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!
I love my memories of watching my mom roll out pie crust- we would put of fresh pie cherries every summer- then she would make the best cherry pie in the world!
Baking and decorating cookies/brownies with my niece for Christmas! She’ll be three this year, and I’m hoping to make it an annual tradition!
My favorite baking memory (besides filling up the house with wonderful aromas) is when I take the containers of various cookies I’ve made, and create cookie trays or tins to make up really pretty as gifts. I like it when the recipients can’t believe that the cookies are all homemade because they either taste so good, look so good, or both! Thanks to my mom and both grandmothers who are and were great bakers. I’d rather bake than cook any time, any day!
I’m making baking memories right now. My daughter is three years old and loves to help in the kitchen. She delights in dumping in ingredients, watching them mix together, and seeing the finished product come out of the oven. Last Christmas we made red velvet cake pops for friends and she got to add the sprinkles to each of them. She was thrilled with her task and beamed with pride and happiness when the goodies were delivered.
My dad always dragged me into the kitchen to help him, which I wasn’t so fond of when I was a kid, but now look back on with fondness because he taught me so much–especially how to make a pie crust.
I remember traveling to my grandparents house every year at Christmas. Our celebration would always begin with baking cutout cookies and decorating them together.
Today, I bake all the time with my daughters!!
When I was in high school, my best friend and I tried our hand at making a peanut butter pie, but misread the amount needed for cream in the chocolate topping. My dad walked in as the chocolate started pouring over the side of the pie onto the counter, both of us covered in various baking materials. We stared, he shook his head and walked away :P
Baking and decorating Christmas sugar cookies!! We couldn’t decorate them fast enough before they were eaten, but it was a fun process with family.
My favorite memory is my mom teaching my girls how to make strawberry jelly. Their hands were red from cleaning the strawberries. But more important, it was the time spent with my mom.
loved decorating xmas cookies with the fam
My Mom would make the cookies on a Friday night and while she was at work on Saturday my sister and I would dip in chocolate and sprinkles all the powdered sugar covered cookies. A tradition I have carried on in my own family with my kids, while I am not at work on Saturdays, I love spending time with my kids doing this. And the best part, getting to eat all the cookies that accidentally broke. ahh the perks.
My favorite memory was me and my sister baking cakes for our birthday. Because we’re twins, we always insisted having our OWN birthday cake for our shared party. They were a sloppy, grocery store frosting mess, but we loved them the same.
Trying to make mini trifles to send to my friends engagement party with my new husband – our first (of many) baking experiences together.
I remember every Christmas my mom making a fresh coconut cake. My dad would sit at the kitchen table and grate the fresh coconut. How wonderful it was.
I have so many baking memories with my kids. We always did a lot of baking at Thanksgiving & Christmas. I’m going to have a new, first grand child and can’t wait to have many more memories.
My Oma, my mom, and I would bake Christmas cookies together every Christmas Day. After my niece, Ella, was born and became old enough to join, it became a 4-generation event =)
Recently my daughter and I made coffee toffee bars for her twin cousins that just left for college. We mailed it to them and the loving texts we received from them were priceless. My daughter is responsible for adding the ingredients, stirring and licking the spoon and bowl. I’m responsible for everything else:)
I love baking, but I especially love baking during the fall and holiday seasons. One memory I have is of my dad using the left over pie crust to make cookie pie. He always says he builds pies because baking doesn’t sound very manly.
My mom and I love to bake. As a child I remember the joy of licking the beaters when making cookies. Even as an adult, this is still my favorite part of making cookies. Thanks for the good times, mom!
Christmas baking with my mom and brothers and sisters. It was warm and cozy and smelled delicious for days. Christmas music was on in the background and no one had homework. I can’t wait to re-create it with my own kids.
My twin sister and I love to make the birthday party cakes for kiddos together. It involves late night kitchen girl talk that always ends up too silly!
This is easy. My mom always made tons of cookies each year for gifts and every year we decorated to our hearts content. It was wonderful. Each year we would try something new. We all still love to bake at Christmas :-)
I remember baking with my grandmother when I was younger. My sister and I were so small we had to sit on the table to help sift flour. My most precious memory is actually the times we spend together during the holidays baking every year it is alot of work but my grandmother looks forward to baking her 30 Jamaican fruitcakes. These memories will live with me forever. She now has my kids helping to line pans and so the tradition carries on.
Baking Christmas cookies with my mom!
My favorite baking memory was when I made my first “fun cupcake.” I had always seen creative cupcakes that looked as good as they tasted, but had yet to make my own. So for a work party I made mummy cupcakes that came out awesome…and I even won 1st place in our Halloween treat contest!
I loved baking apple pies with my grandma when i was little. I think it’s what got me interested in becoming a pastry chef =)
Every year my mom and sister and whichever friends we could get to come over would decorate cut out cookies for Halloween and Christmas. We used to make huge batches and give them away at Christmas time like my grandmother used to do.
The best baking memories are baking at my grandma’s house confetti box mixes and helping out my aunt bake brownies, and shortbread cookies!
Christmas baking has to be the most memorable for me. Cut-outs, we called them Kris Kringle cookies still are an annual tradition. The dough is made in advance and chilled in the side porch (leaving it vulnerable to little fingers). Then we color the sugar for decorating and Dad makes a large bowl of icing. The production line continues for what seems like the entire evening cut-out, bake, cool, ice, decorate…eat. Maybe just one…or two.
My mother, sister, and I used to make cookies at christmastime. It’s something her mother used to do. I cherish those memories as my mother died when I was 12.
One year my grandmother and I made crunchy peanut butter balls. Similar to buckeyes, but with rice krispies in them. We had such a great time and I still make them every year at Christmas.
