December Holiday Baking Tips

December can be a crazy month. Parties, activities, end of the year, holiday traditions and events. On the blog, I usually make most of my recipes holiday themed or cookie recipes. Because, well lets be honest, cookies are what most people are making a ton of. I really haven’t ever had anyone request a fruit cake recipe from me. So, here’s what you can expect on the blog this December:

1. Lace Cookies - Not your traditional lace cookies, these ones are made with pistachios but are still beautifully thin and crispy and delicious. 

2. Cinnamon Sugar Shortbread - I love a good shortbread and this one is a cinnamon cookie coated in cinnamon sugar. Still rich and buttery and tender.

3. Glazed Donut Cookies - The flavor of your favorite glazed yeasted donut, but in a soft buttermilk sugar cookie.

4. Sandwich cookies - Chocolate roll out sugar cookies with a peanut butter frosting sandwiching them together.

5. Small Batch Monkey Bread - Sticky, sweet, cinnamon sugar glazed bread in a tear and share style.

Holiday baking is something many of us take on every year. Whether you’re baking for your immediate family, extended family and friends, neighbors, colleagues or functions I think most of us always have room for improvement.

My first tip, which honestly it’s my number one tip ANYTIME you’re baking.

1.  Use a scale!
   Using a scale will help you in so many ways. Most recipe developers use a scale when baking because it’s incredibly accurate. A cup of flour or sugar is always going to consistent so your results are going to be consistent. When you are scooping flour straight from the container it can be anywhere from 120 grams to 165 grams which is a huge disparity, and only compounds as you add more. Using a scale lets you get exactly the right amount, every single time. Additionally, you are generating less dishes to clean up. An extra bowl to put the various little ingredients out? Measuring cups? Nope. Right into the main bowl while it’s on a scale. Scales are great for so many things, and they make scaling recipes (want to make half a recipe with one egg? A scale helps with that) easier as well. I use this one (affiliate link) which isn’t too expensive but is worth it’s weight in gold to me (pun intended?).
   

2. Clean as you go.
   I'll admit I struggle with this one myself. However, even just putting everything in the sink and placing ingredients back where they go after you’ve measured goes a long way. There’s a big difference between popping your cookies in the oven and seeing a kitchen in shambles and turning around to a mostly tidy kitchen but dishes in the sink that need to be washed or loaded into a dishwasher. One seems infinitely more manageable.
   

3. Prep and Batches
   I love to give cookie boxes to friends and neighbors at Christmas time, however baking 7 different kinds of cookies in one day is a lot. If you spread it out over a week the first cookies get stale. So I will make cookie dough, scoop, chill and then freeze the dough starting about 2-3 weeks before I want to hand out the cookie boxes. Then the night before I’ll take my cookie dough out of the freezer and into the fridge, and the next day I can bake all the cookies over a day, but I’m not making any cookie dough that day. It makes everything seem WAY more manageable and people get a box of lots of different kinds of cookies all super fresh with way less stress on me.
   

4. Follow chill and rest times

   Waiting for cookie dough can feel excruciating. We all might start to feel like Veruca Salt and how "I want it NOW”. However, if a recipe has a chill or resting time, it’s most likely for a scientific reason rather than just to torture you.
   Cookie dough chill times help the fat in the recipe solidify which helps control spread of the cookie. It also helps the flour hydrate which results in a chewier thicker cookie. Thirdly, like most things time = flavor. A cookie dough that’s been chilled for 24 hours will have a more complex flavor than one baked immediately.
   
   Dough resting times are crucial to get the structure of the gluten developed, which helps trap the carbon dioxide and gases in the bread which make it rise. If you underproof your dough it’s likely to come out flat with poor crumb (the interior). Waiting to cut into fresh bread is one of my least favorite things. BUT, if you cut into hot bread too soon, you may notice the texture is not quite right. After bread is baked there is a ton of steam inside of your bread. Cutting into it right away releases all the steam which will lead to your bread drying out quicker that a loaf that wasn’t cut into immediately. Additionally, starch molecules in bread start to absorb water and gelatinize at around 150F. As the bread cools, starch retrogradation begins occurring which means essentially the drying out of your bread as the water molecules shift. Cutting in too soon is why your bread can seem gummy and dense, those gelatinous starch molecules are still quite waterlogged! Additionally, just like cookies, the flavor will be better when you wait. Which isn’t that the whole reason you’re baking?
   

5. Make sure your ingredients are the correct temperature

   Depending on the recipe, this can make a BIG difference on the outcome of the bake. Butter is one of the most common ingredients and often it needs to be room temperature. What exactly does that mean. Room temperature is about 68F but I know most of us aren’t wanting to pull out the thermometer just for this. The best way to judge is by feel. It shouldn’t feel cold, and if you press your finger into the top of the butter you should be able to leave a mark, but pressing down will not cause you to push deeply or all the way through the butter. Butter that’s too soft will cause cookies to spread and more crispy. Butter that’s too cold can cause cookies to not spread enough. If you have forgotten to warm up your butter some of the tricks include filling a tall glass with boiling water, letting it sit for 1-2 minutes then dumping out the water and placing the glass over the butter (standing on its end). If you have a pocket in your apron or sweater, put it in there to get some body heat which will help speed up the process. Of course you can microwave it, but if you do, I recommend cutting the butter into tablespoons and microwaving it on 50% power in 5-10 second increments. You are less likely to have cool butter with a molten center this way. To warm up eggs, place them in a bowl of lukewarm water for about 10 minutes and they should be ready!

6.  Remember. Even if they aren’t beautiful, they are delicious.

   This one is a good reminder for me. Sometimes you can follow a recipe exactly and it still doesn’t look like the pictures. Keep in mind, the photos have been styled and they have made that recipe two, three, maybe 10 times! Practice makes perfect. However, even if it doesn’t LOOK perfect it can still be just as delicious. Your friends and family will love anything that is made with love.

Have fun, Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays!