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 during the holidays we went to a friend’s cookie exchange. My mom’s not a baker, so she would take fried wontons. She would always win the “most unique” category. Ironically I bake all the time, so I look forward to entering a legitimate cookie every year!
When I was little I would spend the weekends at my grandparents house (only 5 blocks away from my parents house). On Sunday morning my grandfather would make us Belgian waffles and then we would spend the rest of the day baking cookies. Our favorites were snickerdoodles!
My fondest memory growing up was in the kitchen almost daily with my grandmother baking. I lived with my grandparents for a few years when I was young and they lived on a farm. My grandmother baked everyday. It could be coffee cake, fresh bread, biscuits, pies, pound cake, cookies, the list could go on and on. I truly cherish those days with her.
Stretching homemade pizza dough with my kids….mess and all.
My grandma used to make the BEST chocolate chip cookies…but what I remember most about holidays was being her helper in the kitchen and tearing apart the raviolis on the perforations, stirring things on the stove, and mixing up the cookie dough with her. She doesn’t remember how to make any of that stuff anymore, and so sometimes I make her cookies for everyone for Christmas and send my uncle and dad home with big bags of them, just like she used to do.
My favorite baking anecdote isn’t from something I baked. My grandmother wasn’t much of a baker, and every year on Thanksgiving her neighbor used to bring over a pumpkin pie (despite having 14 kids!) After she passed, her son used to bring a pie to my grandparents while they still lived in that house. Her recipe is the one my mom still uses!
My grandmother and I shared a killer sweet tooth so we would bake these two-layer black walnut cookie bars that were so delicious, but we always ate about half the batter before the cookies could be baked. Even at half the thickness, those cookies were absolutely scrumptious. They always bring back the best memories of giggling with my grandmother while we dipped into that batter bowl, and then being guilty together when we were caught by my mother (and her daughter).
I think my favorite memory is coming into the house on a cold day to discover freshly warm-from-the-oven cookies cooling on the counter! I loved when Mom had been baking while we were at school!
I used to love baking with my grandma. There was nothing like fresh warm chocolate chip cookies from her oven. I have tried many times to use the same recipe hoping to have that same taste but it never works. I miss my grandma’s magic touch in the kitchen!
Let me preface this with saying I’m 40 and I’ve been able to hold my own in the kitchen for a v e r y long time now…
When I was 12 or so, I needed extra credit in Home Ec. class. I wrangled my older sister into supervising while i baked a cake. No big deal, it was a pineapple upside down cake (from a box even), I can totally do this!
I’m measuring and stirring and stirring and stirring…WOW! this batter is really thick! more like a dough…oh, well. I proceed spreading the cake dough into the pan…my pineapple rings will not stay down with all of this spreading.
something is not right. Yup, I forgot to add the liquid ( I don’t recall if it was water or oil) I only added the eggs.
It was not a shining moment in my baking career.
I remember this every time I bake a cake and I am a firm believer in “mise en place”
Baking with my “Nana” when I was six or seven years old. Nothing fancy, just a box cookie mix, but boy, was I proud of those cookies.
Thanks for jogging my memory ;-)
I remember baking chocolate chip cookies with Grandma every time I went into NYC to spend a holiday. She always treated me like a real grown up chef and always made me feel like I knew what i was doing. That contributed to the confidence in the kitchen that I still have today. Her guidance helped make baking my most treasured hobby. The smell of chocolate chip cookies still brings me right back. Love you Grandma Jane!!!
Probably when me and my best friend attempted our first fondant cake. It took HOURS, even though we make it from pre-packaged fondant and boxed cake mix, but it turned out decent enough.. Now I can make them all from scratch!
I love to make pies at Christmas and Thanksgiving–and I love pecan pie too :)
Baking pecan rolls to deliver on Christmas eve day, so friends would have then for Christmas.
watching my granny make apple pie! we would try peeling the apples in one long swirly skin. when it was peeled we would toss the skins over our shoulders. at christmas my mom would bake tons of different cookies, i LOVED going through the old fashioned tins she kept them in.
My favorite baking memory is with my Mom at Christmas. Normally she isn’t very adventurous in the kitchen but at Christmas we would always bake sweet rolls (like cinnamon rolls but with cream cheese, cookies and multiple pies. The house smelled wonderful from all the baking.
My favorite memory of baking is baking my first cheesecake for my boyfriend (at the time). Even though, our relationship didn’t last, my love of baking has continued.
i have had very few baking experiences, but my favorite so far, which was also one of my first, was when i baked a quiche for Christmas breakfast for myself, my friend Bethany and her dog Kita. Bethany and Kita stayed over on Christmas Eve, and on Christmas morning i put the quiche together and while it was baking we opened all our presents. I had never really cooked anything that wasn’t from a box on my own before, so the when the quiche came out super delicious it was extra satisfying for me. :D
I remember Grandma and I baking chocolate chip cookies every time I went into NYC to spend the weekend. She always treated me like I already knew what I was doing which gave me confidence in the kitchen. That confidence lives on and has made baking my most sentimental and important hobby. Love you Grandma Jane!!!
I’ll never forget the time I was helping my Mom in the kitchen, and she’d just removed something from the oven. She’d baked it in a foil-lined pan and removed the foil liner. Then she asked me to see if the baking pan was still clean. Totally not thinking, I picked it up with my bare hands! I literally threw it across the kitchen. Miraculously, the pyrex glass didn’t break. But that’s not all… I then picked it up again with bare hands. Once again, I dropped it right away and it went skidding across the floor, still in one piece! I reached for it a third time and my Mom, still in shock that I’d done it twice, said, Teish! Stop! We looked at each other and laughed so hard we wound up sitting on the floor with tears rolling down our cheeks! I was about 17 at the time, so old enough to know better than to pick up a hot pan without oven mitts! We just couldn’t believe that the pan had not broken! It’s a memory that I still treasure. My Mom just had the most awesome laugh!
