….I think that time in college kinda make it a thing between us!
In my family, my dad was the cook, and a great one at that. He would come home from a busy day at work and still have energy to go to the grocery store and cook a delicious dinner for his wife & five kids. Even after my dad retired and became ill, he still tried to cook as much as possible. It was his one joy in life.
Last year, however, my dad started getting very tired and couldn’t cook anymore. My parents were about to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, and my dad asked me to bake them a special cake that he remembered his grandmother used to make. He requested a “jam cake with caramel frosting” – and truthfully even though I love to bake I had never heard of it. I’m guessing I didn’t know about it since I live in California and jam cakes a a tradition of the South, where my dad was born. Anyway, I wanted to make the best jam cake I could, so I scoured the Internet searching for the best reviewed recipe.
I finally found a Southern cookbook called “Mary Mac’s Tea Room” that had a recipe for blackberry jam cake with caramel frosting, and decided that sounded just what my dad was looking for. Baking the cake was the easy part, lots of jam and spices made for a moist and aromatic cake. However, little did I know how difficult the caramel frosting was going to be! Smothering the hot caramel onto the cake felt like spreading molton glass onto a sponge…it kept cooling and cracking and falling off the cake. I think it took me two hours to finish!
Even though icing that cake was the most difficult baking memory I’ve had, the smile and look of gratitude on Dad’s face when he tasted the cake was worth all my sweat and tears. Dad said it was just like the cake his grandmother used to make, and that was the best compliment I could have hoped for. My dad passed away a few months later, and I am so happy that he was able to enjoy a slice (or two!) of jam cake one last time (and I’m even happier that I was the one who had the honor to bake it for him).
Thanks for letting me relive this happy memory :)
All day Christmas cooking with my mom is my hands down favorite. Since having kids, I can barely make it through one thing a day but I’m working on it!
One of my absolute favorite baking memories.. Is baking with my grandmother I call her Maw Maw.. Any how maw maw made the best ever pumpkin bread, but she wouldn’t use traditional bread pans to bake them in, she would use tin coffee cans.The bread would bake perfect everytime. I loved how they came out circular with the indentions from the pan. I am so grateful that still to this day Maw Maw makes pumpkin bread every year, my kids get to experiance that and it’s memories that I will always cherish.
My favorite baking moments were making my Bunny shaped birthday cake with my mom when I was young
My mom didn’t bake but my grandma did! Blueberry pies, maple spice cake, and oodles of cookies…it was all so good! Her house always smelled so good and she had an old Frigidaire freezer in her kitchen that was always filled with yummies. Probably my favorite memory is the annual vacation we would take all together to Block Island. Grandma would bake so many kinds of cookies, I don’t even know how many, and she had a huge plastic container that she would layer them in. My sister and I would ride in the car with her (mom and dad were driving in another car) and eat cookies all the way down :) I don’t think my parents knew how full that container was at the start of the trip or they probably would not have let us ride in Grandma’s car!
My favorite baking memory was baking my first apple pie with my then-two year old daughter. She is most definitely a daddy’s girl so this one on one time was a wonderful treat! I remember how much fun we had pouring in all the ingredients, showing her how to gently toss the apples (which she proceeded to do with her hands) and watching her as she “secretly” stole little slices of apples when she thought I wasn’t watching.
My favorite baking time was recently. One of my nieces was having a baby shower. M other niece & I decorated tons of whale cookies & made candy starfish. Then my nephew carved a whale from a watermelon & we filled it with cut out stars from pineapple, mango, watermelon & added grapes, strawberries & blueberries. We were all beat but we had a great time!
My little sister and I bake cookies together each Christmas, and I love the memories and tradition.
My favorite memory is learning to make pies from my mom. The recipes came from my grandmother and have been passed down. I have since taught my daughters and passed on the recipes. Nothing like baking with family.
I was a Big Sister for a year and early on in hanging out with my Little Sister, discovered that she loved the thought of cooking and baking. Knowing that ,we started baking and cooking more and more, since it wasn’t something she did much at home. With that I continued to discover how much she loved it. Seeing her realize a love for cooking and baking was the greatest moment in our relationship.