My favorite baking memory is from when I was a kid. My grandma would bake a TON of sugar cookies and let all the grandkids decorate them with as much sugary candy as we wanted. We would take out time and make the most beautiful cookies, that to everyone else just looked like a pile of sugar, but to us it was love at its best.
I LOVE baking, and do it frequently now. However, I think my favorite memory is when i was very young, baking coffee cake with my mom. That stuff was delicious! I recently found the recipe for it (ok, not the real recipe, but the one that I told my first grade teacher and she wrote it down for our class cookbook). I had it printed and framed for my mom’s kitchen. It starts off by saying “1 pound of sugar, 1 bag of flour.” And the last line is “cut a piece and put it in Daddy’s lunch box for tomorrow.” Baking with my mom is definitely a favorite memory!
My favorite baking memory is making pecan sticky buns with my grandma for every holiday breakfast. I have continued this tradition once my grandma was unable to do it any longer. About 6 years ago during a busy holiday season I was worried about finding time to make the sticky buns. My boyfriend made the comment that maybe we didn’t need them this year. My 13 year old son looked at him with this dumbfounded look and says, “Obviously you have never had my Mom’s sticky buns!” Needless to say they both pitched in so we had pecan sticky buns for the hoholidays
We had the kids to a challenge that was a mashup between the food network show “Chopped” and “Cupcake wars”. On day one we let them choose the type of cupcake to be made (and helped if needed) On day two they had to use things around the house to dress up the cupcake however they wanted. It was a blast and what they came up with was very creative and yummy!
My favorite baking/cooking memories are Sundays…my Italian Grandma would start first thing in the morning making Sunday dinner for 16+ of us! Every weekend! I learned how to make her marinara sauce, meatballs and pizza dough, without any recipes and still use them all today! I miss her terribly, but her food and gusto for life live on through me!
One of my favorite baking memories is actually rather recent. My nieces have always asked to bake with me since they always see the cakes and cake pops I make. So for Christmas my mother and I gave them their own personal baking sets. My mother, my nieces, and I made cookies from scratch together. It was amazing to watch the looks on their faces.
FAVORITE BAKING MEMORY AS A CHILD:
Baking a coconut bunny cake every year for Easter. I always got to shake the extra coconut in a bag w/ green food color to make grass. My incredibly poised and proper momma would let me put black jelly beans by the bunny’s tail. Livin’ on the edge.
I remember the first time I ever baked an entire pumpkin pie from scratch. I really wanted to impress the parents and siblings of the boy I was currently dating. I was terrified because I’d never baked a pumpkin before or made my own pie crust. But I didn’t need to worry at all, because they loved it so much that when he proposed one month later, they welcomed me into the family with open arms! Never underestimate the power of homemade pumpkin pie!
The past few years my younger sister has dubbed December 23rd as “Christmas Adam”. We get together with family and close friends, wear Santa hats, and all bake holiday goodies like chocolate-dipped pretzels, cookies, and chocolate-covered Ritz-bits. My sister is the photographer and it is her “duty” to take a hilarious photo with each person in attendence.
My favorie memory is cookie day with my sisters and mom. We do it every year in Dec and make tons of cookies and treats for Christmas. As we got married and had kids, they all helped too. We make soup and sandwiches and cookies. SO much fun!
My favorite memory is when I started baking with my kids when they were young. We made Christmas cutouts.I’d make the dough and my husband would roll it out and the girls would pick out a cutter and cut them out. then whole family and I mean whole family- my brothers & my mom would frost and decorate them.Every household got a couple dozen when we were done.
My favorite memory is when I started baking with my kids when they were young. We made Christmas cutouts.I’d make the dough and my husband would roll it out and the girls would pick out a cutter and cut them out. then whole family and I mean whole family- my brothers & my mom would frost and decorate them.Every household got a couple dozen when we were done.
My mom planned a baking birthday party when I was 13 or so…she set out ingredients and we made up our own recipes! So much fun!
My Grama Sarah made the best chocolate cake. A child’s dream cake. Watching her make it, without a recipe, was so exciting. Licking the spoon, watching her use her huge mixer, it was heaven. Then….smelling it bake in the oven….and just when you could not stand it any longer…it was ready to come out of the oven….. she always made a couple of smaller cakes for my sister and I to munch on warm, without frosting…it was the moistest cake ever!!!!!!!!!!!! Miss you Grama Sarah…thank you for the memories……… jan :)
My mom always baked, I do now too. Every Christmas she’d bake huge batches of sugar cookies, and we got to decorate them. The table was filled with bowls of frosting and cookies,
Oh my goodness! I just love the reaction I get when I bake something delicious. That is by far my favorite memory!
Fingers super duper crossed!
I don’t come from a family of bakers, but I caught the bug as an adult and baking has quickly become one of my favorite hobbies and ways to spoil my husband. My mother-in-law has been baking pretty much since birth and I so admire her skill and devour every yummy thing she makes. For the longest time I tried to replicate my favorite cookie of hers, but I kept getting it wrong–like SO wrong. Even though I was embarrassed that I couldn’t crack a simple recipe, I finally admitted it to her. She offered to make them with me that very next week and I absolutely loved the bonding time we shared together in her kitchen. I always remember her personal tutorial on how to make my favorite cookie!
I don’t have many baking memories but now that I have two girls of my own I want to make sure that they do! I’m looking forward to them being old enough this year to remember us baking treats and making a Christmas tradition.
I love making Christmas cookies with my mom and sisters, especially the ones where we get to cut them out with fun cookie cutters and frost after. Last year we we made some pretty amazing gingerbread people, including a lumberjack and a zombie! Can’t wait for Christmas again this year!