My favorite baking memory is one passed on to me from my mother which I have passed on to my daughter. Each Christmas we spend an entire day together baking Almond Spritz cookies by the dozens in all different colors and designs. We usually eat half the dough (I know bad for you) but it is so good until we are sick from it! I hope now to share this memory with my grandchildren! It is a time of the XMas season I so look forward to. Spending a little sliver of time with my Mom & Daughter!
Every Christmas, my mom and I spend an entire day baking both traditional and new recipes. We listen to holiday music and fill the kitchen with plates and plates of goodies. I look forward to it every year… I can’t wait for December to roll around!
I love to have my nieces over bake Christmas cookies. They love to make special plates for Dad & Grandpa. It’s such a fun family tradition! I think I spend time cleaning up than actually baking but it’s all worth it to see their precious smiles & hear those giggles.
My favorite baking memory consists of baking with my mom when I was very little. She would pull up a stool to the edge of our island, and while she was baking she would help me to measure out certain ingredients and put them into our KitchenAid Mixer. She wanted to help me learn how to bake at a young age (and also she admits that it would keep me occupied on an activity haha). I absolutely loved that time I spent baking with my mom and that was the start of my love for baking. To this day, my mom and I still love to bake things together and have dessert nights or parties where we can use the things that we have baked. It was a great way to bond as mother and daughter when I was three years old, and it still is today!
My grandma used to make 2 or 3 pies every Sunday. My favorite memory is helping her decide which kind and learning to roll out the dough. Oh! And the tiny cinnamon sugar pie crusts we’d make with the scraps!
When I was in the first grade we moved into a new house that had 3 large apple trees. That first year we took all of the apples and had a huge cooking day and made loads and loads of pies! I don’t even remember how the pies tasted, I just remember my whole family in the kitchen furiously pealing and chopping apples!
I remember baking with my granny Vaughn (RIP). She was old school, from Mississippi. She would cook everything homemade. All the southern favorites and sweets, her sweet potato pies, apple cakes, better than sex cakes, jelly cakes, pecan pies, chocolate cakes, the lists goes on. I miss those days and I miss my granny too. She’s gone, but not forgotten!
My favorite baking memory was with my mom when I was seven years old. It was a cold, winter day. It was actually the night before christmas We were baking chocolate chip cookies together (of course my mom did I the work, I just created a huge mess hehe) for Santa. Ever since then, I grew a passion for baking and hope to become a baker or anything else in the culinary field when i grow up. Whenever I bake chocolate chip cookies, I think of this memory and get a huge smile on my face. :)
I still remember baking Snickerdoodles with my mom as a kid. My favorite part was rolling the dough into the cinnamon and sugar!
Every year, my great aunt and grandma would make dozens of different kinds of Christmas cookies. The best part of Christmas was when she would drop by one afternoon with our family’s very own tin full of cookies…with a special smaller tin of my favorites just for me.
My favorite baking memory…hmmm. Let me break it down for you.
Who: Myself (18 yrs old) and my little cousin (13 at the time)
Where: 3 Family House apartment, whom I shared with my sister and mother
When: Thanksgiving Eve 2002
Time: Midnight
How: My cousin and I decided to bake snickerdoodle doodle cookies as a Thanksgiving treat, when we noticed we had absolutely no ingredients to make said cookies. So we decided to take a walk, AT MIDNIGHT, to the local 24 supermarket (No sweat, I lived in a safe neighborhood). After making the trek back home, we made the dough and cooled it in the fridge to bake fresh come the afternoon. Well, since we made such a journey to make the cookies, we could not wait until morning to have fresh warm snickerdoodles. We rolled out a dozen or so dough balls and popped them in the oven AT 2AM. Well, we must have been more tired than we thought because while the cookies were baking, WE FELL ASLEEP, only to be woken up by the fire alarm and a smokey kitchen. Guess the neighbors were concerned because the next thing we know, the fire department is knocking at our door! Luckily all that resulted from that night were burnt cookies and egos! Never forget our visit from the fire department that memorable Thanksgiving Eve. :-D
My mom used to decorate cakes for my sister and me. I loved helping her make the leaves and flowers, and placing them on the cakes.
I loved to bake strawberry tarts with my grandma at the beginning of the strawberry season!
My favorite memory is making Mexican Wedding cookies and sugar cookie cutouts with my grandmother at Christmas time. Frosting the cookies was my job, and I still make my buttercream cookie frosting the same way gram did – with a dash of OJ. Gram hasn’t been able to make cookies for a few years and passed away this summer, but my sister and I have worked to keep the tradition going.
My favorite baking memory was when I first began baking with my aunt. She showed me how to measure ingredients, mix them together, bake it, and taste the heaven that we just created. Without her, I would not have loved baking as much as I do today.
I loved making Spritz cookies with my mom at Christmas. She now makes them with my kids!
Oh wonderful memories of baking with my mother. We had a special board for rolling out pies – I still have it. I especially remember her showing me (when I had to stand on the chair) how to cut in the Crisco “to make little pea size bits”. We would bake tins and tins of Christmas cookies. I did the same thing with my son and he can make one awesome pie :)
I loved making cinnamon rolls with my granny. She’s 89 now…I should ask her if she’ll make some with my girls the next time we’re home. I’m glad you asked! :)
I would say my favorite baking memory was last Christmas when I invited myself over my friend Deb’s house to make cake pops. I made the Santa hats as gifts for families that helped ours clean up after a tornado that rolled through the neighborhood. It was fun hanging with Deb, laughing all morning, and eating the ‘mistakes’. The cakepops were a big hit!
My favorite memory was the first time I took a simple recipe, experimented, and made it my own.
