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!
Every year our family gets together at Thanksgiving and has a pot-luck style dinner with about 30 family members. My mom and I have been making the “famous” apple pie with crumb topping for 20 years now :) Even the non-apple lovers will take a big piece of this pie! I have now taken on the baking roll in the family, but it is always fun to remember how I started my love of baking by making holiday treats, especially the apple pie, with my mom.
I love watching my 16 year old daughter help her younger sisters make gingerbread cookies. I don’t bake very often, especially since she’s gotten older, but I love eating her cookies!
My favorite baking memory was baking with my family. We would make dozens of cookies and package them in cute ways. We would give them to all of the special people in our lives.
My favorite memory is baking Christmas cookies for Santa with my children each year. It is so interesting to track their growth and development each year through this simple activity. Each year the cookies get decorated more intricately and creatively. The colors get more realistic and the thought and effort gets more dramatic!
I love baking with my dogs! They are so cute, very interested in all I do and always appreciate my cooking! One year when I was finished I put a lovely cake on the table. I came back out and there way a big hole-my lab ran under the table and I swear he was trying to wipe the crumbs off his face with his paws! BUSTED!
My Grandma, Mom, sister and I would bake numerous types of cookies about a week before Christmas. We always had so much fun baking, decorating and eating. My Grandma has passed away but every year we still get together and have an amazing time baking Christmas cookies. It has become one of my favorite Christmas activities.
Making my daughter’s first birthday cake this year. I doctored up a mix but made the frosting from scratch. It was so special to me to be able to do that for her. :)
My favorite memory is making homemade apple pie. We loved to make extra pie crust dough and make cookies with the leftovers!
My favorite baking memories are with my great grandma who is 93 years old. My little sister and I spent a summer with her when I was 12 and she was 7. We baked so many chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies, made strawberry and raspberry jams, and many many more memories. I am lucky enough to have my great grandma still around today! <3
Holidays have a way of bringing out the best family traditions. My mom and I would always make candy-cane cookies and spritz cookies. She had this old cookie press that she got as a wedding present (25 years old now!) and it works wonderfully. She bought a new one a few years ago because the old one stopped working, but it never did as well. I had so much fun as a kid switching out the different shapes for the cookies, adding vanilla to one batch and almond to the other, pressing the cinnamon red hots on the tops of the Christmas trees… We haven’t made candy cane cookies in a few years since none of the kids are at home anymore, but during final exam week my mom always sends a package with those cookies in them. Every time I eat them I think of family and being together.
Growing up, my mom and my sisters and I would bake up a storm during Christmas time. I will always remember how she refused to give away any imperfect cookies, any blemish whatsoever and it wasn’t given away. Lucky for us, we girls were able to eat up those imperfect ones, so much fun!
My mom and I would always bake cookies at Christmas time. i have only recently learned that my mom doesnt really like baking cookies… but got such a kick out of how much I loved it that she did it year after year :-)
One of my favorite memories is baking pound cakes for Christmas with my grandfather. His cakes are legendary in our family and always made from scratch and lots of love.
When I was about 8 or nine, my brother and I were being babysat. It was the day before mother’s day. We tried to bake her a cake, but we forgot to spray the pan with nonstick spray! So when it was done baking we had to pry pieces out a little bit at a time. We called them “Mom Nuggets” and iced them as best as we could. I will never again forget to spray the pan! :)
I loved baking with my mom, my grandma, or my aunt. They managed to take any ordinary baking task and turn it into a magical afternoon. I hope to give my girls the same amazing memories! : )
When I was 14 my family had a girl from Germany staying with us for a few weeks and for Halloween I helped her bake and decorate a cake. That memory always sticks out for me because I’m a really shy person but she and I just clicked and had so much fun baking together and trying to figure out the correct spelling of Halloween. :)
I started baking when I was a little kid. for something to do, after school snacks, etc. I ended up making seven minute icing from lack of powdered sugar. I had to take them to class the next day (overproduction). I remember the teacher asking about the icing. Oh, and my mother asking if I would like more yeast at the grocery store (she liked my breadsticks.)
My favorite baking memory is making over 100 cake pops for my niece’s engagement party. The night I flew in, my sister, and my two niece’s started the process, rolling, chilling, dipping and decorated in your party colors. It took us hours, but oh what fun we had!
When I was smaller, my friends and I loved baking banana bread (mashing the bananas was the best!) and amish breads!
We have been baking Bizcochitos cookies for the last 40 years at Christmas.
My daughter’s attempts at making gingerbread cookies are what my memories are filled with. The funny looks of them while they bake then the great excitement she gets whenever they come out perfectly smooth are my favorite moments. They actually come out quite nicely most of the time…
My Mama and I try to bake one new cookie or candy recipe each Christmas. We also have a bunch of old standbys, including chocolate dipping for any- and everything we can find in her pantry and fridge. We’ve found some tasty creations, like piping peanut butter into Bugles then dipping them in white chocolate.
My favorite memory of baking is also with my grandmother—who has not been with us in over 20 years. We used to make thumbprint cookies with raspberry and apricot jam! We’d make tons of them and bring them over to my uncles house for Christmas Day Dessert! Those memories remind me that family/friends are what’s important around the holiday season!
I love baking rolls this time of year! They are a family favorite!!
My baking memories are when my children bake with me. We love making cakes. I love how happy they get just to pour the ingredients into the bowl. Plus they love to acidentally stick their fingers into the cake. I will never forget thier little faces when we are baking!
Making bunelos with my family in California, all my aunts would come over, the kids would get to eat them fresh! So good.
My favorite baking memory is when my brother and I would make chocolate chip cookies together. We would freeze a portion of the dough then later that night munch on the dough and watch a movie. Brothers are the best!!
I love making Christmas cookies. Started to make them with my mom, my best friend and her daughters.
Making cresent rolls with my Mom for Thanksgiving and Christmas! My Mom is known for her amazing rolls and it was so fun to make them with her!
On new years we would make a different version filled with sugar and orange zest and topped with an amazing sauce! No wonder our family always looked forward to Holidays – especially New Years!
