40+ Holiday Baking Recipes {& a HUGE Holiday Baking Giveaway!}

Okay, friends. The holiday baking season is on the not-so-distant horizon.  Are you ready for the flour caked, sugar coated madness that is about to ensue? ;)

If you happen to be feeling a little unprepared for the upcoming holiday baking season, never fear! I have joined together with Real Housemoms and a few of my other blogger friends to help get you all ready for all that pie baking, and cookie making, and frosting whipping.  

How you may ask? Well for starters, we gathered up over 40 of the best holiday baking recipes for you all...

Get Your Holiday Bake On Giveaway

Can you all believe it is almost December??  Seriously... where is this holiday season going? :)

Yep.  Full on holiday baking season is almost at our door steps, folks.  Are you ready?

No?  Never fear.  Myself & a few of my lovely blog sponsors are here to save your holiday baking with this awesome Get Your Holiday Bake On Giveaway!  This holiday baking prize package is valued at around $75 & includes the essentials as well as a few not so essentials, but definitely some fun doo-dads to kick your holiday baking up a notch this year.

15 Fabulous Make-Ahead Holiday Cookies

Get a head start on all that holiday baking now with these 15 Fabulous Make-Ahead Holiday Cookies recipes...

This post may contain affiliate links. Purchasing through them helps support this website.

Now that all of that Halloween business is behind us for another year, it is time to focus on that most wonderful time of the year...the holiday season!

If you are like me, the holidays are jam-packed full of family gatherings, last-minute gift shopping, home decorating, and of course, cookie baking.

But just what if you could get that holiday cookie baking done and out of the way?

Like now? ;)

Before the hustle and the bustle sets in.

Yes, folks. Freezer-friendly cookie dough and perfectly baked cookies could be all nestled in your freezer just ready for you to defrost and serve and enjoy. Have cookie dough and tasty cookies at the ready for unexpected holiday guests or impromptu baking sessions with the kiddos or your girlfriends.

Chai Spiced Gingerbread Stars

With warm chai spices and a touch of molasses, these Chai Spiced Gingerbread Stars are sure to quickly become a new classic cookie for your holiday baking...

Last week I shared with you all a recipe for a DIY Chai Spice Mix. And now I am giving you a holiday perfect recipe to use that spice mix in- these simple Chai Spiced Gingerbread Stars. :) 

I actually baked up these gingerbread cookies a couple of weeks ago to pack up & send off to the three fellow food bloggers I was matched up with for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. This was my second year participating in the swap, but the swap itself is in its fifth year now. 

Basically, it is a fun way to have a holiday cookie exchange with other food bloggers from around the country and to raise donations and awareness for Cookies for Kids' Cancer. You get 3 different dozen homemade cookies delivered right to your door, and you get to support a worthy cause at the same time- that is a win-win in my book. :)

I adapted this Chai Spiced Gingerbread Stars recipe from Allie's (Baking A Moment) recipe for Gingerbread Cookies That Don't Spread in the Oven. As soon as I came across her recipe, I knew I had to base my gingerbread recipe from hers. 

Most of you are probably all too familiar with gingerbread men who become puffy, inflated, & spread out of shape as they are baking. I made a few tiny tweaks to Allie's recipe, but these cookies held their shape as you can see from the photos. 

With warm chai spices and a touch of molasses, these Chai Spiced Gingerbread Stars are sure to quickly become a new classic cookie for your holiday baking...

It's Time for Turkey: My 4 Essentials for Easy Holiday Dinner Prep

Make your family holiday dinner super simple & hassle-free with My 4 Essentials for Easy Holiday Dinner Prep...

This post is sponsored by BabbleBoxx.com.

It is t-minus one day until turkey time, folks! If you happen to be scrambling to put the finishing touches on that holiday dinner menu for tomorrow, then you are in luck because I have a few quick & easy ideas to share with you all today. 

Who says that hosting a family holiday dinner has to be crazy time consuming and stressful anyways? ;) You can make it super simple & hassle-free with a few simple ingredients and a little creativity. I am sharing a handful of my favorite products & tips below for making that happen.

6 Holiday Perfect Cookbook Gift Sets (Updated for 2022)

If you happen to have a foodie, an aspiring home cook or baker, or a wanna be pit master on your gift list this holiday season, you are going to love this collection of 6 Holiday Perfect Cookbook Gift Sets...

This post may contain affiliate links. Purchasing through them helps support this website.

If you happen to have a foodie, an aspiring home cook or baker, or a wanna be pit master on your gift list this holiday season, then you are going to love today's post! 

I polled my food blogger friends to find out what are the must-buy cookbooks this year, and then matched each one up with the perfect gift to ensure that the your gift recipient actually puts that brand new cookbook to good use. 

Because let's face it- oftentimes when you give a cookbook for a gift, it finds it's way onto a shelf in the kitchen and then proceeds to collect dust. 