I’ve always been a baker but always kept my son out of the kitchen for some weird reason. My favorite baking memory has been him baking with me for the very first time a couple of months ago – we made a chocolate cake from scratch – and he had such a good time! He loved unwrapping the butter & mixing everything together with my big whisk! He’ll be 5 in 2 weeks & I know we’ll be making another chocolate cake for his birthday – and I’m excited to have him as a sous chef!!
My favorite baking memory is making Spritz cookies with my mom around Christmas time. It always seemed to be after a day of sledding and the warmth and smells were great.
que lastima que no nos tengan en cuenta pero en fin, deja te platco mi recuerdo por estos rubos se regalan tamales, (es carne puerco envuelta en masa de maiz con chile ) mi madre siempre pedia que le partieran en la pata para coserla y mi hija me preguntaba que porque hacia yo eso cuando le pregunto a mi mama dice que es porque su mama lo hacia y para saber le preguntamos a la abuela resulta que ella tenia una olla pequeña por eso lo pedia hacia y pensar que yo tenia una grande que no era necesario partirla seguimos la indicaciones como nos enseñan, y los tamales buelan al igual que los buñuelos gracias por tu recetas Dios les llene de bendiciones. yo no vivo en EEUU PERO MI SUEGRA SI NO PODRIAN INCLUIRLA PARA EL CONCURSO
Making fresh coconut cake with my grandmother!
I love this time of year as well! My favorite memory is fall baking with my mom. We’d make cookies, muffins, breads,… anything and everything fall. The kitchen would smell phenomenal! Then there’s Christmas baking the first week of December. I will always love it!
Baking cookies with my boys with Christmas music playing
I’ve been baking for more than 20 years so it’s hard to pick just one, but one of my recent favorites was making potato rolls with my 4-year-old nephew last Thanksgiving.
My girls and I always baked and decorated Christmas cookies. I tinted frosting in pastel colors, provided sprinkles, candies, etc. and let them have at it! Although they are both grown now, they continue to do this in their own homes. It is a part of our Christmas memories.
Favorite Memory-Christmas time rolling out the dough for our cutout Christmas Cookies. Flour & sprinkles everywhere, kids helping and eating, Dad rolling out the dough. :)
When I was very little I got to bake giant gingerbread men with my great grandmother. Only 1 would fit on a cookie sheet. She liked to use raisins and those little red cinnamon candies (she called them red hots) to decorate. I wish I had inherited that huge cookie cutter!
Making and decorating sugar cookies with my mom and sister, while listening to Christmas songs on a cassette tape!
My best baking memories come from baking Christmas cookies with my grandmother when I was a child. I still vividly remember shaping cookies into candy cane shapes and dotting rice krispie wreaths with cinnamon candies!
My favorite “baking” memory is of the days spent making christmas candy and sugar cookies with my Grandma. She had wonderful recipes and on one day set aside for this, the whole family (aunts, uncles, children) would gather to help make batches and batches of fudge, caramel, christmas toffee, peanut brittle, divinity, etc. (you get the idea). Grandma isn’t with us anymore, but her recipes are. Every year, it’s a celebration of times spent with Grandma when we gather to make the candy. <3
My great grandma taught me how to make her lemon pound cake whenI was in 5th grade. It was an amazing day and I still remember how wonderful that cake tasted.
My favorite baking memory is decorating sugar cookies at Christmastime with my mom and my sisters. Can’t wait to do it with my own kids! :)
My father was the one t make the pies during this time of year. My mother was diligent with the cakes as we are four sibling bt when it comes to pies … My father takes the cake! LOL The kitchen would bare witness to the messes as he wore the flour and the dough! How precious to remember! Now, I will be the one to bake cakes, pies and cakeballs among any other treat Bakerella places on her website! I tried out the Blue Velvet that was posted on a sidenote from Picky Palate and I must say I was a HIT! Bring on the recipes for the season, PLEASE!!