When I baked and decorated a fondant cake for with my friend for her grad! It didn’t turn out super pretty but it was a riot. Her little siblings had a ball with the left over fondant and it tasted amazing. :)
Continuing the tradition my Mom started, making many kinds of candy & cookies to share with the people that have blessed us through out the year. That sweet sediment is one many look foward to each year and a reminder that something sweet provides a great ‘thank you’ but special holiday memory. I know my Mom looks down each year to see what goodies are being made and shared.
When I was a kid, my parents used to buy my sister, brother, and I some paper wrapped cake/Hong Kong Cupcakes from the Chinese bakeries in Houston. It was a dessert that the five of us all enjoyed eating, despite our varying tastebuds. As the years went by, there was less times for us to go to Houston. Instead, I started learning how to make these cakes, so every time my siblings and I go home for college, my parents (my dad especially) comes up to me and asks “When are you go to make me cake? I want some of your yummy cake!”
Yummm! Pecan Pies! My favorite baking memories are when my six year old daughter and I bake together. Nothing gets better than seeing the excitement run through and watching her taste the end result! <3
My favorite memory is whenever friends bring over their plates of baked goods. I always remember sitting at the table watching them bake as the last batch of cookies are cooling off on the table. Oh the delicious smells!
My favorite memories are being in my Grandmother’s kitchen as she baked pies for the holidays–sweet potato, pecan, impossible coconut (the only one for which we found a recipe), various chess pies, etc. Then there were her yeast rolls, rice pudding–I could go on.
One of my favorite memories is Thanksgiving prep at my Grandparent’s house. All the ladies in the family would get together the day before Thanksgiving and make all the pies… apple, pumpkin, pecan, mince meat and usually another “surprise one”. We learned all the tips and tricks from my Grandma and it was always a fun time with family.
Baking Christmas Cookies is a tradition that runs in our family. It first started out being just my mom and I and now includes my sister in law, 2 nieces and 3 nephews. Its so fun having all of us in one kitchen. The laughter and memories never cease!
My favorite baking memory are holidays. When I was young my mom would get up early and stay up late to prepare Christmas and Thanksgiving goodies. I loved watching her bake (in her pj’s sometimes) and being there to lick the spoon, stir, wrap, hold,….whatever she needed me to do. The smells and the taskes were amazing. I’m getting warm inside just thinking of those times.
I have many baking memories, but one stands out. Recently, for my neighborhood block party, me and 2 friends decided to make cake pops!! I was inspired by your amazing blog and decided to share the happiness/cuteness with my neighborhood. The cake pops were a huge hit :) and i felt like such a pro when we were making them because of the amount of times I hav read and reread ur blog <3
My mom making thumbprint cookies with colored icing in the center or chocolate icing.; I also remember making Spritz wreaths at Christmas using a cookie gun. Always special and delicious!.
My mom nor my grandmother are cooks (my sister is!) but we do have a great recipe for Pecan Pie Bars that are made every holiday. And while still dating A I found a recipe, tweaked it, and made my first ever Triple Cherry Pie. It must have worked because we’ve been married 5 years and he gets the pie at least every Thanksgiving and 4th of July.
Sorry, I didn’t include my whole e-mail address! Thanks.
I always associate baking with my granny’s kitchen. Holidays were especially the best because any available space was spread with cakes, pies, cookies and homemade doughnuts. Pecan pie and apple spice cake for Thanksgiving, red velvet cake and pumpkin rolls for Christmas, my mouth is watering now just remembering. I’ll treasure her recipes, handwritten in her shaky chicken scratchy writing and every time I pull a batch of lemon tea cakes out of the oven, I see her worn apron and hear her voice reminding me not to make the icing too thin.
I’ve loved watching my dad make Vanochka, Czech Christmas bread, for years. One day I’ll have to take over the tradition.
When I was a kid I absolutely loved baking. Although my first batch of bread didn’t turn out well or rise like it was supposed to (I was about 7) I thought it was delicious and even slept with it under my pillow so I could snack on it at night!
My favorite memory is definitely my mom making “cinnamon rolls”, which weren’t your typical cinnamon rolls. Everytime she made apple pie, she would roll out an extra pie crust and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, then roll and cut them like cinnamon rolls because I didn’t like apple pie at the time. I still love to eat those things!
When I was a little girl, my grandmother and I used to bake in her kitchen. Any memory with my grandmother is my favorite, but especially our baking. :)
Every Thanksgiving, my mom and I make this amazing sweet potato casserole with cinnamon, brown sugar, and marshmallows. My favorite part is that we always have to buy lots of mini marshmallows (much more than we needed) because people always snuck into the kitchen to grab a handful and snack on them :) It’s always a treat to see the smile on people’s faces when they see a tray of food topped with toasted marshmallows!!
My favorite baking memory is making edible gift baskets for all my coworkers and loved ones. After baking, I would wash all of my utensils using my favorite dishwashing detergent. So now, everytime I wash my dishes, I am taken back to that moment and the fantastic emotions that came with it.
Baking a cherry merengue pie for my mother for Mother’s Day with my grandmother. I
My favorite memory of baking during the holidays is the excitement I get whenever I use holiday cookie cutters!
My favorite baking memory is the first time I made your Pillow Cookies when I moved in with my new roommates. Let’s just say the night ended with our bellies full of cookies, milk, and Nutella (why not?). We bonded that night and ever since then it’s a big occasion when Pillow Cookies make an appearance. They are legendary in our household!
my favorite baking memories have been since i learned how to make fondant – baking special birthday cakes for my friends and family that they have really cherished. and i would love to win that mixer so i could continue to do that!
My favorite baking memory is from very recently. I was making a cake for my husband and my daughter (2 years old) wanted to help. We were working on the frosting and she turned on the mixer for me just a little too high! Powdered sugar went flying EVERYWHERE! She was so cute about it and we both just laughed and laughed and took a picture of her covered in powdered sugar. I was thankful that she was wearing an apron. And the dogs were thrilled with the powdered sugar that ended up on the ground. :)
My Mom is a fabulous baker and we had a constant supply of fresh breads, cakes, and pies growing up. My favorite memory is Mom letting us sprinkle cinnamon & sugar on leftover pie dough strips she had brushed with melted butter, and making little rolled up cookies. The oozing butter and sugar would caramelize and stick to the bottom. So simple and so good, they were a real treat!