When my oldest, “then 4”, put “egg crack” into 2 pounds of melted white chocolate. That was one ganache I could not use!
Baking and decorating halloween sugar cookies!
My favorite baking memories were always with my grandmother. We would bake TONS of cookies every christmas, sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, chocolate chip, plus all kinds of other sweets. But my absolute favorite was frosting them with her. She would make real frosting from scratch instead of from a can, and I remember thinking how magical it must be to make such yummy things from sugar and water. And now I do it, too :)
My siblings and I used to make gingerbread cookies every year on Christmas eve!
My memory would have to be learning how to bake bread with my Grandma. She used to bake bread each day for the men working on the ranch. So I learned how to make 6-8 loaves at a time. When I make bread I always think of my Grandma!
My favorite baking memory is actually making no bake cookies with my mom. She always knew just when to add each ingredient, and who could resist chocolate, peanut butter and oatmeal?
Making Rainbow Cookies at Christmastime with my two daughters! Also, baking their favorite birthday cake, devil dog ice cream cake for one and red velvet for the other. Oh, and can’t forget my wonderful husband Tom’s favorite Apple Pie!! Our Family Baking Memories . . .
When I was about eight, my Mum and I used to make Treacle Toffee (not sure what the American equivalent is) which sets REALLY hard. The fun part for me was always smashing it into edible pieces and for weeks afterwards we’d be finding the – now very sticky – fragments behind every kitchen appliance and corner of the kitchen.
I just need to figure out how to get the ingredients now that I live in Seattle ….
when i forgot the spay the cookie pan and when me and my mum tried to get the cookies off the pan and the spactular broke. we still ate the brunt cookies
My favorite baking memory has to be when I was a little girl, my Mom bought me a dessert cookbook and I made something in it called Bullseye Crunch Pie. She has kept that book all these years and one time when I went to visit her I just had to pull it out and make that pie for my kids. They loved it!
Every year for Christmas, my mom would bake dozens and dozens of sugar cookie cutouts. My cousins would all come over, and sometimes neighbors and friends, and help decorate them and take some home. We made other stuff like fudge and chocolate covered pretzels and wrapped up cookie tins to give to people as Christmas gifts.
I to am starting to miss and remember the foods that me and my grandmother use to share when the chill hit the air. She is passed away and my grandmother never was one for writing recipes down, so needless to say some of those things i remember her making for me i will never get to enjoy again. I remember those soups and breads so fondly. I miss them and every day i find myself saying i wished i had grandmas potato soup or something that she use to make for me. i bake now with my daughter and i love that food as well as cooking can bring anyone together or stir a memory. its in our every lives and is to be enjoyed. thanks so much for the contest and the sharing of your grandmother and her pies…
My favorite and first baking memories are at my moms aunts house all the women would get together on Christmas and Easter and bake…Christmas was cookies, there would be hundreds of them all over her house…and Easter was Breads and Italian pies…now my mom, aunt and I continue the tradition but the old days were the best!
My great Aunt Evelyn teaching me how to make apple crisp. Nothing too complicated but she just seemed to have the magic touch of getting the “crisp” part just right. Thanks!
Baking Christmas cookies with my mom and sister :)
My favorite baking memories involve my college roommates and I making sweet treats year-round, for Bible studies, parties, or if we just needed to indulge our sweet teeth. We always had so much fun trying new things (and ruining them).
My favorite baking memory is baking cookies every year with my 3 girls and my husband. We always make Peanut Butter cookies for Santa. Thanks! Jen B.
I remember watching my grandma bake pies at Thanksgiving and Christmas – there was never a holiday when we did not have at least four different pies on the table! I always knew the holidays were special for us, but only now that I’m older can I really appreciate the hard work she put into making it that way. Even if I’m using her recipes, my versions don’t quite taste the same – they’re missing Grandma’s touch :)
My favorite holiday/baking memory is baking gingerbread houses with my kids and the kids in the neighborhood that we use to live in. We would raid supreme nut and candy and sams to get boxes to put the houses on and start on saturday morning and baked til we almost dropped. Each of the families got a gingerbread house to take home as their Christmas gift from us. It continues on still and one of the kids has reached 30! Boy time flies when you are having fun:)
The holiday’s always brings memories of my Grandmother making her peanut butter fudge. It’s just not Christmas without it.
I remember my mom would always make sugar cookies and we had sooo many cookie cutters for every holiday. We would make so many batches of frosting and make each a different color. Then we would bake and decorate. There are 5 kids in my family. We had some awesome experiences as a family with food coloring and santa cookie cutters!!
Just thinking about this time of year makes me smile. Me and my mom used to start baking in October for the holidays and we would freeze them for the holidays we would make about 10 to 12 different kinds of cookies all from different parts of our nationality.
from Austrian to Italian. One year we made cookies and froze them as always but my siblings and I could not wait for the cookies any longer so we helped ours selfs to some. SO when My mom went to pull the cookie out from the freezer to make the platters for friends my mom found out. You never saw 5 kids run so fast. While now its my turn with my children to make some memories in the kitchen.
My favorite baking memory is of my grandmother and I making spritz cookies at Christmas time. I was about 6 or 7 so she had to help me press out the cookies but I got to decorate them with sprinkles all by myself! I still use her original cookie press to make cookies every Christmas.
Baking with my grandma as a little girl. She had the striped aprons that she would tie on me and we would have a great time. Too bad that I live 1500 miles away from her now.
my husband and i tried to make peanut brittle candy our first Christmas together. It was a funny day.
My mom has a bunch of Christmas cookie recipes that she used to make traditionally every year, and I’ve picked up the tradition. My favorite times were when she and I would do it together. Loads of cookies as far as the eye could see, and loads of dough to snack on in between, but all of it was made with love.