My favorite bakIng memory is prepping the Thanksgiving turkey during my childhood. Early in the morning, whole everyone else was asleep, my mother and I would season the turkey. She would hand me rations of the seasonings, and instruct me that the entire 20lb + turkey needed to be covered in flavor. Then, she let me make suggestions about for the stuffing. The rest of the day, our home would be filled with the sent of a heavily spiced and thoroughly stuffed turkey!
Baking cookies with my mom and 2 sisters at Christmas time. We would put Christmas music on and sing and bake cookies. My mom would put some cookies in tins and we would take them to neighbors who were always happy with the gift.
My favorite baking memories have come as an adult. As soon as my husband and I bought our first house – with the perfect kitchen – I became a baking machine over night! No one in his family or mine bakes, so I took over that roll immediately and love it! I’ve shared my love of baking with my nieces and nephew and can’t wait to do so with our own children – the first one is due in January!
From the time my daughter was 7 until she was 18, we would bake gingerbread houses and have family and friends over for a gingerbread party. It’s a lot of work to bake all the gingerbread house pieces for each person, but it is worth to watch everyone build their houses and to see how creative they get. Each year they would try to out do the last year
It would have to be making Christmas cookies with my girls. We make candy and cookies to give away to family and friends.
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Every summer my family would go visit my grandparents’ cottage on Lake Huron. My Grandma, cousin and I always make fresh homemade cinnamon rolls. I always ended up playing in the flour and made my cousin do the sticky part of making the dough. And both of us always used EXTRA brown sugar and butter which made them so delicious! My grandma spent the rest of the summer bragging about how wonderful the rolls were. Great memories.
My favorite baking memory is baking during Christmastime! When I was younger my sister and I would paint the sugar cookies on Christmas Eve. Now that I have kids of my own, I let them help me with ALL of the Christmas cookies they want to – but usually that just means they get to be the taste-testers. Love it!!
My mom has always made scratch sugar cookies every year at Christmas. As her arthritus has gotten worse, I’ve taken over more of the Christmas cookie tradition. She still makes a ton but I make some of them too as well. My son helps out and I hope he will take on the tradition from us. We also get together every Thanksgiving and Christmas and make the family stuffing recipe. You have to love traditions!!
My best girlfriends and I make gingerbread houses every holiday season. It’s fun to assemble and decorate and we enjoy catching up with each other before the hectic holiday season.
Every Christmas our family (mom, dad, brother and I) would make surgar cookies and frost them. They didn’t look that great but they were so much fun to make! I plan to do this with my daughter for the first time this year!
I love baking with my daughter… when she was 1 I would put her in the bumbo on the kitchen table (in the middle, not towards the edge :) and we would talk and sing songs (OK, it was mostly me) while we decorated all sorts of cookies. The tradition I’m starting with my family is to have an open house each Christmas to invite family, friends and neighbors over… whether they can stay for 10 minutes or all afternoon!!
The women in my family have a tradition of getting together at my grandma’s home for a few days before Christmas and we bake cakes, pies, and homemade cinnamon rolls. We make candies, batches upon batches of fudge, and my favorite: My grandma’s southern comfort pound cake :)
It’s something I look forward to all year!
One of my favorite baking memories is baking mince meat cookies when I was a teenager. I can still smell the wonderful aroma! The great thing is that my younger sisters still remember it, too.
My favorite memory is when my sister’s, my mom and I would all get together after Thanksgiving to decorate cookies. We didn’t do that last year and probably won’t this year. My sister had a baby born with special needs. It sort of changed things. One time, 7 years ago is my favorite experience. I just found out I was pregnant with my son Mica. They were the first people besides my husband that I got to share the news with. It made spending time together and decorating cookies all that more magical.
Wow! This is just like my 3 Pecan Pies Recipe! I got it from a BBQ restaurant in Opelika, Alabama where I used to live & work. I make them every Fall too! I’m definitely gonna make mini ones this year!! Thanx!!
Hmmm… Fondest baking memory would have to be one summer when I was just a kid, maybe 8 or 9, at my Grandmother’s in TX. I helped her make homemade applesauce, then we baked a bunch of Cinnamon Apple Cakes. I’ve not ever made applesauce again but I think I could… It’s a rare & exceptionally clear memory when most are not. ;0)
Cooking with my grandchildren. I do cakes and cookies and they love to help and decorate. Their favorite is playing with the fondant and making things to put on the cakes and cookies. A couple of them are even better at making things then I am.
Every year around Christmas, my mom, sisters and I would make a ton of Christmas cookies and candies. My favorite were always the Christmas cut-out cookies. I loved (still do!) decorating with frosting and had way more patience for it than my sisters did. It doesn’t feel like Christmas without making cut-outs!
I started baking more frequently in the last couple of years. I love Christmas time and making cookies and treats for the holiday. The best memories I associate with that is seeing my son help decorate cookies…and on Christmas day when we gather round and eat our treats. There is so much peace and contention around the table!
As a child and teenager, I used to write to my Granny and ask her for her Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, knowing full well that not only would she send the recipe but also a box of cookies with it. Over the years, I have worked and worked to get it just right and finally just recently, I have perfected the recipe and now make the best Chocolate Chip Cookies. :-)
My special memories are from making large varieties of cookies at Christmas time! And now my 2 daughters are old enough to help bake and help with creating memories.
I love making shortbread with my mom. We made many batches growing up and whenever I go home we always find time to make shortbread.
Gingerbread house decorating contest between family members. Good times!
My grandma and grandpa were always in the kitchen (they still are) and they really taught me everything I know, it has been so much fun learning everything from them.