My favorite baking memory is the very first time I tried to bake something on my own. I wanted to bake a cake to celebrate my parents’ wedding anniversary. No one ever told me that the cake had to be completely cooled before you frost it — so soon after lovingly decorating the cake, the colors all ran together and made a complete mess — it looked like a train wreck! (However, it was quite tasty!) My parents loved it :-)
My favorite memory was baking holiday cookies with my mom and her sisters and my great grandmother. I always think of her when I do my holiday baking.
My mom always made the very best cinnamon rolls. One weekend while she was away, I decided I could probably make them all by myself. It was my first time using yeast. It was a valiant effort, but mom need to “save” them when we she got home. I love all I’ve learned from my mom!
My favorite baking memory was when I was in preschool and my grandma and I would make pudding together. The best part was standing on the step-stool stirring two pots of pudding at once!
My favorite memories definitely include holiday baking for all our family and friends with my mom. Food was a passion for my mom and she shared it with her family. She wasn’t happy unless she was offering food to her guests. She was the ultimate hostess. Unfortunately this will be my first Christmas without her but my daughter is already planning on making sure we continue her traditions.
We will definitely be baking. I shared my moms recipes through the years with my daughter and it is now our tradition. M daughter has been inviting 3 of her girlfriends over for about 10 years. Their families do not bake and they love to come over and share our recipes and bake. They pick out about 4 recipes to bake and when they are done the girls have treats to share with their families
I have a lot of great baking memories, but one new one stands out. For my neighborhood block party, me and 2 of my neighbors decided to make cake pops!! We made the popcorn bags from your recipe and our own creations, watermelons. It was a lot of fun, and i felt like a pro from reading ur blog!! <3 :)
my absolute baking memory is that ever since i was little me and my mom would bake all kinds of cookies for Christmas – it would just be me and her baking literally all night long for days at a time. We would have tins and tins of cookies all ready for Christmas eve and Christmas day. Now that I have a 4 year old I am starting the same tradition. It puts a smile on my face just thinking about it.
My Gran-Dot used to let me stand in a kitchen chair so I could reach the counter and around age 6, she taught me how to use her Kitchenaid Stand Mixer to make her “famous” Sour Cream Pound Cakes (with her secret ingredient). Everytime I see a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer, I think of her and it brings back beautiful memories of times spent learning to bake and cook with my GranDot.
My favorite memory cooking would be the times I baked strawberry bread and gave as gifts.
I remember making a lemon meringue pie with my grandma when I was really little. I knew I wouldn’t like it, but I really wanted to make it with my Grandma. I just remember it looked pretty in my kids cook book. That was a not a good enough reason for my Grandma. If only I had mentioned that in the beginning.
My first attempt at making gingerbread cookies didn’t go so well- the dough was so sticky I couldn’t do anything with it. I love to bake and have never had anything go so bad before! I was ready to throw it all away, but my husband took over and finished them for me. They tasted great, but I will NEVER bake gingerbread again!
When I was little, my mom would always let me and my sisters help her cook in the kitchen. I got so excited when she taught me how to make a cake.
My mother has been the quintessential baker/cook/chef in our family since day one. Everything I’ve learned, she has taught me. As I’m about to start my own family, and my own family traditions, I have been thinking a lot about how she taught me to cook. My favorite memory has to be centered around the holidays, Christmas imparticular. She goes all out on sweets for Christmas, whipping up cookies, cream cheese rolls, cinnamon rolls, pecan pralines, pies, and everything in between. I’ll never forget the first time she taught me how to make our family recipe cream cheese rolls. I remember sitting there watching her roll out the pastry dough, fill with the extremely loose cream cheese filling, fold the dough over and then grab both ends, flip the log as fast as she could and place it on the pan, ALL WITHOUT BREAKING IT! I was in awe each time she did it, because the laws of physics are not in her favor. That dough should break every time, but with her ninja like reflexes, it doesn’t. When I did my first cream cheese roll, she was right there, ready to catch the dough if it fell. But just like her, i kicked into high gear, and BOOM it landed on the cookie sheet, in perfect form. YAY! Can’t wait for this Christmas, to break in my new kitchen, and make cream cheese rolls for all!
My favorite baking memory was when we had our family picnic recently and I was assigned veggy burgers to bring among other things. In addition to this I decided to make the hamburger cupcakes from your website. When my mom saw the cupcakes she took a bite of one before realizing it was actually a cupcake. They turned out so cute and obviously quite authentic. We all had lots of fun.
I don’t really have a favorite baking memory, however the one memory I wish I had was learning to bake old fashioned doughnuts (The good coffee dunkers) with my grandmother. She always made them and had them around all winter. There was always a coffee can full of doughnuts and doughnut holes for us kids whenever we came to visit. She even sent them to me in Iraq when I was deployed. She’s gone now and I don’t think anyone in our family learned that skill from her.
This isn’t exactly a baking tradition, but a candy-making one. Each year my mother and sisters get together for a candy-fest during the holidays. We make peanut brittle and divinity, dip all kinds of chocolates, and help the grandkids and great-grandkids construct grahm cracker houses. Good day!
I remember baking cookies and pastries with my mom during the holiday’s when I was really little :D
Every year, my mom and I bake a dozen different types of cookies in the week leading up to Christmas so we can make cookie tins for all our friends and neighbors.
Christmas cookie baking with family is the best! It puts you in the Christmas spirit and is delicious too!
Filming my grandma making her dressing so I can make it just right when it’s my turn :)
My favorite baking memories are of baking with my youngest daughter. She’s 11 yrs. old so we’re still making these memories. I love seeing how proud she is about cracking eggs without getting any pieces of shell in there. I also love how serious she is about leveling off the measuring cups. It’s also wonderful how proud she is of the finished products. It makes me smile just thinking about these things.