My grandma has always lived far away, so when we get to see her, it’s always a real treat. Ever since I was little I loved to bake with her. She had a little green stool with flowers painted on it just for the younger grandchildren. She still has it, and I almost wish I was short enough that I had to use it. Doesn’t change that I still bake with her though; my favorite thing to make with her is cinnamon buns :)
My fav baking memory was making some fun/silly/naughty cupcakes for a breast cancer fundraiser. (Use your imagination!) They were a huge hit.
My favorite baking memory is baking Wookie Cookies with my son, husband and best friend. I also make homemade peanut butter cups, cake pops and cheesecake. My best friend comes over our house and stays for at least three days. We laugh so hard we cry, we bake and eat everything in sight and have a wonderful time!
My mother was a professional cake decorator, and although I now have an aversion to frosting due to the many bowls I licked clean, it was wonderful to grow up in a house with such creativity.
My favorite memory, however, was helping my mother and grandmother with Christmas cookies. We must have gone through 50lbs of flour during the winter, as we made several different kinds each year. I was in charge of using the cookie cutters to cut out sugar cookie dough, and I was also in charge of decorating the sugar cookies.
Hi there,
I remember making baking powder biscuits and baking them in the coal stove/oven with my Grandmother and my Grandfather slicing bacon from a slab – loved it so!!!
Cheers
Catie
I used to love baking Chocolate Chip cookies with my mom! Sneaking bites of cookie dough was the best!!
In high school (and some of college) every year, I’d get together with a good friend of my mom who’d never have kids, and we’d make my birthday cake together. She is a brilliant cake decorator and baker, and she always taught me something new and exciting. I could never thank her enough for taking that little bit of time out of each year to spend with me, teach me, and make my birthday so special. Still one of my most cherished birthday gifts, and one I hope to someday pass on.
My Grandmother always made the best Kolaches (Czech pastry) when we would come to visit. No one else in my family knew the recipe so it went with her when she dies many years ago. But to keep her alive in our hearts I took it upon myself to make Kolaches for “any time”-not just special times and now I’m trying to pass on the tradition to others in the family. That way my grandmother’s memory will always be remembered.
My favorite baking memory so far is when I made a bunch of sugar cookie cut outs and icings and brought them with me to my dads for Christmas and then we all decorated the cookies together. It was a complete mess but SO FUN.
My mom and grandma always made Carmel pecan rolls for special family gatherings. My mom taught me how to make these when I was going to have my first Thanksgiving away from home, no way I could have a Thanksgiving without them! We would always have to taste one when they came out, just to make sure they were perfect. My mom has since passed away and every time I make her rolls I can feel her spirit.
I love watching my mom bake and then eating it all!
Growing up my friends’ parents would hold holiday cookie exchanges. We would all spend the days leading up to the exchange baking cookies with the adult who would be attending (in my case usually my gram or aunt), and then packing the cookies into little gift bags. At the cookie exchange there would be huge gift bags with everyone’s name, and we’d put a bag of our cookies in each. At the end of the party, everyone would go home with a bunch of different cookies just in time for family visits and Santa.
I’m all grown up now, but my friends and I still get together every Christmas for a cookie exchange.
Best baking memory — my 3 year old who wanted me to make the “cookies with sugar on them.” Took me 3 years to figure out what she wanted. Everytime I pulled out the bowls. “What are you baking?”
“Cookies.”
“The ones with the sugar on them?” Not peanut butter, not the lemon, not the sugar cookies, not the cookie cutter, not the chocolate, not the zebra, not the spice, not the apple — “the soft ones with sugar”. It wasn’t until I gave up that she finally said, “You finally made my cookies.” They were the old fashioned molasses cookies – listening to her clues I would have NEVER guessed. To this day, the aroma of those in the oven remind me of having a little 3 year old daughter in the house who loved cookies.
Times in the kitchen baking with my dear mother are among my sweetest memories. Mom loved to bake as a way to nurture those around her, and she made wonderful, homey treats. She was especially proficient at baking delicious pies. . .I never mastered that art!
My favorite baking memory would be when i was 8 and started baking cakes and cupcakes with my mom. my mom didn’t know how to bake at all, but she learned some recipes just because she knew i wanted too.
My favorite baking memory has always been baking for Christmas. Every year we make the same 3 kinds and always 1 new one.
When I was little there was this one time my Chinese mom was not thrilled about spending $4 on a bottle of nutmeg so she made me use the 5-spice we had at home. The cookies turned out sooo gross but because it was my mom’s idea she ate them instead of letting them go to waste. When I was older she admitted to me that they WERE gross, but had to keep face in front of her children. HA HA!
Baking with my mom and sister when I was a kid. We made some sugar cookies exclusively with salt XD Quite the memory that lives on! :)
definitely making lemon bars for my mom’s birthday…
Got together with friends and each of us had to pick a recipe out of Martha Stewart cookbook. We then served the food to our husbands/boyfriends.
My mom used to make M&M cookies at Christmas.
My favorite baking memory is “helping” my mom make chocolate chip cookies, and by helping I mean sneaking chocolate chips into my mouth when she wasn’t looking!
I, too, bake family-loved recipes to keep my late Mama’s memories alive. Thanks for all the inspiration, Angie!
My favorite baking memory is of my old roommate. She isn’t really good in the kitchen but she always tried. One day she attempted to bake chocolate chip cookies. She put them in the oven and then went to Target. She forgot the cookies were in the oven! Luckily I got home and was able to take the crispy critters out of the oven without having to call the fire department!
A favorite baking time was when my aunt made chocolates from chocolate molds. I would watch her melt the brown goop (didn’t know it was chocolate at the time) then paint the colors into the mold and in a while I’d be eating the lovely Santa and reindeer sweets.