Wow, this is a long contest… regardless, my favorite baking memory is baking and decorating sugar cookies at Christmas time with my grandma and cousins. Those were probably the ugliest cookies ever made but it was such fun!
one of my favorite memories baking is when my aunt and i would make christmas cookies for the family. we would make hundreds and hundreds of cookies, taking all day and most of the night. we would laugh and eat and talk the whole time. and then give the cookies as gifts to people.
Waking up well before dawn on Thanksgiving to help my dad prepare the turkey, make stuffing and bake pies.
I remember baking and helping set up for Christmas dinner at my Gramma’s on the farm. I was her favorite, so I got to spend the night and make cookies and set the table. I miss her so…
My daughter and I have started to bake together. She’ll add ingredients to the mix and I’ll help her stir. She’s also learning how to decorate with icing. It’s a good way to bond together.
My favorite memory would have to be when I was in highschool homec. The baking group I was in forgot to put the sugar in our cobbler. We noticed it just after we put it in the oven. We opened the oven door and threw it on top. Part of our grade was to set a table and eat what we’d cooked. It was difficult to pretend that cobbler was good while eating in front of our teacher! We didn’t slip anything by her though!! Years later she announced that she knew what we had done :)
We make my great-grandmas sour cream cookies every Christmas, since she is no longer around to make them. Great memories!
When I was a child, my father and I every Christmas would bake 10+ types of Christmas cookies for gifts for everyone in the neighborhood… I miss childhood ;-(
I love baking with my grandchildren. Having them standing up on chairs at the sink and feeling so proud that they can help to pour, measure, crack, and most of all play in the sink with water. Those memories seem to always stay.
My Grandmother used to keep my cousins and siblings and me busy by giving us an empty 3 pound coffee can or two and tell us to pick enough wild blackberries out in the pasture till we had enough for a pie or two. Then she’d make and we’d eat the best blackberry pie I’ve ever had. I think it’s why I’m the family pie maker now.
Baking sugar cookies at Christmas time and decorating them!
My grandma loved to bake, I remember visiting her house from out of town for a week every summer when I was little. One of those visits, she gave me the recipe to my favorite cookie bars, and said I could have them if I made them by myself…I was probably 8 or 9 years old…. She made it fun, and used it to teach me many things, the most important being clean up after yourself :) My grandma is very sick now, but she can still chuckle every time I tell her that story!
My grandmother and I tried making fudge every christmas eve when I was little and it NEVER turned out right. I finally found a microwave recipe this year and it was made in 5 minutes! HA!
We have always lived in a pretty small house with a very small kitchen. 3 years ago we moved to a much bigger house with a huge kitchen and a double oven. BONUS! We moved in 3 weeks before Christmas so my parents came over one Saturday and we broke in the double oven. We baked tons of cookies and homemade goodies to give to our friends and new neighbors. It was great! Now they come over every December so we can make more goodies and have a great time doing it each year.
Every year a couple of weeks before Christmas my Mom, Aunt, Grandma and I get together and bake all sorts of traditional Christmas treats with each other to give out to the rest of our family and friends.
So far my favorite baking experience is when my husband and I first made sugar cookies together. We used his grandmothers recipe which we didn’t realize until we were making it that it was a double batch worth! And the funniest part is we burned out the motor in my sunbeam mixer :-X oops! Good thing it had a warranty on it. I made him bring LOTS of cookies into work. Ever since I’ve wanted a Kitchen Aid mixer =P Now that we have two toddlers I’m sure we’ll have even better & funnier experiences :)
And I love pecan pie! I made bite size ones last year, so good!
I had a special cake that I used to make all the time – it was a chocolate syrup cake that was very easy – and pretty much no fail. I remember I was probably 13 or 14, and I had long hair… and I was making that cake – and my hair got hung in the beaters… and twisted and pulled my head right down to the beaters! It is so funny now… we laugh about it a lot! The worst part was getting my hair unwould from the beaters!!!!
I love baking with my daugters it’s always fun messing up the kitchen with them, when I was a kid we would get smacked with a spatula if we tried to snitch the batter( which is the best part of baking) so now I make sure my girls get to snitch as much as they want !