But pair that cookbook up with a baking pan set or a shiny new slow cooker, and bam! They have a little motivation to actually crack open that cookbook, am I right? ;)

Most of these cookbook gift combos I am sharing with you all today come in at under $40 making them totally budget friendly gift giving ideas, but I included a couple of splurges in this gift guide as well for those of you with more generous gift giving budgets this holiday season.

Whether you have a loved one who is looking to up their pie making game or a friend who is interested in getting in on the Instant Pot craze, I have the perfect holiday cookbook gift set for you... 

25 of The Best Holiday Cookies

Get a jump start on those holiday baking plans now with this collection of 25 of the Best Holiday Cookies...

I know that Halloween was just one week ago and we are all focused on making those Thanksgiving dinner plans right now, but you all- Christmas is next month! I mean, I know, I know. 

Christmas happens in December every single year (nothing new, right?), but if you are anything like me it always seems to sneak up on me even though I am very well aware of when December 25th is each year. ;)

While I am sure I will be super late on getting my Christmas cards out as usual and I will probably still be scrambling those few days right before Christmas to snag those last minute gifts, I can definitely get a jump on my holiday baking plans now. 

A couple of weeks before Christmas each year, Little Miss & I invite my sister and my mother over and we all get together to bake a whole slew of Christmas cookies and sweet treats. We crank up the Christmas carols, pour the eggnog, and get baking. It has definitely become one of my daughter and I's new favorite holiday family traditions. 

Make Your Holiday Dinner Simple & Easy with the Bob Evans Premium Farmhouse Feast

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Bob Evans Restaurants for IZEA Worldwide. All opinions are 100% mine.

The holiday season was meant for spending quality time with your family and loved ones. Make your holiday dinner simple & easy this year with the Bob Evans Premium Farmhouse Feast...

I love sharing a special meal with my family during the holidays. In fact, it is one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. Coming together, gathering around a table to enjoy a family-style meal, sharing stories, and just enjoying a little time together.

What I don't sometimes like about family holiday dinners is that someone (usually me) gets stuck in the kitchen cooking and baking up a storm while everyone else gets to come together, share stories, and enjoy a little time together. 

But I have a little secret to share with you all that I just discovered for myself... you can let Bob Evans do all the preparation for that family feast for you this holiday season by ordering their Premium Farmhouse Feast either online, in store, or over the phone. That's right! Your next holiday dinner can be made simple with Farmhouse Feast.

Bob Evans Premium Farmhouse Feast provides a complete "home-cooked" meal for 8-10 dinner guests without all of the hassle.

Whole Wheat Apple-Walnut Chai Bread

This moist and delicious Whole Wheat Apple-Walnut Chai Bread is packed full of the good stuff like apples, walnuts, whole grains, and chai spices for a fall/holiday kick...

I know when most people think of the flavors of the holiday season, they think of pumpkin and peppermint & chocolate. But for me it is all about the chai spices... and the apples! We go apple picking as a family every single fall, and I go to work over that next week or so making apple butter, baking a pie or two, and trying my hand at a few new apple inspired recipes as well.  

This recipe for Whole Wheat Apple-Walnut Chai Bread is definitely an exception to my usual holiday (ahem... indulgent) baking. My inspiration for creating this holiday perfect quick bread that you can also feel good about indulging in? The sack of Bob’s Red Mill Organic Whole Wheat Flour that I received in the mail. :) Bob's Red Mill wheat flour is stone ground from organic hard red wheat, leaving all of the nutritious bran and germ still intact. All of the wholesome goodness is retained in the process of grinding the flour.  And when I read that their whole wheat flour was ideal for bread baking, I knew that I just had try my hand at making a bread with it.  

Keeping with Bob's Red Mill's practice of keeping all of the good stuff in their products, I decided to add in a lot of the good stuff in my bread recipe as well- coconut oil, almond milk, organic apples, walnuts, and of course the menagerie of spices that give chai spice it's kick and holiday toastiness...

Breyers Apple Pie A La Mode

In partnership with the folks at Lunchbox, I am sharing this recipe for a holiday dessert classic- Apple Pie A La Mode. All opinions expressed below are my own.

When it comes to holiday baking and hosting guests for the holidays, you can just never go wrong by serving the classics. From hot cocoa with marshmallows to frosted sugar cookies to classic apple pie, the holiday classics are always sure to please and to disappear quickly. 

Homemade apple pie happens to be the most requested dessert in my home no matter what time of the year it may be.  For this holiday season, I am taking the classic apple pie and kicking it up just a notch by using my Toasted Pecan Pie Crust Mix for this and then topping it with a creamy, decadent surprise- Breyers® Gelato Indulgences in Vanilla Caramel... :)

Christmas Cookie Swap ~ Thumbprint Twists

I have to tell you all... I had a blast being one of the co-hosts for the Christmas Cookie Swap.  I was super lucky that one of my swap partners was Jaime from Mom's Test Kitchen.  Jaime sent me her recipe for Thumbprint Twists.  It seemed pretty straight forward- just 4 ingredients.  Should have been easy, peasy, right?  Well.... almost. ;)

Jaime's Thumbprint Twists

What you will need:

1 package sugar cookie mix

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1 bag of Hershey's Kisses Hugs (don't worry- you won't use the entire bag for the cookies)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a mini-muffin pan.