It’s not a memory of participating in baking, but it’s perhaps my fondest baking memory. My mother used to make wedding cakes while she was going to grad school. I can remember falling asleep on Friday nights to the sound of her mixer down the hallway and the smell of buttercream and freshly baked cakes. Sometimes if I woke up and wandered in to the kitchen she’d give me cake trimmings and shoo me back to bed.
Some of my favorite times baking were with my grandma B who made the best candy at Christmas time and would share her secrets in the kitchen with me. My beautiful grandma has left us too soon so I’m thankful for all my memories of her, not just baking.
My grandma made something called”Swedish Pastry”. .Every one loved it, but there wasn’t anyone that could make it.I asked her to show me how she made it.What a great time together.I’ll never forget that day. Whenever I make swedish pastry I think of her.She doesn’t cook anymore.
Every year my Mom and I would get a group of friends and co-workers together and we would host a cookies exchange. We requested no common cookie recipes.
Each of us would make 10 dozen cookies (only one kind), each dozen wrapped in pretty boxes and or bags. All 10 friends would arrive with one kind of cookie and leave with 10 different kinds and the recipes as well. Everyone did their best to search out and make all kinds of beautiful, artfully decorated, totally yummy cookies. It is a great memory.
My favorite baking memory would be decorating Christmas cookies as a child with my mom and siblings. Every year my mom would make cut outs, cover them with royal icing, and then hand them off to each one of us to cover with sprinkles and decorate. We’d walk them into the dining room to put on some paper bags to dry, and hope that some of the icing would drip off the cookie on the way there so we could have a sweet treat! Or that something would “accidentally” break and we could dip it in more icing and have a snack!!!
My grandma would have the same desserts at Thanksgiving, which we all loved and were all hand-made, even her Madelines. Pineapple pillows, cupcakes with strawberry frosting, mincemeat pies. Oh so good! One year I got in trouble for licking the frosting off the cupcakes – rightfully so!
annaul Christmas cookie bake with family
I miss my great-grandmother (Mimmie) so much, but I try to keep her close to me by making her special peach tarts and her Christmas candies. She would start her prepartions for the Holidays in November, buying cutesy tins and cutting wax paper to separate all of the candies. I would stand on a kitchen chair next to her in her small kitchen and stir ingredients or roll out and decorate cookies or tarts. I would give anything to be able to spent one more day like that with her.
Mom rarely cooked, let alone bake, so I wanted to learn so bad since I loved fresh baked goods. So as a teenager, I remember buying a bag of choco chips and reading all the ingredients I needed to make chocolate chip cookies, my very first attempt at baking. I remember the cashier at the store saying to me, “So, you’re gonna make cookies, huh?” I said, “Yeah, for the first time.” He told me, just remember to mix all your wet ingredients first, then your dry, then put it together.” I said, “Ok.” But I had no clue what he meant! Needless to say, my cookies didn’t turn out that great, edible, but not great. I’m doing much better now. :0) And now I know what that cashier meant! :0)
I still remember the elation I felt when a batch of macarons I baked finally rose and formed feet (after about a dozen bad trials). I called my friend to tell her that my cookies finally had feet, only to get an awkward “are you ok?” as a response :)
While I was in middle school, I practically lived at one of my friend’s houses and we would baked all the time! Which was fine with her older brother and his friends! It sparked my love for baking definitely!
My mom and I used to have all my younger cousins over to our house for a weekend a week or two before Christmas (to give their parents time for themselves or to go out Christmas shopping without the kiddos) and it would be a craft weekend that including baking and decorating Christmas cookies. My favorites were the traditional sugar cookies made into Christmas trees, stockings, and of course candy canes.
My favorite baking memory was helping my mom bake when i was too little to help. she gave me a container of flour to play in to keep me occupied.i also got to be the first to taste test anything she made!
I always remember my Mom baking cookies and making fudge with my sister and I helping. We just couldn’t wait so we could taste some.
I always loved being at my grandmother’s for Thanksgiving and seeing her, my mom and my aunts get all the food ready in the tiny kitchen. As my sister and I got older, we joined them. Though I still need set a chocolate chip cookie baking session with my grandmother for this Christmas!
every Sunday, while I was growing up, my parents would make cracked wheat bread together…. so sweet to watch them work together and the house always smelled lovely!
My favorite memory is when my little brother and I made red velvet cake pops with white chocolate for a bake sale for a cause :)
My memaw taught me how to make homemade rolls when I was around 12, and my grandad would always sneak me bites of dough that Memaw wouldn’t let me have. So many good memories.
My favorite memory is when my Grandma would bake chocolate chip cookies with me! She died when I was 8, so it is a very precious memory! :)
My grandfather always baked a sour cream pound-cake every Sunday for the week coming. We still bake the same recipe but call it Pop-Pops’s pound-cake and only bake it for Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I love making Biscochitos (New Mexican shortbread cookies spiked with whiskey and anise). Can’t wait to start the tradition with my kiddos this year!
My favorite holiday memory is when my mom makes her pies. I wouldn’t help other than stealing the apples slices but I just remember being memorized by her rolling out her dough.
My favorite baking memory is that when making hot caramel popcorn balls with my dad, he would burn his hands and yell and hop around the kitchen….all for the show of it.
Making spritz cookies with my sweet mom every Christmas :)
baking with my brother, I taught him how to crack and egg with one hand.
I love baking with my granddaughters and daughter we have a wonderful time together and will continue to keep making great memory.
making challah in hebrew school, and licking off the dough:)
My fondest baking memory is the first time my daughter and I baked and decorated cookies for Santa last year. It’s definitely going to be a tradition!