I loved making pies from scratch and canning extra pie filling for the winter with my great grandma! Such great memories!
One of my favorite baking moments is baking my very first big, beautiful cake for my parents. I accidentally dropped it on the sidewalk, though.:( And I cried. But I was determined to give them a cake so I made it all over again.:) Could easily be my worst baking moment, too, but it all turned out well in the end, so it is also a fav,;)
Starting at the age of 13 or so, staying up late into the night making at least 4 different kids of christmas cookies by myself since no one else in my family baked! That is still the case so far but hopefully one of my kids will carry on the tradition!
My favorite childhood memory is baking Christmas cookies with my mother. My kids and I bake and decorate Christmas cookies every year. I hope they enjoy it as much as I did.
My best memory is baking pound cakes with my Grandmother. She taught me how to measure the dry indredients. I would watch the cake come together and couldn’t wait to lick the beater and bowl when it was complete. My Grandma made the best pound cakes. Whenever I make one I think of her. The memory of us in the kitchen together is a very fond one.
Childhood Thanksgiving preparations! Seasoning and Stuffing the turkey with my mom before everyone woke up!!!
My favorite baking memory is sitting in front of the oven as a kid, waiting for the chocolate chip cookies to be done!
I remember making peanut butter balls with my Grandma. It’s basically a homemade Reese’s cup recipe but we rolled them in little balls instead of using cups. As far as I know I am the only family member who really liked those treats!
Baking Chocolate Chip Cookies with my mom and sister. I wasn’t even tall enough to reach the counter so I would stand on a step stool to add the ingredients. But of course, the best part was eating the left over dough…
I would say making cheesecake for almost every birthday party I’ve been asked to bake for–it’s so much fun the way everyone gets excited!
my sister and i would go to our paternal grandparents dairy farm and we would bake pinwheel cookies, thumbprint cookies and sugar cookies with our grandmother. we would go to the attic and play dress up while the cookies cooled!!! it is one of my happiest memories from childhood!
When I was little I loved to bake with my grandma she didn’t speak English so she would hold up the ingredients. At her funeral everyone talked about what a good cook and baker she was and wished they had her chocolate chip cookie recipe and I told them that she gave it to me and the asked why she gave it to me and not them. My grandma said I was the only one that ever asked her so I had to keep it a secret { I will tell you not my family} its on the back of the bag of nestles chocolate chip. She thought that was so funny the only thing that wasn’t her recipe was everyone’s favorite.
When I was a kid, the day after Thanksgiving was reserved for starting Christmas baking. We’d come up with 9 types of cookies (3 from each mom, day and I) and we’d start making them that day- usually 2-3 batches of each. Into the freezer with them and then through Dec., we’d plate them up and give them as gifts.
Post 1439 is not anonymous, it was me.
I miss read your first sentance at first! I swore it said when the ‘fat’ rolls around not ‘fall’ LOL
Favorite baking memory is making ‘Johnny Cake’ with my mom. She passed away when I was 11 and Johnny Cake was a family favorite!!
My favorite baking memory was baking with my mom and my daughter last Christmas. At age 2 1/2 I didn’t expect my daughter to do much more than make a mess, but she rolled out the dough, cut out cookies and out them on the cookie sheets. She still talks about it and we plan to make it a yearly tradition.
My mother who now is 90 had a tradition of baking Christmas cookies with icing and decorations that took her several days to complete enough for all to enjoy every Christmas. Now that she is older all grandchildren, etc in the family beg for her to make them and she doesn’t really want to go through all that at her age now. She has tried & tried to teach all of us her recipe but it just doesn’t taste like mamaw’s Christmas cookies. Maybe if we had a wonderful mixer it would encourage us. Luv Luv your website. sandy
Oh, my I have so many fond memories of baking with family and friends….I’ll share one from Fall of last year! I tackled PECAN TASSIES because they’re my man’s FAVE dessert during the holidays. It was a SUCCESS!!! Now we have a “new” tradition :)
I love sharing my love of baking with my kids (8 year old son and 4 year old daughter) — watching them cut out sugar cookies and helping to decorate them. Enjoying what they create, even if each cookies has 4 billion pounds of sprinkles on top :)
My favorite memories was when I was a little girl baking chocolate chip cookies with grandma. I wore great grandma’s old aprons and I had to stand on a chair so I could help stir and dump the ingredients in the bowl. Then grandpa would sit at the table and test a fresh cookie from each set out of the oven.