Every year, shortly before Christmas, my mom, sister, and I would spend a day in the kitchen baking cookies. We would make a long list of all the cookies we wanted to make and then split them up between us- we had a lot of cookies to give and eat after that day! And it was so much fun to spend an entire day in the kitchen with my two favorite ladies :)
My first memory of baking is with my mom when I was a little girl. All we needed was a box of cake mix and a few ingredients and magic happens. Fun time! Oh course, the cake isn’t complete without some instant frosting! haha. i really miss that bonding and i can’t wait to share it with my daughter!
my favorite baking memory was from when i was in the 5th grade. i went to a private school and each family needed to work so many service hours per school year. for the school festival, my mom decided to bake goodies for the school to sell as part of her service hours. my mom and i spent the days prior to the festival baking everything from cookies to brownies and even making rice krispy treats. my favorite part of the whole experience was sampling everything!
The first time my daughter and I made her first batch of chocolate chip coolkies.
My favorite baking memory is being with my parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles at Christmas when I was a small child. We would all chip in and make hard tack candy, peanut butter balls and crème de menthe balls. The hard candy was the best! In cinnamon, lemon, root beer and anise. It’s one of my happiest memories as a child. Now that my parents have moved away and my grandparents have all passed, my aunt and I meet at her house every year in November. My 2 children always go with me. Together, we all make Christmas candy, popcorn balls and pecan pies (thank you for the new recipe to try!) Just writing about this memory brings tear to my eyes and I can smell the candy! Thank you!
My grandmother was from Texas and she too made a mean pecan pie. We used to get a shipment of pecans from her brother in New Mexico (who owned a pecan farm!) every year. And as soon as we got them every year she and I would whip up pecan pies and my other favorite, red velvet cake (covered in pecans), like nobody’s business! We don’t get the pecan shipments anymore, but I still whip up pecan pies and red velvet cake around that time every year.
I am enjoying baking with my “Little” Sister. My children are grown so I joined Big Brothers Big Sisters and I now bake regularly with her. We take pictures so that we can make a photo book, and we are also making a recipe book for her to keep.
My favorite baking memory is from when I was a kid.. my mom has always made our Thanksgiving pies from scratch. Crust, filling, everything, and I would help! One year there was some leftover crust and filling, so we put them together in a tiny glass dish and made my very own mini pumpkin pie. Loved it! :)
Watching my grandmother work her magic in the kitchen, she never weighed anything, just knew how it should ‘look’ in the bowl. She made the tallest melt in your mouth scones I’ve ever seen and they tasted amazing with a thisck smear of butter warmed on the hearth above the fire!
One of my favorite baking memories is when I can sit down with my grandma and bake some of her Italian cookie recipes. I not only get to bake with her but she teaches me a little Italian.
My favorite memory is making cookies with my 2 year old. I remember when I was a kid pulling a chair up alongside my aunt and grandma to help them and now it is so fun to have my kids pull their chairs besides me and help.
I couldn’t have been than 6 or 7 years old when I remember hearing my mother talking to one of her friends about how she bought plastic mixing bowls for baking, to make it easier for me, since I was such a good baker. I have never forgotten how good it made me feel to hear that my mother consider me to be a good baker and to this day, I feel inspired by her words.
My favorite holiday baking memory is also being in charge of pies! We have a HUGE family Thanksgiving every year, and I am the ONLY one who bakes the pies…I spend the few days before being a crazy pie-maker, and I usually make at least 10 each year. I absolutely love it! The only help I get is from my sweet grandmother, who is the homemade crust queen. Together we make an awesome team!
Every year since I was about five my mom always baked cookies with my sister and I at Christmas time. It’s something we do every year. Probably why I love Christmas so much.
One of my more recent favorite baking memories was last Christmas when both my hubby and now 3 yr old got in on the annual sugar cookie decorating. I have been baking these with my mom every winter for as long as I can remember. We would make dozens of different kinds of cookies and freeze them so we can enjoy them throughout the season. Now that I have my own little family, I’ve continued the tradition. It made my heart melt to hear my son telling his dad how he was decorating it, his voice filled with excitement. Love. :)
My mom would always bake confetti angel cake when I was little. I remember it was pink and sticky and smelled like cotton candy. That was probably the best surprise when I came home from school. I love that cake! (and my mom… :) )
My favorite holiday memory reminds me of your Uncle Larry. :) My Grandpa Joe loved fudge, and after my grandma passed away, he decided he was not going to go a Christmas without fudge, so he started making it on his own. He used the recipe off the back of the marshmallow creme jar, and sometimes he’d have three or four pans before he got one to turn out, but he always had fudge to eat at Christmas time!
My favorite recent memories are baking anything with my son. It has been so much fun seeing him grow up to be a little baker, and what parts of the recipies he actually remembers. He can rattle off most of the ingredients to this exact recipe for the pecan pies because we make them every year for friends and family.
My favorite fall baking memory is with my children. My two girls helped me making a couple desserts for Thanksgiving. I made a pumpkin cake that has a glaze on it. They had so much fun counting and dumping in the amounts (they were 5 and 4). They also had fun stirring everything together. I was so proud of my little girls.
What the heck…I’ll give this a shot.
My favorite baking memory is making chocolate chip cookies with my mom and siblings every Sunday night as a kid and eating most of the dough before we could bake it. Then we would have what cookies did get baked and not eaten in our lunches at school on Monday. All of my friends were jealous. :)
My favorite memory is with my grandmother any time of the year. It always amazed me that she could make anything without a recipe. Now that she’s gone I wish I had paid more attention. Now I make memories with my kids and grandkids.
I am making a photo book for my daughter for her third birthday of all of us making cookies (and a huge mess) in the kitchen :)
My favorite baking memory is when I was in the second grade and my mom, after a long day at work, stayed up and made cupcakes for me to take to school to celebrate my birthday. We didn’t have much back then, but my mom wanted me to feel special and be able to celebrate it at school (especially since it was on a school day and the first time I would be in school for it – it usually fell on Easter break). I still remember, the pink frosting and sprinkles. =)
Over the years, I’ve made many signs for folks in our community. One Christmas, I was asked to make car signs for a local gentleman who sold produce from the back of his truck. He paid me in sweet potatoes. Well, after preparing sweet potatoes in every imaginable way- fried, baked, boiled, sweet, savory, grilled, etc.- I was at a loss as to what to do with the remaining few.
Thumbing through one of my cookbooks, I happened upon a chiffon pie recipe and got the brilliant idea to use mashed sweet potato in that pie recipe. It made the most beautiful fluffy and TALL pale orange pie (and enough left over for a second one). Trouble was, it also had zero flavor and tasted pretty much like air.
