Making/Baking Gifts

I tend to make holiday gifts rather than buy them with very few exceptions. It’s been my tradition for many years. I’ve constructed soups in a jar, dog treats in a jar, infused vinegars and olive oils, etc., but now I pretty much stick to homemade canned and/or baked goods. These canned goods are usually things I’ve produced in the summer and many of those recipes/techniques are found in other blog posts so this one will concentrate on the baked goods. This year’s holiday season was especially busy so I almost forgot about cookies until a friend asked when I was planning on baking.  It was one of those oops moments. When I got the text I looked at my husband and said, “I guess it’s time I got to baking.” 

I typically have some repeat recipes and throw in something new, but this year was a little different. My original plan was to make my regular chocolate chip cookies and spritz cookies with something new. There were two problems with this plan. 

First, I could not figure out where my favorite go-to spritz cookie recipe had come from. (I actually just figured it out yesterday which was not helpful for 2024 Christmas.) I love to add spritz cookies to the mix because the recipes typically make a ton and they bake pretty quickly. Plus, who doesn’t love to play with a cookie press? Since I couldn’t find my favorite recipe, I went on a search for a recipe that not only made a large batch, but looked similar to the recipe I love. The closest I got was Martha Stewart’s spritz cookie recipe from her Cookies cookbook (which I do love despite the critique of this particular cookie). The cookies were good, but the dough was a bit hard to work with. Martha calls them Vanilla-Bean Spritz Wreaths and she means wreaths. When I used other shapes in my cookie press, they didn’t turn out very well. Though she recommends keeping the dough covered to retain the moisture, it is a particularly dry dough so it falls apart easily. I was drawn to this recipe because of the vanilla bean used in lieu of extract, but it didn’t really compare with the recipe I typically use. Now that I’ve solved the mystery, I can share my recipe of choice which can be found in the Taste of Home Cookies Bars & More cookbook. For some reason I completely overlooked this small book while scouring my other recipe books, but I can’t emphasize enough how many wonderful home recipes are contained within this little treasure. 

The second snafu was completely on me… again. I did not end up making my typical chocolate chip cookies because I wasn’t paying enough attention to what I was doing. Like my mother, I tend to use the Tollhouse recipe on the side of the package of chocolate chips. I have other chocolate chip recipes I love, but when you are doing a ton of baking, there is something nostalgic about this recipe available to all grocery shoppers. Needless to say, I never noticed the fact that they also now have an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe on the package. I don’t know what ingredient it was that made me realize this wasn’t my typical recipe, but I figured it was to be a happy accident. My husband loves oatmeal cookies, so I figured this recipe would “kill two birds with one stone”. They were good, but I think in the future I will make both chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal cookies separately instead of this marriage of both. 

The big winner this year, without question, were The NY Times Pecan Pie Brownies. Everyone I made them for requested more…. including my husband who tries to stay away from the sweets as much as possible. He couldn’t resist them which was kind of fun for me to witness. They were gooey pecan pie on top, with rich brownie on the bottom. The edge pieces were chewy while the middle pieces were a bit more tender. They are going into the repeat bin while the others will be replaced with their predecessors. 

Another one of my other favorite cookie recipes is worth and honorable mention. It is super easy and has been passed down from generation to generation. Years ago I worked with a gentlemen whose children gathered their grandmother’s recipes and combined them all and digitized them for ease of use and sharing. They very generously gave me a copy. Some of these recipes become guessing games because the ingredients are listed, but not necessarily the steps. She already knew the steps right? Anyway, her 7 Layer Bars are one of my favorites and always a crowd favorite. The first step is to melt a stick of butter (salted) on a sheet pan and then press granola crumbs into it until the crust forms. The next steps are super easy…. Sprinkle butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, coconut flakes, chopped pecans evenly on top. Lastly, cover everything in one can of sweetened condensed milk. Bake at 350 degrees for about 20-25 minutes until everything has melted together. Cool and cut into bars. If you have a crowd of folks who don’t care for coconut, just leave it out. These bars can be easily tweaked based on preferences/nut allergies, etc.