I have two baking memories that are pretty sweet. The first is making bourbon balls with my Grammy. Maybe not the most appropriate thing to make with an elementary school age child but wonderful time spent together. So much fun getting my hands “dirty” and nice to see a final product that I actually made. My other sweet memory is baking cookies with my son. He is always so eager to help and learn. I’ll make a baker out of him for sure!
My favorite baking memories are making Christmas cookies with my family. I am recently married, so I’ve loved being able to combine my family’s traditions with my husband’s. Plus, I love that my husband is nostalgic enough to be excited to help me bake the same cookies that his mom and grandma made for him growing up!
My younger brother and I always try out a new Christmas cookie to share with the family. I just love these typs of traditions and think its wonderful you and your uncle have carried on you grandmother’s.
I remember baking oatmeal cookies with my big sister in a big yellow pyrex bowl. Tarzan was on the TV and our parents would nap on the couch. They snored so loud we couldn’t hear Tarzan!
Favorite memory is baking with my three girls ages 17, 17 and 10! I am so blessed.
Every year my daughters and I go to a local orchard and pick apples and then come home and make as many apple items as we possibly can in one day….applesauce, apple pies, apple dumplings, apple cake, etc. We call it “Apple Day”. We can have my elderly mother over who is mostly a shut-in to help prepare the apples and now I have a granddaughter and daughter-in-law that can be part of the tradition with us. It’s a great time in the kitchen sharing and laughing while we bake!
My favorite memory is once I was baking a pie from PW site, I was so excited to make this for my family that I forgot to cook the pie crust! No one said anything, untill my husband noticed it! LOL still tasted good:)
My mother is not much of a baker, but she organized a fun Saturday morning baking cookies. To ensure the best ooey gooey cookies, we carefully measured, mixed, and scooped cookie batter on the sheet pan. It was the best day ever!!
Mine is a similar story to yours, but my grandmother made THE BEST fudge. As she aged and it got more difficult for her to stir the heavy mixture I started making it with her. I have continued making it every year. This will be our 9th Christmas without her, but none of us can eat a bite of her fudge without having fond memories of her.
I’ve grown up luxuriating in the marvelous treats my wonderful baker of a grandma would always have for us when we visited. One of my favorite baking memories was having a baking weekend with her passing the methods for making all our favorite goodies on to me! :)
I remember baking with my grandmother and my great aunt Dot. I would sit on the counter and watch, and they would let me lick the bowl.
My brother and I were helping our aunt bake and we were dancing around the kitchen singing “Great Balls of Fire” using the wooden spoons as microphones.
i love having cooking memories of my mom and me, my daughters and the whole family at holidays cooking in my mothers farm kitchen! It promotes great conversations and a closeness that comes when you are bumping into each other as you work side by side creating a great dinner! And don’t forget the washing dishes and the bonds that creates by just standing side by side. I love cooking!
My favorite baking memory is probably standing on my step stool when I was probably just 6-7 and baking a cake with my mom. She always loves to bake during the holidays and helped me share the same passion from a young age.
What a sweet memory you have of your grandmother! Grandmothers always bake the best pies, don’t they? My favorite baking memory is actually a recent one: baking and decorating cakes with my son, who is 6 years old. He loves it all and so do I so it is always so much fun to hang out and bake together! Thank you for sponsoring this giveaway!
I’m the designated baker in the family from both sides mine and my husband’s side. I enjoy baking the most when my girls are involved. We spend time in the kitchen & chat about what’s going on in school and such. They are 10 & 6 years old. Love my girls!
I love baking Christmas Cookies with my mom and baking pound cakes with my Grandmother!
Every Christmas I make iced cutout cookies! I learned to make them with my grandmother, then made them on my own at home, and now still make them after moving out of state. It is a MUST every year!
I have lots of baking memories, but the most recent is watching my three year old daughter frost and sprinkle on her first sugar cookies.
I remember making koloachi, I would make it with my mom and while she was rolling the cookie dough over the nuts, I would be sneaking spoonfuls of the nut filling in my mouth! :)
My mom and I used to bake sugar cookies and frost them during Christmas time.
My favorie memory is of my grandmother Ingeborg coming to visit at Christmas and making an endless supply of Christmas cookies. Her pepparkakor cookies would be rolled out thin thin thin. Crispy buttery perfection. Forty years later, the highest compliment that can be paid from my sister or mother is “these are as thin as Grandmas”. Just thinking about the cookies and Grandma makes me smile!
Making sugar cookies with my mom.
Every year my family has made the same Christmas cookies – chocolate pinwheels, Spritz, cut-out sugar cookies and Nurembergs. My favorite baking memory is learning how to make the Nurembergs from my German grandmother just before she moved out of her own home into an assisted living facility. Now I carry on that tradition with my children and make sure I deliver some to her so she can enjoy them too!
My family didn’t bake growing up. But I’m an avid baker now. my favorite baking memories is when I’m in the kitch baking away and my fiance is hovering ove my shoulder wondering when it’ll be done!
20+ years ago a bff and I attempted our first from scratch cake. It was black forest and we whipped our own cream – it began a life long love of baking for both of us. I think I’ll make one today and give her a call. thanks :)
I had a friend’s daughters for the weekend. We baked a banana cinnamon cake with chocolate chips. They pretended to be cooking show hosts. Too cute!
My favorite baking memories are baking with my mother who passed away when I was 18. My love of baking comes from her and I think of her every time I bake something!
Baking with my grandma!!! I can still remember her sitting and mixing everything by HAND!!!! :)
My favorite baking memory is learning how to make pie crusts from a friend about ten years ago.