So I took it to school and shared it with my colleagues who devoured it (as shop teachers are known to do) and requested that I never make another Peanut Butter Chiffon Pie unless I actually used peanut butter instead of substituting sweet potatoes.
My favorite cooking memory was with my Aunt Marie. My brother and I used to spend lots of weekends with her and my Uncle Joe. She always made homemade ravioli to have during the holidays and she always patiently let me help her. I’m now the only one in the family that can (or wants to) make them. Such special memories – Thanks for the contest!!!
I remember learning to make cooked flour frosting from my mom, to frost cupcakes for my first business.
I remember making a home made sponge cake with her special butter cream frosting every year for me and my sister’s birthday. This was my first lesson in “stiff peaks” when testing for the proper whipped consistency and how to “fold” in the rest of the batter.
It’s hard for me to pick just one baking memory, but I always look back fondly at Christmas time at home when we’d make cookie plates to bring to friends and neighbors. There are kinds of cookies that we only make for these plates and the recipes for them have been handed down by my grandmother. Ah, Christmas baking!
growing up in Alaska we didn’t have grandparents close by for baking, but I did have an amazing grandma lady that I claimed as my own. We always made cut out cookies and decorated them during the holidays.
Since before i was born there has been the tradition of celebrating birthdays at my grandparents house the Sunday closest to your birthday. You tell Grandma what you want to eat and what kind of cake you want. A couple of years ago my Grandma was a bit over whelmed one Sunday and I made carrot cake cupcakes for my uncles birthday. Everyone thought they were amazing and I have been making them ever since. You will be amazed by how moist a cake can be if you add applesauce to the batter.
My favorite times in the year to bake is for my daughter and son’s birthdays. My daughter always wants my attempt at Maggiano’s Chocolate Zuccotto Cake and my son asks for my Banana Blueberry Cheesecake pies.
My sister and I used to decorate gingerbread cookies for family and friends at Christmastime. We had a pretty good cookie cutter collection and we (my sister, especially) would painstakingly and elaborately decorate the cookies – the camels had jeweled harnesses, the trees had ornaments, and the boy and girl gingerbread-kids resembled the kids we babysat. When delivering them to one of the families, the little girl, probably about two years old, admired the cookie that looked so much like her for about 2 seconds before biting the head off. Her mother was aghast but they were really yummy cookies, so why wait? :-)
My favorite baking memory is when my family used to come together for Eid (an Islamic holiday). My grandmother (and then my Aunt with me as a helper) would make a HUGE pot of biryani (meat and rice dish that is partially cooked separately before placed in a large pot to cook slowly for a few hours in the oven) that we would all help with in different ways- whether it be prepping the ingredients, stirring etc.
After the biryani was done, we’d make a baked semolina dessert that included a delicious list of ingredients with butter, condensed milk, almond meal, semolina, saffron milk, and lots of sugar! Best part– after it baked, it had to cool in the pantry overnight so that we could cut it…various individuals would sneak little bites throughout the night and early morning as someone had to provide some thorough quality assurance testing :-)
My Nana would make apple and blueberry turnovers at the end of every summer with my sisters and me- it’s still my favorite thing to do when it starts getting cool enough to turn the oven on!
My mom is quite the baker, my friends used to call her Betty Crocker. Growing up I would watch more than participate but I would always help make the cut out cookies for Christmas and eat the dough when she was making pies and get yelled at :-) Also at Easter time I would watch my dad make his “Easter bread” and fill the house with wonderful scents!
In our family, the Christmas tradition was baking “biscochitos” a Latin cookie my grandmother made only at Christmas. One year when I was about 8 we were baking them and she told me the recipe was a secret family recipe (I’ve seen recipes out there, but none like my grandmas). After we had baked dozens of them, she wrote the recipe on a piece of paper for me and to this day I have that recipe, it’s pretty worn but I just have to look at it and it brings back wonderful memories of that day. I can almost smell the anise.
Every year at Christmas, my mom and I would make her grandmothers famous christmas cutout cookies. As I kid I loved nothing more than decorating all of the Santa’s, trees and bells. Now that I have kids of my own, I love to continue this tradition with them.
My favorite baking memory is baking homemade pretzels with daughter
Baking at christmas time. We’re from the Caribbean and we make a fruit cake/pudding (depending on the technique). It’s the one this i still look forward to
Favorite baking memory…the days that my mom would bake bread. The whole house would be warm and smell delicious.
I used to love cooking with my mom and I miss her greatly during the Christmas time.
My favorite memory is baking dozens of cupcakes for my daughter’s birthday in company of my neighbors!
My favorite baking memory is helping and watching my German babysitter making fabulous Christmas cookies every year. I do believe that is what got me loving baking oh so many many years ago!!!
The memory I have is when I was 8 and helping Mom make apple pie.
Mom would mix the pie crust, cut the batches of dough in half and I would roll several out. I remember a breezy, warm autumn day – the leaves dancing outside. The decorated pumpkins were on the front porch, smiling with the crooked teeth we gave them – just like they enjoyed this beautiful day too.
I would help her fill the pies with apples (she would do her thing), and I finished it with dots of butter on top. The smell in the kitchen was divine; it certainly tested the patience of this young girl.
As the pies sat on the window sill for a few minutes to cool, I remember the wind blowing those red checkered kitchen curtains, purposely, as if to cool the pies faster. I knew in a short time I would be eating this wonderful warm pie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce on top.
Oh my, guess what I’m craving? I think I’m going to make an apple pie!
I loved decorating sugar cookies with my sister every Christmas. Now I get to do it with my kids!
I learned to bake along side my Grandmother who loved making all kinds of things. The first baking memory I have is her picking out a recipe from the little metal box and me standing on a stool beside her. Each Christmas she would make a variety of cookies carefully decorating each one making sure I learned just how to do it. This tradition carried on to me teaching my daughter and now she is teaching her daughters. I always feel her presence as I make my “cookie presents” each year.