My favorite memories go back to when my grandfather was still alive and I would go stay with my grandparents for the weekend before Thanksgiving and they would bake for the get-together that we would have the following weekend. My grandmother would bake her wonderful Pecan and chocolate pies and my grandpa would make Peanut Brittle. They would start early on Saturday morning. I remember the Percolator coffee pot and its wonderful smell and you cant forget the corning wear looking coffee cups in olive green, red, orange and brown, bacon and biscuits and then the wonderful aroma of the peanutty brittle. Those were my favorite memories!
My mom baking ham and cheese bread for me and my brothers… She cooked it in a Dutch oven, it was so delicious! I wish I had the recipe to make it for my kids…
I love baking muffins with my sons. They have little aprons and are super excited to help me!
My favorite baking memory: making pineapple sponge cake from scratch with my aunt, then watching Labyrinth while eating it.
I’ve always loved the smells of fall baking and I can remember walking into our kitchen after school as a kid and the delicious smells of cinnamon wafting out was the best!
My favorite baking memory also involved my grandma. Every Christmas we would make turtles. I’ve never had one as good as grandma made, but every time I eat one, I think of her!
My favorite baking memories are being in the kitchen with my grandmothers. My grandma knew I hated doing dishes, so she had me bake while she cleaned up :)
My grandma used to make cinnimon apples from red hot candy. Every Christmas I couldn’t wait to gwt to eat them. I ws super excited when she decided to teach me how to make them. Trust me there is never a Christmas with-out Grandma’s cinnimon apples.
My siblings and I used to make cookies every Sunday for our lunches during the week. We hosted many a “cooking show” in my mother’s kitchen.
I remember sitting on the kitchen floor with my mom, when I was about 8, making my great auntie’s banana bread recipe. I still make the same banana bread with the addition of more brown sugar instead of white but it’s basically the same. I don’t use butter as my fat .. I use vegetable oil (because that is what my auntie’s recipe called for) and the bread is super moist and flavorful.
I’ve always loved baking (much more so than cooking!) and baking cookies with my husband is always great. The first time we baked them together (his first time making cookies EVER), he blew flour all over the kitchen by stirring too fast! We still laugh about it.
My grandmother is the true matriarch of our family and she happens to have one of the most generous hearts I know. All my knowledge and quick tricks in the kitchen has came from her. If I try to think of just one memory to discuss I couldn’t because I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. But i will say when my sister and I are in the kitchen with her you can see the love she puts into her food. It’s not about the frills or the sparkly cupcake papers, but about the time and memories we can create together. Making things homemade or with a little touch of love and sharing what you’ve made with others to see the smile it brings them, is priceless. I just hope one day I can share and create memories with my children like my grandmother has with me.
My faorite holiday baking memory would be making springerles with my mom on the day after Thanksgiving. I loved being able to use Grandma’s rolling pin and special glass cup for a stamp. It was so much fun! I hope I can only relay those special baking memories onto my son!
I use to live with roomies who loved baked goods as much as I do! We use to bake all the time and my favourite baking memories are with my roomies. The most memorable baking memory with my roomies was the time we made cupcake pops…we had so much fun and they turned out great!
My favorite memories are of making homemade chocolate chip cookies with my mom.. we didnt use a mixer or anything just a big green tupperware bowl and a wooden spoon! They always turned out so yummy and perfect! We would just double the recipe on the back of the chocolate chips and make soooo many cookies! Then we would share them with friends and still have enough left over to have for a few weeks! Soo yummy! Thank you for ur recipe bakerella!! Im going to make those pies for my hubby this year!!
As a young teen I would get my mother’s Betty Crocker cookbook out and look through until I found a recipe that sounded good and went to work. My mother’s only rule was I had to clean up my own mess!
My favorite memories of baking are with my grandma. She taught me everything I know about baking and cooking. One of my favorite memories was Christmas time we would make tamales, pies, and cookies loads and loads of cookies!
My mother was my initial “Bakerella”! She baked for fun, too! Whenever she baked I would be in the kitchen with her and she would give me the scraps of her pie dough and encourage me to create something. Although my attempts usually ended up with just some shape cut from the dough and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, she always made out like it was the best thing ever.
My favorite baking memory is watching and helping my mom make an apple cake she made that was fabulous! I loved watching her cut the butter and apples into cubes and the smell of it baking could send someone into a happy coma! To this day I still cannot get the recipe right, no matter what I do!
When my Grandma Olive was alive, she would supplement her social security income by baking fresh homemade bread and cinnamon rolls EVERY Saturday and selling them to a steady clientele she had! There was never a question where I would be spending my Saturday’s…at Grandma’s helping! She did everything by hand and it tasted soooo good! Then when all the baking was done, we’d deliver it all! Miss this very much!
The thing I loved most about Christmas baking was the box of gingerbread men that my Grandmother sent to us each year. They were hard cookies with a hard glazed frosting on them, and the traditional red hots for buttons and eyes. By the time the box reached our house, they were broken into lots of pieces, but we loved every one of those pieces. I would give anything to receive that box of cookies just one more time.
My favorite baking memory is the very first time I baked cookies with my twin girls….they made a huge mess but enjoyed every minute of it
My Gran daughter Stefana Loves to bake. She has been a whiz in the kitchen since she was a little girl. One of my fondest memories is baking Christmas cookies with her when she would visit. Now she is a chef.
I use to love baking with my mom during the holidays. She would make kourambiedes and one step involved fresh squeezed orange juice and sugar and bourbon. She would always let me stick one finger in the oj and sugar mixture before she added the bourbon just for a quick sweet treat. One time I went back with another finger and found out very quickly that she had added the bourbon and if there’s one way to teach your kids not to drink that memory is enough. Blech!
Any kind of cookies, lots of quick breads, and home made fudge. I love this time of year.
My favorite memory is baking banana bread with my grandmother. As soon as it was cool enough to slice, we would each have a piece with a cup of tea served in her fancy teacups.