I don’t really have any memories of baking while I was younger because neither one of my parents like sweets. BUT, I do remember baking my own cakes and trying to make the icing all pretty and perfect. Now that I have a family of my own, I bake all the time. My four year old daughter loves to help with all kinds of desserts!
I remember baking with my grandma in her teeny, tiny little apartment kitchen. Didn’t take long for the whole place to smell delicious! I especially loved her banana bread.
About 15 years ago, my mom and I began making candies for Christmas every year. We always made peanut butter fudge, chocolate covered cherries, and mounds bars. Each year we would try out something new in addition to our staples. Now, I make these candies (and often some cookies and pies, too) with my two daughters. They’ll be five and eight this year, and they are already counting down. :) Of course, the KitchenAid would make it go a *lot* faster this year. LOL
Thanks so much!
-Erica
I like baking fudge with my mom every year at Christmas :)
My mom and I recently started baking and decorating cookies together. It’s been wonderful spending so much time with her while we bake, outline, and flood cookies with icing!
Learning to make “monster rolls” with my Nonny. She instilled in me the love of yeast. And making Christmas cookies w/my daughter. I remember the first year she enjoyed it & pretended to be “Martha” demonstrating how to do it at age 3 while seeing her reflection in our big kitchen window while sitting on the island & assisting me.
Every year my mom, sisters and I get together and make alot of tamales. (a mexican tradition especially during christmas) I love that we get to spend the entire day together and just talk about when we were growing up. we laugh, we cry, and laugh some more. I really enjoy the holidays. It’s just a fun time of the year.
Every year I make the thanksgiving pies with my dad, so much fun and such great bonding time :)
My favorite thing about baking is every time I start getting out my baking “supplies” my 2 little boys appear out of nowhere and say, “Mom, can we help?” Sweet memories being made…
For as long as I can remember, my Mom made tons of Christmas cookies. I always remember all the baking we did around the holidays. I had my own tiny rolling pin and I’m sure I hindered more than I helped but I got better as I got older and my Mom has the patience of a saint. I did not inherit it unfortunately. I bake all the time and she still does sometimes. Once in a while I can get one of my boys to help but mostly only until the cookie dough is combined and they can eat it. Hopefully they’ll remember this stuff fondly too.
When I was about 9 years old, my mom and I used to spend Saturday afternoons by doing what I called, scratching up a cake. I’m the youngest of six children and my mom was older when she had me so by that time she had tired of cooking and baking and usually used short cuts like using mixes for cakes, pie crusts and never baked cookies, so with the exception of possibly school parties and my eldest sister, who was grown and married with a family of her own, and a wonderful baker, I rarely had any baked good that wasn’t made from a mix. I can’t remember how it started but one Saturday mom and I decided to bake a cake from scratch so she pulled out her huge Encyclopedia of Cooking and we picked out a recipe for yellow cake (our favorite cake flavor) and White Mountain Frosting. Mom was an old school baker (learned to cook and bake back in the 30’s) so the flour had to be sifted 3 times (that was my job), so baking from scratch was very time consuming but it was worth it, the cakes were delicious and we had a great time baking and bonding. After that first Saturday, we would occasionally spend a boring Saturday afternoon by baking a cake when I would ask, “Mom, can we scratch up a cake?”
I remember when I was a young kid looking through the Betty Crocker kids cookbook for the perfect dessert recipes. I usually ended up making brownies or chocolate turtle candies. The BEST recipe in the book was the bunny cake…. Especially when my dad helped me bake it!!
I loved baking cookies with my mom. Thanks for a chance to win!
I grew up with a mother who baked on a daily basis. I am the oldest of 7 children. To bake with my Mom was one of my best childhood memories. I loved baking brownies especially. She never had a recipe and the brownies would turn out perfect every time!
Thanks for reminding what joy cooking with my Mom was!!!!
My favorite memory comes each year when I make my holiday cookies for family, friends and co-workers. I try to make a new one each year but a have ones that I make year to year. The ones I make year to year bring back memories has how I found them when I first made them and whom I have made them with over the years.
One of my favorite baking memories is Christmas cookie baking with my Momma each year. We had to make multiples of each cookie and I would get yelled at for eating as many as we were baking.
Baking for the holidays..lots of cakes and pies!
My baking memory is when my mom taught me how to make cupcakes when I was little. Being in the kitchen with her was always a treat and I could not wait for the next time.
baking cookies with my mom and sister! thanks for sharing.
My parents and I live 4 hours from each other, so when they come for a visit, they always stay for a few days. My mom and I always end up planning meals and cooking together and that’s our special time! It helps the minimize the fact that we live far away. I have a feeling if we lived closer, they would drop in for a couple hours for Sunday dinners and we wouldn’t have that special time together.
The anticipation of fall and all the wonderful comfort food always gives me warm fuzzies. As a kid, I would beg my grandma to make pflaum kuchen (plum cake), one of her many specialties and my favourite cake. It’s made with damson plums which are only available for a short time in the fall. It’s a butter cake with crumb topping. She also made it with peaches. Also my favorite. She’s been gone for almost 7 years, but she lives on in the recipies and all the memories attached to them. Ironically, I plan to bake a pflaum kuchen today. Can’t wait!!
My Mom’s baking lives on and on-tassies, sugar cookies, kiss cookies, home made caramels and gumdrops will forever bring me to the days of sweet holiday memories with Mom. It’s not Christmas to me if we didn’t have these!
I have been baking since I was 7 years old, and have always done all the family meals for major holidays. Once I got married, I got to start sharing the responsibilities of baking with my hubby’s grandma. She is now 92, and every year towards the end of October, we begin making a list of things to bake and give away as presents to people! She has lost all vision in one eye and has limited vision in the other, but she still bakes! What a precious time now, as my 5 1/2 year old daughter joins us in the kitchen!