I recently baked cake balls and shaped them like Mickey Mouse. Things were going just great until it was time to dip them. I guess they were so heavy that they fell off the stick, ears melted and all I had was a huge mess. Not to be defeated, I reshaped them and packaged them all up with red, black & yellow ribbons to take to my daughter in college to celebrate her being offered an internship at Walt Disney World!
my favorite memories are more recent ones cooking with my 3 year old. she asks to bake almost daily and reminds me that it isn’t dessert if there isn’t chocolate involved. our favorite thing to make is my grandmothers recipe for mandel bread (with chocolate chips of course). i remember standing on a chair in her kitchen helping her make this and now my daughter does the same thing.
My favorite baking memory is making peanut butter M&M cookies each year for Christmas and Easter. I was the official M&M baker (each of my sisters had a specific cookie) and I liked how the colors changed depending on the time of year :)
Baking christmas cookies with my brothers & sisters.
Every year, December at our house is known as “cookie season!” We bake a different kind of cookie almost every day the weeks before Christmas. It was my favorite baking memory of my childhood, and now I am doing it with my children.
my favorite baking experience has to be christmas morning, when i wake up to the smell of fresh baked pies and cookies :) thats when i know the holidays are really here
I made Chocolate chip Pecan Pie for my darling. It was the first “sweet” I baked for him. That was 2 years ago and I still remember how much he loved it.
My neighbor that lived across the street from me use to make homemade gingerbread men and sugar cookies every year at Christmas time. It was our tradition until I became a teenager…and sadly, I thought I was too cool for that. Now, I really miss doing that with her. She was like another mom to me.
My favorite baking memory is the first cake I tried to bake from scratch. I was a kid (like, 10) and wanted to bake a cake for my parents’ anniversary. I got out Mom’s tried and true Betty Crocker cookbook and baked a cake. It called for cake flour but I didn’t know what that was…so I used regular flour. The cake was about 1 inch thick. It was a disaster. It’s my favorite memory, though, because I learned an important lesson…read and follow the directions!
My best baking memories are from when my daughters were small. We had so much fun baking and decorating sugar and gingerbread cookies, that I amasses quite a collection of cookie cutters. I’m sure I wasn’t the most patient mom about the mess, but I sure remember those days fondly!
When I was growing up, I had a keen interest in cooking, but I was never allowed to unleash my creativity, because my mother was fastidious about how clean the kitchen had to be at all times. Rightly so, she thought if I was left to my own devices, the kitchen may never return to it’s original state!!
So, my fondness of baking and the happy memories that go along with it all began in college. I moved to an all girls cooperative house (aka 55 women living under 1 roof!), and made fast friends with other girls who loved baking up sweet treats in our industrial sized kitchen over the weekends.
Many a late night was spent baking HUGE batches of cookies, learning the art of pie crust from each other, and one of my funniest memories is when a couple of girls accidentally BAKED Rice Krispie Treats….. I got there just as they pulled them out of the oven and tried to slice them. It was like sweet little glass shards flying everywhere!! Now I think of them every time I make rice krispies :)
When I was a kid, I always loved when my mom made raspberry pie and we would eat it with chocolate ice-cream(well, we still do).
Every year my Mom would make enough sugar cookies for an army and we would spend an entire weekend up to our eyeballs in frosting and sprinkles! We ate a lot of cookies too! I can’t wait till my baby is old enough to do the same with her!
my favorite baking memory is definitely baking cookies for my church every Sunday morning, so that they have something sweet to brighten their day
My favorite baking memory was helping my grandmother make her famous money cake (change wrapped in wax paper and placed in the cake layers with the frosting)… and then of course eating it!
I have so many memories…from baking with my mom, to baking for my mom…but most importantly, baking with my little girl from the time she could wield a wooden spoon up to this past Saturday when she baked her famous bacon chocolate cake for her best friend when he came home from college for the first time. We have many more years of baking in front of us, I pray.
will definitely have to make these for thanksgiving! hope i win the kitchen aid! <3
My favorite memory is making chocolate chip cookies with my mom and trying to not eat enough dough so we’d get at least a couple dozen cookies.
My favorite baking memory is of my mom and I when I was very little. I stood on a chair in the dining room and we would roll out cookie dough, then press out the shapes that we wanted with the cookie cutters. It was so fun and sweet. :)
I love baking, however, I have always been the helper, not the actual baker. Christmas would not be the same without my Moms Snickerdoodles, or my Aunts Pumpkin Bread with Rum Butter. This past year, you have inspired me to start my own baking, and I have made cake pops! I have thought about even starting my own business! I have been experimenting with flavors and even Gluten Free options for my family members. Thank you for helping me break out from being just a helper!
A couple months ago, my sister and I baked and frosted 500 mini cupcakes and a wedding cake for our brother’s wedding. It was quite the baking project, but we had a great time together!
Also, where do you buy mini frozen tart shells?
I love Christmas-baking! There’s nothing like delicious homemade goodies to share with family and friends during the holidays!
My favorite memory would be of making home made bread with my grandma. We used to bake 8-10 loaves at a tie. The house would smell amazing and the reward of getting to eat the yummy bread was always worth it!
My grandma made the best pies in the whole history of the world. Cherry and chocolate cream and pumpkin. THE PUMPKIN. When she taught me her pie crust recipe, of course it will full of “just until it looks good,” and “about this much.” But what made me giggle most was when she used half a cracked eggshell as a measuring device for the amount of cream that should go in. Ohmygoodness, I miss her.
Love baking Christmas cookies with my children every year. We also make some amazing flavored caramels, but that isn’t technically “baking”.
I didn’t really get in to baking until I was an adult, but as a kid it was all about decorating the Christmas cookies. My brother and I would sit at the kitchen table and decorate according to my mom’s instructions. We couldn’t wait until she handed us the one where we could “do as we wished.” I was pretty conservative with my decorating, but every year my brother would cover his cookie in red hots. It always made me laugh to watch him attempt to eat it without making a this-is-really-too-hot face. :)
My favorite baking memory is making Spritz Cookies with my brother and my mom at Christmas. We loved to “play” with the cookie press, and switch out the plates. Then we got to decorate them and eat them…YUM! My mom’s recipe is the best. The cookies just melt in your mouth!