My mom isn’t much of a baker but she taught me how to make Chocolate Chip Cookies. Those are basically what we do for Christmas cookies. I will make them all year but I MUST make them on the day we trim the tree. It just isn’t Christmas without them. I have expanded my cookie repertoire and try different ones every year to give to the neighbors. But to me…Christmas means Chocolate Chip Cookies. And then there was the year I made bread shaped like bears for my friends for Christmas presents (in middle school). I am not sure they were edible but they looked cute.
My aunt has made butter cookies ever since I can remember! I usually only get them at Christmas, but they are amazing! I have made them with her as a little girl and now when my kids go to visit her she will make cookies with them. What a treasure to be able to spend time with her and have her love on them!
Making sugar cookies for Christmas with my grandmother– I had my own special candy cane striped apron
My favorite memory is probably baking banana bread with my girlfriend the day she had to move out of town. Packing was long and arduous, but we left out exactly what we would need for the bread. Then, on the day of the move, once most everything was in boxes, we baked a couple of loafs and shared them with the folks we asked to help with the move.
It was super tasty, and helped to dull what would have been a long and painful day.
My favorite baking memory is making cinnamon buns with my Nana. She was the best baker and I’m glad that was passed down to my mom and my sisters and I. Her cinnamon buns were delicious and made with lots of love.
Making cookie with my grandma, we always made the cookies at Christmas.
Just turned 18 on Saturday! Yay! This is my first “18 & older” contest (:
My favorite memory would have to be how I make a pumpkin cream cheese pie for my neighbors every year for Thanksgiving (:
Most all of my favorite baking memories involve my mom and the Holidays. But I think my favorite was the midnight snacks made while she was getting chemo treatments. For some reason she always got a sweet craving in the very early morning hours. I relished that time spent with me in the kitchen and her sitting at the table keeping me company. We compiled an impressive list of quick and easy snacks!
My grandma used to make chocolate pies with meringue topping for every family gathering. I used to love to watch her make them from beginning to end. As I got older I got to help. By the end of her life, I was baking the pies and she was watching from beginning to end! :)
Every year on the first Saturday in December a bunch of my family and friends get together and decorate sugar cookies. The oldest child of the group will be bringing her first born this year. The older kids are very artistic now, while the youngest ones just want to see how much frosting and sprinkles they can get on 1 cookie.
Every winter since my oldest daughter was 2 years old, she and I have made toffee fudge together. The first few years she would ‘help’ me put the ingredients into the pan or stir for a little while. Now she’s able to do pretty much everything herself. It’s a bonding moment for us and definitely my favorite part of baking!
Every Christmas my mom would make orange poppyseed bread to give as a gift to my teachers. I loved the moment when we would pour the orange juice over the top, making a perfect, sugary glaze. mmmm….
I grew up in a restaurant and baking day meant my mother baking 10-12 pies. Those are my favorite memories. I have a great photo of my mom next to a set of perfect pies. Why make one pie when you can make 10!
I enjoyed sitting my daughter on the counter and she “helped” make chocolate chip cookies.
I have always baked as long as I can remember. I baked with my grandmothers, my mom, my children, and my grandchildren. But probably the baking experience that sticks out in my mind the most was my grandson looking at me after I let him have a “cheater” (a bite of something before anyone else) and saying, “Ohhhhh mammaw, dat make me soooooo happy!” Moments like these are priceless.
my favorite memory that i remember is my grandma making “hurry buns” when i came home from school, with really thin, but good, icing.
A few years ago my neighbor was pregnant so my brothers and I made turtles (pretzels, rolos, and walnuts), they turned out awesome and ended up using the whole bag and passed them out to all my neighbors. Also when it was Christmas Eve me and my siblings spent hours on a ginger-bread house and there was icing everywhere it was so much fun and hilarious.
I have so many memories with my mom baking delicious goodies for my sister and I, but the most enjoyable memories are when my 8 yr. old daughter are baking the delicious recipes past down from my grandma and mom. It is so much fun laughing and joking around with my daughter while baking knowing way back I was her age when I was helping my mom bake the same things. It is a blessing to have such lovely memories as this and knowing that someday she will be doing the same with her children.
Sugar cookies with my mama!
Mom taught both me and brother to bake throughout the year, but Christmas always brought out the special recipes that are my dad’s favorites from his childhood.
Dad’s absolute favorites are called S-cookies, which is basically a Swedish butter spritz cookie. As kids, my brother and I had the job of sprinkling red or green sugar on each cookie. My favorite memory is the year I got married and my mom taught me. Dad now says that my cookies taste just like his mom’s, which means so much because she passed when I was a baby.
My favorite baking memory was the last Thanksgiving I got to spend with my mom. My brother came home from college, and he and I cooked our favorite family meal, with my mom watching and coaching from the sidelines and as she was too sick to be able to do it herself. It was like she was handing over the reigns. We made pumpkin bread, and her favorite, cranberry walnut bread, which are the only things (besides the turkey!) that show up at our Thanksgiving table every year.
Baking Christmas cookies with my mom and sister was always the best. My mom had an annual cookie exchange with her friends and the morning after, she’d let us eat cookies for breakfast. Just one day out of the year, and I’ll remember it forever :)
I love to bake with my sister, and my niece. We bake whenever we have time, so each time is special and fun!
My favorite memory is the summer I learned to make blueberry cobbler. I couldn’t have been more then about 10 and we had gotten several gallon size bags of blueberries. I was making cobbler every other day it seemed and even more amazing the cobbler was disappearing about as fast as I could make it!