My favorite baking memory is of baking pies as well. I used to bake pumpkin pie with my Grandma as a child–still the recipe that I use today. But the best part is that, today is my first-born son’s 17th birthday and he has for the last 10 years asked me to bake my Grandma Kearl’s pumpkin pie as his Birthday Cake. Every year on this day, as well as Thanksgiving I get to remember back to the times of making this pie with my own Grandma! Happy Birthday, Parker, and Grandma Kearl, love my memories of you dearly.
making my own creations in the toaster oven and getting in trouble all through childhood. my mom and sister still laugh at me while i make a mess baking now!
My favorite baking memory is kind of a bittersweet one. it was the first Christmas after my grandma died. She was well known for her pizzelles – they were the absolute best. So my aunt and I decided that we would make hem that year, using her recipe (which was more “a little of this, some of that” than exact measurements). And we made small batches and kept trying them to see how close they were. And since Gram used whiskey in hers, we decided to have a little nip. And another. And throughout the day, we ended up having a wonderful time, laughing and remembering grandma. but we never did get those pizzelles quite right.
At the time, not so favorite, but now I recall fondly…making a cake and my older brother threatening to put quail feathers in the batter if I didn’t help him clean the birds!
Growing up in an Asian household, there was NO baking done at home. My first baking experience was in elementary school. A teacher and a few members of the PTA brought in ingredients and toaster ovens for us to roll out cookie ornament decorations and bake them during recess and lunch. A decade passed between my first and second baking experience but I still remembered the smell of sugar in the air and taking a lump of dough and making something edible and pretty.
Baking made-from-scratch butterscotch pies with my grandmother. She always made the best ones, and I always got the first taste. That was the rule :-)
One of my favorite cooking memories was with my grandmother. She let me make “homemade” pizzas out of canned biscuits with any toppings I wanted on them. I remember that being so much fun!
My friends absolutely love when I make cake pops, and one in particular adores them. He’s a big muscular guy, works out a lot, is always on some ridiculous diet, but he has a major sweet tooth. We’ve been out of college for a while and we live about two hours apart, and one weekend I was finally able to make it down to his place to hang out. His one request was that we make cake balls together. Cake balls are fun and delicious, but even more so when friends make them together.
Every Christmas Eve I help my mom cook dinner, no matter if i work that day, or if i don’t live in the house eny more, every Christmas i take the day off from my daily activities [home, husband, work, etc] to get together with my mom and cook. every year has new memories, and i’m looking forward on the memories for thie year :)
My interest in/obsession with baking started when I got an Easy Bake Oven as a child. I was so happy when I was able to give my niece one for her birthday and start making baking memories with her.
I grew up in the energy crisis, and my parents’ house has very expensive electric heat, so they were very stingy about turning it on. So in the winter my mom would do all of her baking in the early morning, then would leave the oven door open after she was done, to help take the chill off the air. My favorite memories were waking up on cold winter mornings to the smell of fresh coffee cake, homemade bread or muffins. Yum!
My favorite baking memories are beginning right now….I am creating memories with my own children!!! I am amazed that they still ask to sit on the counter and help bake….I used to sit them up on the counter when they were about 2 years old so they could watch everything I was doing. They still ask to sit on the counter and they ask me if I remember when they were babies and they sat on the counter.
I love baking with my kids. The oldest 2 (12 and 10) are now old enough and have learned enough to bake themselves (cookies, brownies, etc.)
My mom would make 14+ different types of cookies leading up to Christmas, and we were not allowed to go near the metal tins she stored them in. That is, until Christmas day when I got to help her arrange them on large beautifully etched glass platters. Everyone would come over for Christmas dinner and they would immediately ask her if she baked their favorite kinds. Of course, she had.