In a medium bowl, mix together the cookie mix, butter, and egg.  

Scoop the cookie dough into the mini muffin pan, filling about 3/4 of the way full.

Bake 7-10 minutes until the edges are starting to get golden and the middle of the cookies are barely done.

While the cookies are baking, unwrap your Hershey's kisses.  You need 1 per cookie.

Once the cookies have finished baking, immediately push the Hugs into the center of the cookies.  

Let the cookies cool for 2 minutes in the pan and then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.  It's easiest to use a spoon to scoop the cookies out of the pan.

Okay, so I deviated from the recipe.  You all know I had to add my own little twists to it.  I first started by dividing the cookie dough into 3 bowls.  Using food coloring, I colored one bowl green and one bowl red.  I left the other bowl of dough plain.

Then I decided to roll half the cookie dough into balls and then roll those into holiday colored sprinkles.  I placed the cookie dough balls onto a cookie sheet and baked for about 8 minutes.  (If you scroll to the last photo in this post, you can see how those turned out.  Pretty, huh? ;) )

I decided to stick with the good ole Hershey Hugs, but you could opt for any of the new and fun holiday flavored Kisses.  

For the second batch, I decided to try the mini muffin pan.  I didn't like how flat the first batch turned out.  I was hoping the cookies would hold the ball shape a little better.  I pressed the remaining dough into the muffin pan and then topped some of them with the holiday sprinkles.  I baked them for about 10-11 minutes.  And this is where the whole cookie baking deal took a humorous turn...

This is what happened ^^^ to my second batch.  I couldn't bake them any longer or the tops and edges would have been burnt, but they were pretty doughy in the middle and at the bottom.  Not that this didn't taste amazing, especially warm.  It just wasn't very pretty. ;)

Annnndddd.... here was the issue...

Yep.  HUGE baking fail.  I never turned my oven from Preheat to Bake.  Thus, why I had the  weird uneven baking.  Too bad I didn't realize it until I was finished baking and was turning my oven off!  

And here are the pretty, flat ones! :)  My family actually loved these, so they were a huge hit even if they didn't turn out perfectly.  Even the ones I baked in the muffin tin set up a bit better after I left them in the pan to cool for about an hour.  

I would recommend that you do not press the Hershey Kisses into the cookies immediately after baking.  The cookies were pretty hot and the Kisses melted quite a bit.  I had to let the cookies cool for hours before I could store them in a container because I needed to wait for the Hugs to turn solid again.  I would suggest waiting maybe 3-4 minutes after baking to add the Hugs or Kisses.  You want the cookie to still be warm, but not so hot that it turns the Kiss into a chocolate pudding.

I would also suggest that you ALWAYS check your oven to be sure that it is indeed set on Bake and not Preheat. ;)

Thank you, Jaime for the fun Christmas Cookie recipe! 

When did you last commit a baking fail?  Were you able to salvage the results? :)

Toasted Pecan Pie Crust Mix Gift with Free Printable

Get a head start on those holiday hostess and teacher gifts now with this easy to make Toasted Pecan Pie Crust Mix Gift...

I am sort of a sucker for fun foodie gifts for the holidays.  I love making and giving them. And I love receiving them.  

I mean first of all, food is universal. We all eat it, right? ;)

So you can whip up cookie mixes or make fudge (or this Toasted Pecan Pie Crust Mix), and they make the perfect gifts for anyone on your holiday list. 

Everyone has seen the layered cookie mixes in jars by now, right? I mean, you really can't even open Pinterest these days without at least seeing one or two on that first page. Baking cookies is always synonymous with the holidays.  

But pie baking is too! Except that it usually takes a little more effort to make pies. But gifting this Toasted Pecan Pie Crust Mix takes a little of the work out of that holiday pie making for those favorite hostesses, teacher, and foodies in your life... :)

Creamed Turkey Over Biscuits

This comforting & hearty Creamed Turkey Over Biscuits recipe is perfect for that leftover holiday turkey...

Let's be real.  If you have a decent amount of leftover Thanksgiving turkey, you can only eat so many cold turkey sandwiches, right? ;)  And trust me... I have had quite a few leftover turkey sandwiches in the past 2 1/2 days.

One of my absolute favorite meals to make with leftover turkey (and mashed potatoes!) is my Creamed Turkey Over Biscuits.  

This is a meal that is served at one of my favorite local family diners here. 

In fact, I often joke that the DNA of my 15 year old is at least 50% comprised of the creamed turkey and biscuits from the Parkette.  I craved it all the time when I was pregnant with him, and we pretty much found ourselves there at least once a week during that 9 month period.  

After last Thanksgiving, I set out on a quest to concoct my own copycat version of this comfort food fave of mine.