O my, of course my fondness memories of baking are during Christmas, my mother didn’t bake. But my father only baked during Christmas, and only one dish.. A family tradition, called Mo-co Cakes…
Now I try to continue the tradition with my kid. But thanks to BAKERELLA and her cake balls.. I make Mo-co cake balls now instead of cake squares…
My mom was an incredible baker – her pies were famous in our small town – but my most vivid memory is of the fall, coming home from school and my mom would be canning peaches. The kitchen windows would be all steamed up and every inch of the kitchen was being used. What I wouldn’t give for a quart of those peaches now!
I can remember when I was a little girl sitting at the kitchen counter with my sisters and watching my mother bake. She would bake bread, rolls, and all sorts of cookies. She would always give us some dough and let us make our own creations. We would wait patiently as it baked in the oven and then we would get to sample what we made. This is how I learned to love cooking and baking.
Although I aspire to become a home baker (I take lots of classes, but have yet to actually put those recipes to use!) I want to create some holiday baking memories with my daughters. They are not old enough yet (one is 2 and the other is making her debut sometime in Oct), but I hope by the time they can help me in the kitchen I will actually start baking regularly.
One of my favorite baking memories was when I was little and my mom would make sugar cookies at Christmas. I remember eating them and watching Star Wars right around Christmas time.
Love your website, and I enjoy your creativity! My favorite memory is decorating cake with my Mom.
I really love baking, but my favorite baking memory came from this past year. I was living with one of my best friends, but at the time we didn’t know each other at all. We wouldn’t really talk much or say anything, but then one day she had been baking bread in the kitchen and I just started talking to her about all sorts of different things we liked to bake. We ended up baking all sorts of things like cake balls, cheesecake bars, muffins, cupcakes, you name it, we baked it. We did this ever single week as a roommate tradition and we’ve been best friends ever since. She’s made such an impact on my life and I don’t know what I would’ve done if baking with her had never happened because my life has never been the same, but it’s been for the better :)
My favorite baking memory is a new one. My daughter just turned 4 and starting last year, on the Islamic holiday, Eid (which happens twice a year), we started baking goodies, packaging them very beautifully and taking them out to our neighbors! The second Eid Holiday is coming up in October and she is excited to make goodies for all her teachers and classmates too!
One of my favorites was making hummingbird cake for my roommate and her family and they kept calling it mosquito cake.
Baking chocolate crinkle cookies at Christmas time…so fun!
I think I’m creating lots of new baking memories just recently, but I will always remember my mom helping my sister and I make new deserts for the family, we were barely 7 or 8 years, so doing something in the kitchen “by ourselves” was big hit :)
Ever since then I really enjoy baking for friends and family
My mom is kind of like your uncle, she’s not really into baking. However every Thanksgiving she makes the best pumpkin chiffon pie you’ve ever had. Thanks for all your inspiration!
Every Christmas my mom, aunt, and I get together to do all of the cookie and candy baking for both sides of my family. That’s my favorite baking experience and memory every year.
Every year my kids help me make Santa sack candy, and now that they are 9 and 12, they do everything! I just sit in the kitchen and visit with them while they make the candy!
I absolutely adored making apple pies with my grandma.
Note so much as baking a baked good but my favorite cooking memory is with making homemade caramels every year during Christmas. Mom would make them and then the whole family would sit down and cut up wax paper and then roll up the caramels, throw them in a bucket that would then be added to treat plates given to neighbors and friends. I loved that time with my family and I plan to continue the tradition with my kids.
Making and decorating gingerbread men with my family is a very special memory for me as a child. My mother and grand mother had a special red plastic cutter we used to make them. We found reproductions as my brothers, sisters, and I started our own homes and baking traditions. For my son and grandchildren I found more of these treasured cutters used and online. We make these each year. If you are counting, that currently stands at 5, yes five generations of FB man bakers that I know of. The first ones were baked in my grandma’s wood-burning stove!
I never baked or even cooked before I was married. I have since fallen in love with both! My favorite tradition is making all-out birthday cakes for my babies.
My favorite baking memory happened 3 years ago. My oldest daughter was home for Christmas for 2 days, my youngest was a semester shy of college graduation, and home for the same 2 days. We spent the evening making some new cookie recipes and drinking margaritas. I took lots of pictures, and every time I make those few recipes, I remember that day.
Susan in NC
susie.galasso@gmail.com
My favorite baking memory is baking cookies and decorating them with my friends when I was a little girl.=)
Baking and frosting sugar cookies at Christmas with my mother, who passed away in 2010.
My favorite baking memory is baking cookies and decorating them with my friends when I was a little girl.
I loved decorating cookies with my mom at Christmas!
My favorite baking memory is trying to help my little sister make handprint cookies for Christmas. It was a disaster! We didn’t roll out the dough enough, and they looked like giant hands after they were done baking!
Standing at my great-grandmother’s elbow learning to bake bread with her as a little girl… I loved learning to knead and shape the loaves. Oh I wish I could have one more day baking with her!
The weekend before Thanksgiving my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother and I would all start the preparations for all of our Thanksgiving baking. This included at least 50-60 sweet potato pies, then there were apple pies, apple turnovers, peach cobbler, pound cake, pineapple coconut cake, red velvet cake and a few cheesecakes. I cherish these times with my family. I’m extremely thankful that the family recipes have been passed down to me.
My Mom always baked at Christmas! She had several cookies she only made once a year. Now that she’s gone I make them to keep the tradition going.
My favorite baking memory is baking some really mediocre cornbread for my partner the first night that we met! I was so nervous that I couldn’t get anything right.
Every year I make 12 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange with co-workers. The thrill of seeing what kind of cookies my co-workers made and going home to share with my family.
Every year all the women/girls in the family get together on christmas eve day & bake . Last year was our first yr that we had 4 generations baking in one kitchen. My grandmother, mother, sisters and now our children, all shared an amazing day filled with laughter, messy clothes & tons of treats for everyone to share. This is a moment I will never forget !