I’m just dropping in for a fun Christmas-y chat today before taking a couple of days off blogging for the holidays. I might stop by tomorrow to chat about kids’ gifts, but we’ll just see how the Christmas cookies baking is going!
When I was growing up, we made 5-6 kinds of Christmas cookies every year. Sugar cookies, gingerbread men, pecan balls/Mexican wedding cakes, chocolate fudge and peanut butter balls–which is a recipe that I’m always meaning to share but haven’t gotten around to yet! Sometimes we made peanut butter blossoms, but only if we started baking early enough in December.
Needless to say, most of those recipes involve flour and/or chocolate (Eric hates chocolate–weirdo). So when Eric and I started spending the holidays together in 2014, I began trialing gluten-free versions of my favorites.
Over the years we have had some major gluten-free cookie failures. Like the sugar cookies that melted into each other into one big crispy greasy tray of biscuit. Or gingerbread cookies so hard they could break your teeth. Or fudge that was good, but so soft that it “melted” into a giant fudge blob when stored in the fridge.
In the end we’ve settled on a few favorite recipes that are now “our Christmas cookie lineup.” Sugar cookies, gingerbread cookie bars, peanut butter balls, and peppermint bark–which is literally just crushed candy pieces mixed with melted white chocolate, spread on a baking sheet.
I leave the fudge-making to my mom and always ask for a plate of it on Christmas morning 🙂
I’d love to know, what are your family’s holiday cookie or dessert traditions? I always love hearing about different traditions.
Like in Italy, my stepmom’s family always has panettone, and Eric’s family makes these strange little sweet bread-y rolls called “saffron fuggins,” and a candy-like cookie called Chinese Chews.
xx Claire