I try to carry on her tradition, in her memory.
My grandma was a cake decorator when I was little. I remember helping her and her teaching me. I was hooked on baking and cake decorating for life.
My favorite memory was always helping my Mom make treats during Christmas. But as an adult, I’ve always enjoyed baking with my daughter during Thanksgiving!
Christmas is a holiday my husband really gets excited about. He loves to decorate and get the house all ready for the holiday. And he has fond memories of baking with his older relatives as a child, so he loves to get in the kitchen and bake with me when the holidays get close. It’s wonderful to be able to share those memories with him!
when we got old enough my brother, sister and I took over sugar cookie baking duties from my mom. It was so fun and collaborative doing it the three of us. Except the dough always seemed to magically disappear…
I remember my mom always making the pies for our Thanksgiving extended family gatherings. Everyone loved her pies, especially her pecan pie and I liked helping her. But one year I remember being a bratty obnoxious teenager not wanting to help make pecan pie because I did not like pecans. I still feel guilty about it and now that my tastes have matured, I make extra pecan pies. Pecans are heaven in a shell.
my mom was famous at our church for her quick breads. i loved helping her in the kitchen but i was too short to reach the table so i would have to kneel on a chair. my favorite thing to do was to stir poppy seeds into the batter. i love the soft sound it made and i was fascinated by how all the tiny seeds dispersed.
My favorite/most memorable baking memory by far was the Christmas my sister & I attempted to make a full blown gingerbread mansion with my mom. She bought these super expensive iron casts that you’d pour the gingerbread mix into. It was some real Martha stuff. There were lots of broken pieces and frustration but it was a week’s night of evenings spent together in the kitchen. I think it wasn’t until we were halfway through the project that she finally decided to just have fun with it :)
My favorites memory was when my son helped me for the first time making chocolate chip cookies. Not only did he help put ingredients in the bowl but he helped me decorate the kitchen with flour handprints and ended up being covers in flour. It was so much fun!
My favorite memories are remembering how thankful all the recipients of my baking are. It’s fun to surprise friends and loved ones with a homemade treat.
My favorite baking memory is watching my mom make homemade bread. She is an expert at making the perfect loaf and I still can’t figure out how she does it. She would make white bread with cracked wheat kernels. I was always excited when it was done and I got a thick piece of bread with butter on it. Yum!
There are alot as my mom baked alot.. I guess the most number one would be baking cut out cookies with my mom – we did it forever, she had over 700 cookie cutters – you name it she had it. Another though is when she made apple pies for a booth at the state fair. We’d pick apples off the tree and she’d make pies, the booth would call and need more pies… I think it was constant baking and apple picking and people picking pies up for 3 days….. those were the days
My Mother had 13 children so baking was always a big deal. My fondest memories of baking would have to be Thanksgiving! All the family gathered together. We would bake pies like crazy on Wednesday and we always had a pre-thanksgiving pie tasting that evening. (mmm warm pumpkin pie… now I want to go make some :)
I quickly discovered that when my daughters were little and wanted to bake, that I needed to leave the kitchen and let them take over. One time they were making fudge pie. However, instead of putting in 1/2 C flour, they put in 1 1/2 cups. They called me in to fix it, so we added buttermilk and called it a buttermilk pie. It’s a fun memory!
I come from a long line of women who loved to bake. We are all ok at cooking meals, but when it comes to dessert – we shine. Most of my fondest memories of my grandmothers are baking with them for the holidays. I remember standing on a stool next to the mixer, my Bubbie (grandmother in Yiddish) would always let me dump the ingredients in, clearly the best part. Watching them blend together as they to gather an aroma.
One baked good that was ALWAYS present at holidays (and still is)…twists. Simple cinnamon and sugar pastries, rolled to perfection that I could literally eat HUNDREDS of.
Now every time we eat them, we all think of her and smile. It’s a part of her legacy and a way for her to be immortalized for generations to come.