My daughter turned 2 years old on Friday the 21st of September. As I helped to make her birthday cake with my mom I thought of the times that I had stood on the same stool that my daughter was standing on and watched my mom make my birthday cakes. Each year she would decorate our cakes, no 2 the same, and now she’s continuing the tradition with my daughter and it is a memory in the making. To see her face when she blew out those 2 pink candles was priceless and I love my mom even more for doing it!
My mom was not much of baker but she did make pies all the time. She would put the extra crust on a cookie sheet and let us spread it with butter and cinnamon sugar to make “cookies’
I have two baking memories – both as a little kid with my mother. I remember ‘helping’ my mother make apple pie by peeling the apples for her. I was meticulous and EXTREMELY slow. By the time I had finished all of them, the apples were all brown. Never once did my mom tell me to hurray up. She patiently waited for me to finish…and when it was all done, I swear it was the best apple pie I ever tasted.
The second memory was making sugar cookies with my mother. Again, she let me roll the dough and cut all the cookies and I was very precise….We must have spent hours just cutting cookies and they were probably hard as a rock…but I had so much fun making them. I think about that every time I make Christmas cookies and it makes me smile. :)
My most joyous memory is watching my children decorate cut out cookies on Christmas eve (our family tradition)…whatever you decorate you get to keep and eat!! the cookies were creative, full of frosting and delicious. thirty years later we still continue this tradition. I look so forward to winter baking. Marie
When we were kids every Christmas my mother would make sugar cookie dough(in the Kitchen Aid mixer). We would help to cut out the shapes, and then she would sit all 7 of us at the kitchen table and let us decorate the cookies. The “paint” was a mixture of egg yolks and food coloring, so we would decorate before the cookies were baked. Once baked, you would only want to eat your own cookies, saving the most artistic for last!
All the times I helped my mom make/bake Christmas Dinner. She passed 2-5-10. So I’m not able to do it anymore. But I ALWAYS got the memories. Thank you so much for the chance to win such a fab machine. And for the chance to post about these fond memories
xoxox
My mom wasn’t much of a baker (or cook) so it meant a lot whenever she offered to whip out the aprons and do something kitchen magic. I remember this one time when I was young we were making chocolate chip cookies (nothing fancy, just the recipe from the back of the chocolate chip bag), and my arm got tired when I was trying to use the hand mixer to mix together all the ingredients. My mom asked if I needed a break and when I handed her the mixer she finished the batch without breaking a sweat. I was in awe! I couldn’t wait until my arm was strong enough to hold up the mixer for the WHOLE time!
Now that I’m older I can hold the mixer up for the whole duration of the chocolate chip cookies, so proud! But, I still think I might need some practice because after I make the cookies and am trying to ride my baking wave, I get tired mixing together the batter for the apple pie cupcakes, for the butter cream frosting, for the homemade-from-scratch biscuits, and for the super savory dinner sauce. Now that derive so much pride from my ability to cook and bake and so much joy from watching people relish my delicacies, I think I need a stronger arm…or a stand mixer :)
My favorite baking memory is making a chocolate cake and adding chocolate pudding to the cake.. we didn’t realize we were supposed to add the dry mixture to the cake batter. Needless to say the finished cake with chocolate pudding made the cake collapse and our icing decorations were well not as beautiful. But the cake was delicious! and its a good laugh now!!
I love baking cinnamon rolls for our friends, neighbors and family at Christmas time…especially now that my girls are old enough to help!
My favorite memory was when my BFF and I attempted Cake Pops…They kept sliding off the stick! In the end, we made snowmen! :D
I love the transition from summer to fall weather because it means I no longer have to worry about turning the house into a sauna every time I use the oven. My favorite baking memory would have to be making pumpkin pie from real pumpkin (as opposed to from a can) for the first time a couple of years ago. My roommate was attempting a turducken, and I made the desserts. There was enough leftover filling and pie dough to make a mini pie that I got to try before the guests arrived. It was so good! Made it hard to ever go back to canned pumpkin.
I loved watching my great grandmother make lefsa every year – now I carry on the tradition myself!
I really learned how to bake from my grandma. I was probably in seventh grade and was trying to make a white cake with butter icing for Christmas. It was my first attempt at a pretty two layer cake. Well I didn’t know I needed to get the egg whites at room temperature to beat them to a meringue so I remember my grandma standing there with me for what seemed like an eternity with a hand mixer to get those egg whites perfect. It turned out to be a great cake and my love of baking was born!
My favorite baking memory is when my mom used to own her own bakery and I would go in to work with her and she would let me create my own cookies!
Baking Christmas cookies with my mom and sisters – every counter was filled with ingredients and cookies – every table was filled with platters and tins. We would spend the weekend baking and talking and laughing. Thise were good baking moments.
Sad to say, I don’t have a favorite baking memory…
My mom wasn’t a baker, but she was a great cook, so I have wonderful memories of cooking with her…specifically, learning to make rice for the first time.
If I win, I promise to bake something with her, then I’ll have that great memory too!!
My favorite baking memory has actually happened lots of times. On Sunday afternoons I get together with my brother and his family, and for years now, it’s been a tradition for my niece and nephew to make chocolate chip cookies and/or brownies with their Aunt Jamie, who is always happy to spoil them. There’s always lots of dough-tasting and “fights” over who gets to lick the bowl, but that’s just part of the fun!
Baking bread with my Greek grandmothers. It took an entire day, many loaves that were distributed to family and friends.
I remember their sweet smiles as they distributed those delicious loaves.