I have been making your cake pops for a year now and have had so much fun doing so! Thank you for putting up such great ideas year ’round to keep me inspired in the kitchen. The best memories I had baking were with my brother over vacations when we both came home from college. Going to school in different cities made it really hard to spend quality time together, so when we got together we would make brownies – or rather I would make, and he would lick the bowl!
i enjoyed making sweet potato casserole for my family around Thanksgiving and it is always a hit!
My mom used to make a simple but awesome cake when I was a kid. I don’t remember much of the ingredients or process but it was warm and had a caramel flavor.. to date, its the best cake I have ever had.
My favorite baking memories are when my mother and I would bake cookies for Christmas and give them out every year to friends and teachers. Second favorite baking memory is the time my mom forgot to put her glasses on and put onion powder in the pumpkin pie instead of ginger….my brothers ate it anyway, but we still give her grief over it.
I have some really fond memories of baking with my grandma. We lost her last year, but I love remembering all the good times we had. She would make tons of Christmas candy and Fresh Apple Cakes. Now it’s my job to make her Fresh Apple Cakes, but they never seem as tasty as hers did.
My favorite baking memory is when my grandmother, who I used to bake cakes and pies with all the time as a child, gave my teenage kids cake decorating instructions and made all of us (including my husband) use the piping bag to decorate a cake she baked with them.
Baking Pies with Mom, not only did she teach me to make the best crust (key:” don’t overwork it”) My Mom would always give the bottom of the pie a swirl and a pat on the bottom of the pan before putting it into the oven.
This is the part that makes me smile :). I have taught my two son’s to do the same. My husband was telling the story to our guest at my son’s Birthday party, how I swirl and pat the bottom of the pie pan. I say it’s for luck, but when I did ask my Mom why she did this, her reply was” to get any flour off the bottom of the pie pan.”
Flour or luck? It’s become a tradition!
P.S. We lost her this past March, Im glad she taught me how to bake so well. <3
I learned to bake from my grandma who passed away in 1989. I have fond memories of our time together
My favorite memory is trying to bake a pumpkin pie in the 8th grade and failing miserably and my Aunt Anne coming to my rescue with her fabulous baking skill.
My favorite baking memory is making chocolate chip cookies with my mom. When I was a kid, she would always give me a little of the vanilla to rub into my wrists for “perfume.” She would also let me taste test a few chocolate chips before we put them in to make sure they weren’t rotten or poisoned. I love my mom and baking!
I just always loved baking chocolate chip cookies with my mom and getting to lick the beaters. My dad also thought he was really funny by telling me he needed to “taste test” my cookies all the time – and then he’d take a giant bite out of them and hand them back to me! I learned pretty quickly not to share my cookie with dad and to get him his own! My mom also made awesome brownies and would put frosting on them. I’d always draw a picture in the icing and then she’d “hide” it with fork mark lines to make the brownies pretty.
My mom and I made my little sister a dessert table for her graduation party, and baked everything in her tiny college kitchen. I had to improvise everything from ingredients, to measurements, to tools, to baking pans! We mixed so much love into everything we made, and I’ll never forget how happy she was when we finished the display.
Every Christmas, as a kid, my dad and I would bake Christmas cookies together. This would start about two weeks before Christmas and lead right up into leaving the cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve. We’d share our cookie bounty with neighbors and even send a box of cookies to my dad’s parents in South Carolina (from Northern Maine) and receive one from them in return. I remember best my delight in decorating the Gingerbread Men/Women. My dad would always buy some of the “coolest” decorations and let me go to town with the decorations and *gasp* frosting in squeeze tubes. Delicious and fun!
My favorite baking memory is making Christmas butter cookies with my mom. She would make the dough but I would help her roll out the dough (which is quite a process of rolling, freezing, rolling some more, etc). Then I’d get to use the cookie cutters and fun sprinkles to decorate them. I still get together with my mom every year to do this (and I’m thirty-something now)!
I always love making my grandmother’s “secret recipe” cookies. The day she had a stroke she had left it out on her table after guarding the secret for decades. She could no longer bake after that, but was happy we had found her recipe before she left us.
Making brownies with my Grandmother when I was about 4 years old. It was just a perfect afternoon and she passed away shortly after so it is one of my most cherished memories.
I always wanted an Easy Bake oven when I was little, but never got one. My mom always said she would rather let me use the real oven instead of a lightbulb in a box! We always made tons of cookies for Christmas– bars, cut-out cookies, stained glass window cookies and spritz cookies with the cookie press! I now have all of her cookie cutters and the cookie press and have used them with my niece and nephews. I hope they will have fond memories of our time in the kitchen too!
My husband has taught me how to bake!!! I truly sucked at baking before I met him! He is a great encourager and would enjoy this more than me I am sure….
I remember baking a bunch of gingerbread cookies with my sister. We left the cookies, including the burned ones, on the counter to cool while we went to a Christmas party with our parents. When we came home our normally well-behaved black lab had eaten ALL the cookies off the counter…….except for the burned ones!!
Few years ago a week before Christmas when I was able to bake 12 different kinds of cookies in one day and then wrapped them nicely to giveaway. I Couldn’t stand up the next day, I was dead tired! But I had so much fun.
Making cookies with the kids was always fun. I would like to get in the kitchen with them more but there schedules are busy till Christmas. We now make tamales as our annual New Years dinner.
My favorite baking memory is of my late Grandma’s zucchini bread. The smell takes me back 30 years to spending the night in her small apartment listening to her in the kitchen. I couldn’t wait for that first piece covered in soft butter. I still use her recipe all of the time…it is worn and crinkled, but I can’t bear to re-write it on a clean recipe card.
I, like you, feel like I missed out on making baking memories with my grandmothers, but I do love to try out their recipes. My favorite has to be my (Ukrainian) grandmother’s Swedish Rye Bread. It makes 5 loaves, so, much like your pecan pie, is made for sharing.
Baking cookies with my mom and sister, but especially the year after my sister went to college. I can vividly remember her being home on break and doing traditional baking with us.
I love all your postings, but the min pumpin pie bites have been a hit every year anywhere I take them.
Thank you for your awesome postings every Monday, they start my week off great.