I would always get so excited and felt so special to have my grandmas make my favorite treats for me when i visited..grandma W would make me a butterscotch pie and grandma A would make cookies..now im making special trats for my 13 grandkids..peanut butter pies, cheesecakes, mini pies, cookies, etc. whenever i can i have them help me make them so someday they will share with their grandkids
My daughters and I bake Christmas presents for our family each year. It’s a wonderful memory and tradition.
My mom was not really a baker, but so far my favorite baking memory with my kids is baking Christmas cookies and the other would be them watching me make their bday cakes and the prue excitement and joy on their faces!
My favorite baking memory is my annual Christmas Cookie baking party with my friends and my mom. We have been doing it since about 2nd grade.
My mom gave my sister and I each our own cookbooks when we were little girls- maybe 6 and 8. We had to earn our books, though. Every time we’d bake something, Mom would initial it and put the date. Once we’d baked enough, the books were ours.
I remember baking with my grandma, it was cookies or pancakes and she would always make them into fun animal or heart shapes. I still do this with my son!
I was just reminded of a favorite baking memory this weekend when my son was moving out on his own and found some photos of him and his cousin at ages 8 & 9 being taught how to bake sugar cookies by my mom who is no longer with us. It made me feel so good to see that photo again and remember the sass and laughter coming from the kitchen that day.
One of my favorite holiday baking memories was baking sugar cookies with my grandma. My little sister was about a week old, so my mom was preoccupied, and my grandma and I made dozens of fancy frosted cookies.
She just passed away 2 weeks ago, and I’ve thought about those cookies many times!
My mom makes the BEST yorkshire pudding you’ve ever had in your life. We have it for Christmas every year. One of my favorite baking memories is when I finally tried to make them myself and the came out absolutely perfectly. I felt like I had arrived.
One of my favorite baking memories was the first time my daughter helped me in the kitchen to bake chocolate chip cookies. She had her little apron on and was so excited to help me. She had a grin from ear to ear. And the cookies came out great with a cold glass of milk.
We would bake plates of goodies and be Advent Angels to some of our friends. We’d leave the treats on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, and scram. Fun times!
My favorite baking memories come from when I was head cook at a youth camp. When I did baking there, I was baking for 250 people a week. The memory I’m choosing today, has to do with teaching a couple of my (then) teenage helpers counting with toothpicks. We were making Oatmeal Carmelitas. 13 x a normal recipe. My dear Kate would get talking and Ssilly Jeannie would join in and soon nobody was sure how many cups of what had been added to the bowl (one girl was measuring out the oats, the other the brown sugar). And guesstimating on that recipe, is not a good idea. So I taught them how to lay out toothpicks to equal the number of cups you needed. Then every time you dump in a cup full with one hand, you use your other hand to move a toothpick from the pile beside you, to the bowl at the top of the counter. You would have thought I’d just taught them how to fly. They were so giddily excited! A few years later Kate taught her mom the method, while they were making and canning salsa. Aww… sweet memories :-D
Baking with grandparents was always fun. My grandmother was always a bit….forgetful. We always had the most fun laughing when she would bake. She made all of our wedding cakes and was a good cook, but yummy banana bread without the bananas was just a typical forgetful dish she made. On the other side, I remember my husband’s grandma teaching me to make biscuits….it was hard because she never measured anything or used a recipe. Just threw some stuff together til it looked right. I still can’t make biscuits!
Best memories started in childhood when helping my mother make dozens of different kinds of cookies for the holidays. From sampling the dough to watching the cookies bake in the oven to the finishing process of icing and decorating – all great memories! This tradition from my childhood is hopefully being passed on to my children as we are already making lists of cookies we want to try this holiday season. Hoping it makes just as many fond memories for them!
I have many wonderful memories baking but it was last year at Christmas that stands out. We started a tradition of baking and decorating Christmas cookies with my husband, son and step son (52, 12 and 15). I think I am still finding sprinkles in the nooks and crannies of my dining room. I can’t remember us laughing and talking for some many hours like we did that night. The cookies may not have been the most beautifully crafted cookies but they were tasty and overflowing with love.