My favorite baking memory is baking and decorating Christmas roll-out sugar cookies at my grandmother’s home with my sisters and cousin. We used my great grandmother’s cookie recipe. Actually there is no recipe, just a list of ingredients, but grandma has made it so many times that she knows just how much to put in to make the best sugar cookie ever.
My favorite baking memory is cooking Christmas cookie with my husband every year!!
Making Christmas cookies with my grandmother. Now I make cookies with MY granddaughters.
My mom cooks the best Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. My memories are the times I spent in her kitchen, watching and helping her make my favorite dishes.
My earliest baking memory is baking Christmas cookies with my mom, and we still get together and bake cookies every Christmas.
My favorite baking memory is any time I get to spend time in the kitchen with my mom and grandmother. So many family traditions, cultural recipes, and laughs are shared. I’m so glad I inherited more than my looks from them, because they are the best bakers I know!
I remember starting to bake the day after Thanksgiving, stuffing the freezer and outside coolers on the deck to stay frozen (I live in the Midwest!). I would make cookie boxes for everyone and made about 15 different types of cookies. These days it’s hard to make all that, and to even find the time, but I still like to give one or two away.
My favorite memories are ongoing. My kids and I make chocolate chip cookies regularly. So much so that we don’t have to look at the Nestlé Tollhouse recipe any longer to know the exact amounts of each ingredient.
My favorite baking memory is of the promise of cinnamon buns baked fresh by my mother during the first snow (or any snow!) I have a photo of her smiling over a tray of 4-inch high yummyness just out of the oven. Like Pavlov’s dog, I start craving cinnamon buns with the appearance of the first snowflake each year.
My favorite memory is baking chocolate pies with my granny. She wast best friend and I miss her dearly and all the family times together with her at the center!
My favorite baking memory has to be baking with my mother before Christmas every year, because it’s so relaxing and fun to sit with her and make cinnamon rolls and cookies.
My memories are being made with my children, who are learning to love cooking and baking. Our annual gingerbread houses are fun, but not as fun as our sugar cookie party. We have friends over for dinner and then decorate sugar cookies.
My grandma makes so many wonderful cookies and desserts around the holidays and for special parties and I was always interested in learning how to make her delicious desserts. Many times I would help her in her kitchen or watch her create these yummy treats. One year for Christmas my mom gathered all of my grandmothers recipes and created a family cookbook and gave it to me as my gift that year. Now I make those yummy treats and share them with my grandma :)
My favorite memory is my Granny would bake a gingerbread house at Christmas each year. Now I carry that tradition on and I bake one each year. Some years I have made as many as 27 ~ baking and taking to all on our list. Now it is most just one or two?
Those pies look lovely! I will definitely have to make some of them for our holiday this year!
My favorite memory involves pies, too. When my younger brother and I were pre-teens, I thought that pies were something that came from the store or from Grandma’s house. But one day he cajoled me into making the pie crust while he peeled apples, and it turned out that we could make a pretty good pie together! And it was a revelation to me that you could make your own desserts! My little brother is kind of a genius ;)
My favorite baking memory is baking dozens and dozens of Christmas cookies to give as gifts to family and friends!
My favorite baking memory is when my grandmother and I make apple pies for Thanksgiving. We spend most of the day before making them and we usually end up making an extra so that we can eat it that night before everyone comes over the next day! My grandmother taught me all I know about pies and everytime I have one or maek one I think of her.
My favorite memory is making date filled cookies with my grandma……we had so much fun..such great memories..thanks for an opportunity to win!
My favorite baking memory is when I was baking a cake for my little sister.. with my little sister. She was turning 7 and so excited to bake her first cake!
We have a similar tradition with plum jam tarts! My great great grandmother started it, and it has passed down from generation to generation. My dad is the tart maker now, and I hope to carry it on for my generation. : )
When we were little, we had a book called Mr. Cookie Baker that illustrated how to make cookies and cut them into fun shapes. We would make cookies with our own colored frosting for both the firemen and Santa. It was definitely one of my best baking memories with the whole family!
I think so far it would have to be my daughter making cookies with my mom for the first time. She was like 1 and a half and she got this wide eyed look when my mom opened the frosting container and let her use her finger to dip out a huge finger full of frosting. She was so intent on trying to put everything in the bowl and mix it herself, it was precious.
My most precious memory of baking is with my children. We bake cookies, pies, cakes, and brownies. Yum!
Each year, as Christmas draws near, my Mom, Aunt, Grandma, cousins, sisters, and I would hold a cookie baking day. We would start early and make TONS of batches of our favoritee family recipes. My Grandpa would be a good sport and eat the burnt ones for us :)
My favorite baking memory isn’t really baking. My mom would always make these candy treats with us to give to our friend at Christmas. We would go buy all this candy and turn it all into these neat little creations, like life savers, a stick of gum and a Hershey kiss for an airplane!
I have two great baking memories. Putting too much liquor in the tiramisu at my daughter’s Girl Scout Spaghetti Dinner and also, just recently, making banana pudding cupcakes with my now grown daughter at her new home. Thanks!
making yaco tacos with my husband
My favorite baking memory is when my friends and I had a bake-off in college. We went into one of the dorm kitchens (which, thankfully, had 2 ovens) and baked cakes, cookies, bread, and more until the table was groaning under the weight of all those sweets. We had so much fun! After we were done, we sent out an email to everyone in the nearest dorms telling them to come by and grab some food.
My favorite baking memories are the ones that I’m making now with my children. My 2 year-old daughter loves to sit on the counter and watch what is going on, helping when she can. My 5 year-old son loves to get in the kitchen and help me do whatever I need to do to make a meal, dessert, or treat. I loved being in the kitchen with my mom, getting to lick the bowl after making something delicious, and now I get to do that with my kids.