Marsha
It’s an odd baking memory, but my mom and I used to bake Christmas ornaments out of homemade cinnamon dough. It was SO much fun (even if the cinnamon sometimes burned my little eyes and hands! haha). We would cut out different shapes, punch a hole in the top, bake them, then put a string through them to put on our tree. We also made ornaments out of melted together Brachs hard candies! All the fun designs made for really neat patterns and colors in the ornaments! Christmas treats, in general, have always been my favorite! =)
My best baking memories are with my mother at Christmastime. Original, huh? Well I guess that proves it’s a wonderful tradition. I have my mother’s hand written recipes in her old index file and now that she has passed, it makes it extra special to to use those recipes during the holidays when I am baking with my daughters.
my favorite memory of baking is making cut out cookies with my mom and sister during the winter. We would use a cream cheese sugar cookie recipe and the huge jar of cookie cutters. My sister and I would also sneak left over dough bits when mom wasn’t looking. Some times they would be sprinkled, some times just frosted, but they were always fun to make with my fam.
The month of December is chock full of baking memories. I bake all the candies and cookies both my grandmothers and my husbands grandmothers made. They are no longer with us but I am making sure their recipes live on through our 3 young children…….and their children……and their children……!
…White chocolate chunk cookies with my Grandmother! To this very day the simple smell of a preheating over takes me to that moment!
My favorite baking memory is baking bread with my dad every Christmas. My dad always baked bread on Christmas Eve to have the next day for Christmas dinner. I remember standing on the kitchen chair adding flour to the dough as my dad kneaded it to the right consistency and then helping put the bread in the pans. My rolls might have been a little uneven in size but they still tasted wonderful
My best friend and I have been in charge of making pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving since we were at least 13. There are always enough people that we get to make one “traditional” pie and then we get one pie where we can fool around and try new things, like graham cracker crusts. When we found out her mom was gluten free, we felt so strongly that everyone should get pumpkin pie, that we worked out a tasty gluten-free recipe that everyone (gluten-free or not) would enjoy. It’s a simple pie, but it’s simply family.
My favorite baking memory is making and decorating sugar cookies with my family during Christmas time.
My mom used to make sugar cookies with us every year at Christmas. It was so much fun, and now I’m having fun keeping that tradition going with my own son.
my favorite baking memory was with my great grandmother. We would make kolaches with her rolling pin and wooden rolling board that used to be her mother’s. I remember rolling them and filling them with jelly she used to buy from the market. And always, as her tradition, everytime we put a batch in to bake, we would send it into the oven blowing a kiss to each other for luck and good baking. Sometimes to this day I still blow a kiss to her in heaven before sending in a batch.
My mom bakes all the time! Any occation! My favorite memory is her letting me put the tiny robin figurine on the yule log at Christmas (think coffee chocolate cake made to look like a log).
My most wonderful baking-memories are those when my nan, my brother and me started our ‘yearly christmas tree decorations’ baking marathon.
When we were little, we had lots of fun -every year, a wednesday around December 6th- with our ‘salt-dough’ decorations. These memories are very special since our nan passed axay a few years ago. She died from breast cancer. I love to take up this ‘tradition’ again with my recently born cousin, the son of my brother, and of whom I am the Godmother.
Baking with my grandmother was of my favorites. She would bake a cake and top with jelly for the icing, her peach cobblers was to die for and she took the recipe to her grave. Her baked potatoes is still a sweet memory and all the cakes and pies around Thanksgiving and Christmas time makes me think of her. Love you grandma!
My favorite memory of baking would be doing christmas cookies with my sisters and mom. We had a lot of fun!
One year my cousin ad I baked a Cookie Monster cake for our grandmother! We frosted him with blue tinted icing piped out with a star tip for fur! Too FOREVER, but she was tickled that we kids took so much time to make her smile on her day!!
My favorite baking memory was baking cookies and pies with my mom when I was little girl. Now my daughter and I are making new memories, we really enjoy baking together!
Baking apple strudels every chance I got with my grandmother. Since she has passed, I am now the official family strudel maker.
My favorite baking memories are with my grandmother making holiday cookies when I was a kid. I remember it being so messy but so much fun. I miss her.
My favorite baking memory is making apple pie with cookie crust at my grandma’s house. She had an apple tree in her back yard. Bless you Bakerella!
I remember baking Christmas cookies with my mom and sisters when I was younger. She has an awesome recipe for butter cookies. I was allowed to decorate the cookies before they went in the oven. I picked up the baking bug and love trying new recipes during the holidays. This year I plan to make an assortment of cake pops since I could not bake last year due to being on bed rest during my pregnancy. I hope to involve my son in the holiday baking tradition as he grows older.
I am creating baking memories now with my daughter. When she was too little to help I would set up a small table and chairs for her and we would work side by side. I would use fondant and she would use play-doh to be like Mommy. Now as she gets older she is able to help measure ingredients and help me. She says she wants to open a cupcake store when she is older so we can work together!!!!
Making jack o lantern face cookies with candy corn noses. Mmmmm and ahhhhh cute!!
My dad taught me how to bake my grandmother’s buche de noel and gingersnaps! Both recipes that I love both because they taste good, and because of the memories.
My sweet Nana, who just died at the end of July, reserved one day a week for baking as part of her chores. During those baking days, she taught me how to make bread (she never bought bread), pies, cakes, and cookies, sharing her stories with me as she worked. I learned a lot from her, and when I felt brave enough at age fifteen to make her and my Papa a cake–white cake garnished with peaches–their approval felt like the highest praise.
Neither one of my grandmothers baked. My Mom only liked to cook. So I learned on my own with the help of my best friends Italian mom. To this day I still love to bake more than cook. My Mom still hates to bake but she loves it when I do. :) We throw some wonderful parties as a family. My Mom does all the cooking, my sister and I decorate together and I do all the baking with my niece and nephews now. :)
Once a year, the week before Christmas, my neighbors’ 80-something year old grandmother would travel to their house to have a “bakeathon.” She would start at 7 in the morning and finish near midnight. By the end of the day, their kitchen was full of hundreds of chocolate chip, pirouette, peanut butter and cinnamon cookies, peanut brittle, and a giant white frosted cake. I fondly remember spending the ensuing season taste testing and sampling everything Nana had created with my neighbors and helping her plan for next year’s bakeathon.