What sticks out in my memory is baking cakes for my college roommates. None of us had really done it before, but we’d attempt four layer cakes. They were often lopsided, but I didn’t usually see four layer cakes, and especially not ones made for me.
Making Christmas cookies with my mom and brother.
One of my favorite baking memories is of my mom and me making a huge batch of pumpkin bread every year. She’d make them into small loaves to share with friends and neighbors. I continue the baking tradition with my daughter.
I still remember the first time I baked something – I was in the living room with my Easy Bake oven, and proudly gave my family one teeny tiny bite each. While I’ve upgraded to a regular oven, and my family now gets a slice (or two!) each, I still love seeing their face when they take a bite of my latest concoction.
My NEWEST baking memory is baking cookies with my 2 and 4 yr old boys! They love to “help” and pour the ingredients in the bowl. The 2yr is wicked fast and can get his little hand in the bowl with fingers full of dough in a flash. Definitely a good little memory.
My favorite memory is when I was making my husband his family’s oatmeal cookie recipe. He was so excited he peaked in the oven, and sounding disappointed he said that they weren’t the same color as his family’s cookies. He didn’t realize they would get darker as they baked. They turned out just fine!
My mom and I made christmas cutout cookies every year..and I loved watching her make cakes. My grandmother too! She LOVED to bake everything from caramel , coconut, pound, lemon, and chocolate cakes…and I loved being a “helper”.
My sons expression when he saw his 2nd Bday cake with all of his favorite characters recreated in fondant. Priceless! Baking for him is such a labor of love.
My mom wasn’t (still isn’t) a baker but at Christmastime, she would make nut rolls for the entire street and we would deliver them to each house with them wrapped in festive cloth. So tasty and so much fun!
We don’t get snow very often in Dallas, but two years ago we did! FOUR snow days. Besides baking with every ingredient we could find in the pantry, my then 10-year old daughter started her own baking blog during that week. I love to look back at her posts and think about how much growing and baking she has done since then!
I think my most favorite baking memory and still continues is Taco’s and Turkey’s night. The Tuesday night before Thanksgiving my girlfriends and daugters come over and we make some type of Turkey cookie, cupcake, last year was cake pops as favors to give to our guests on Thanksgiving.
I have many happy memories baking with my mom- holidays and every day treats
I have A LOT of baking memories, but the sweetest has to be my memories of getting my first Hobbie Holly oven. It was like an Easy Bake oven. I used it everyday, making mini pies and cakes for family dessert. I really thought I was big time with that little oven!
My favorite baking memory is of my little tiny kid size baking tins. I had mini cookie sheets and mini tart and cake pans. I used to love baking with my mom and still do! We are opening a bakery in a few months!
Since my mom was so busy, my sisters and I usually baked together. I remember my oldest sister making a fudge topping, talking about boys but since we are younger all we cared about was the yummy treat she was making!
Making homemade gnocchi with my mom :)
My favorite baking memory is the first time my grandma let me make her homemade bread with her. It was a big treat because there are so many of us cousins so when we got picked it was great. I think I was around 6 or 7. I now make the same recipe with my kids. :)
My favorite baking memory is baking valentines cookies with my boys last year. They always want to bake with me, but normally I am on a deadline or making it for someone else so I don’t want to worry about them getting messed up. But for valentines I decided to make cookies with the boys for them and to let them help me. They had such a blast measuring out the ingredients and cutting the shapes and adding their own decorations to their cookies. The smiles on their faces were so big when they would look through the oven window that I don’t think I will ever forget it. What a special time it was. We will have to make it a tradition.
Decorating cookies at Christmas–I can’t wait for my kids to be big enough to help!
While we rarely bake most of the time, each year around Christmas Eve my husband and I try to find a new cookie recipe to make to give out to family and friends over the holiday week. :)
One of my favorite baking memories is decorating sugar cookies with my mom before Christmas. Despite the mess, she always let us decorate them just how we wanted! Such fun memories!
Baking cookies with my mom at Christmas! When the only troubles I had as a young girl were being sure the cookies came out perfect :)
My favorite baking memory was days before my parents 50th anniversary. The entire family enjoys petit fours so we had just enough confidence to make plans to make them for 300 people! Well, we tried to make batch after batch — we had such a mess! The icing continued to get the best of us all. Even the husband’s and brother’s got involved. Finally my dad said to just order them from the bakery, which we did. To this day we all have a joke about making the elusive confection. I believe this is one of the reasons why I enjoy seeing all your beautiful creations!!!! Thank you for sharing your gift!
My favorite baking memory is making chocolate chip cookies with my aunt and cousins….however, I’d have to say it was more of a mixing up chocolate chip cookie dough, the dough always disappeared by the time the oven was warm enough to bake them….
Pecan pie is one of my favorites. Mini versions seem dangerous, very dangerous!
My best memory is of making Swedish sugar cookies with my grandparents at Christmastime. My grandma would be the cutter and my grandpa, who never did any kitchen work, was the froster–he would pipe a thin line of icing around only the edges of the thin cookies after they baked. That was the tradition and we stick with it, even though both grandparents are now passed away.
Baking during christmas with my mother
I remember every Christmas my mom would get out the fancy cookie cutters that would emboss the cookies. We would make the dough and roll it out. My brother and I would always fight over where to place the cutter on the dough. Flour would fly… Once the cookies were cut out, a straw used to make a hole for hanging and cooked. We would then get out our “paints” and decorate the cookies. Plain cookies would become works of art with color, sprinkles and frosting. Once we were finished, mom would carefully wrap them in plastic wrap and hang them on the tree. We would each get to eat one a day until Christmas – then all bets were off!