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.
___________________________________________________________________
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.
___________________________________________________________________
This post is sponsored by Nestlé® Toll House® Morsels, the perfect special ingredient for all of your family’s favorite treats!
I have really great memories making sugar cookies and apple sauce with my Mom and sister!
My mom had always been the baker in our family. She started us all early so when she went back to school at 35 I stepped in and started baking. I was 9, by the time I was 11 I was entering my pies in the fair and winning! One day when I was baking my grandmothers favorite pie for dinner, I thought the only thing missing was my mom and grandmother. I went out to the garage to get butter out of the freezer and when I came back into the house there stood both of them with aprons on. My mom said “your the cook what can we do?” That was the best strawberry rhubarb pie I ever ate! I cant make one now without missing them both.
my mom and dad were raised in England and their wedding cake was fruitcake, covered in apricot preserves, enrobed in marzipan and covered in royal icing. They made it each year after as their Christmas cake It was made as the groom’s cake at my wedding. More than 65 years since it was first made for my parents we still bake it for our Christmas cake. I have such fond memories of my dad helping with the royal icing, polishing it to a perfectly smooth surface. Then he would add a scene of deer, pine trees and a ‘mirror’ pond with ice-skaters. A wide red ribbon was tied round it (I still use all the decorations) and it was proudly displayed for the week or so leading up to Christmas. It was magnificent to behold and absolutely delicious.
My favorite baking memory is from my childhood. Every Fall my family would go apple picking. This was a major production!! We would drive for a really long time to get to the orchard. I was only 8 or so, so any drive longer than 15 minutes felt like an eternity!
Since I was the youngest and smallest I was hoisted up into a tree and expected to climb as high as I could to get the “best” apples!!! It didn’t matter that I was terrified of heights and hated this job!! And, my older sister would take liberties at hitting me with rotten apples as I was clinging onto a
branch!
We were finished and went home when we had 2 full bushel baskets of apples. When we got home, my Dad and I were in charge of peeling the apples. My Mom and sister made the crust and my brother got to help roll out the dough. We usually only made 2 standard pies. To this day, I never ever understood why we picked so many apples when we only used about ten!!
While the pies were baking, the cinnamon smell permeated the house, and lingered a few days. Whenever I smell cinnamon, I think back to those days and how much fun we had.
My favorite baking memory was making my sister’s wedding cake with my mom. It was when I learned from her how to decorate, assemble tiered cakes.. She has since passed but I have the stainless steel mixing bowl that we used to make those cakes., it is the only thing I have from my mom and I cherish it.
I have so many baking memories its hard to share just one. My family LOVES baking. Cakes, Pies, Cookies…everything! I cherish the time spent baking with my mom and siblings. I’m also happy that the love of baking has passed down to my kids, especially my daughter. Her latest favorite thing to bake are cookies. We have bought the cutest cookie cutters and it has been exciting to experiment with them.
My favorite baking memories are with my children. They are 6 and 9 yrs old now and I can still picture chocolate rimmed big smiles afte they’ve licked the spoons, mixer blades, etc.
My mom’s favorite cookies are what we call pacoons (nut balls). My grandmother always made them by hand and used a ceramic bowl and a silver spoon. While I don’t have the ceramic bowl, I do have the silver spoon. What is amazing, is the spoon has one side that is worn away from all the stirring!. All the grand-daughters have grandma’s pacoon recipe, but mine are the only one’s that taste just like hers. I always make them using her silver spoon!
When I was smaller, every Christmas, my mom and I would make dozens and dozens of sugar cookies. There was nothing spectacular about them, but they we delicious and super fun making them with my favorite lady!! :) Miss those days…….
Well the best memory I have from baking is when I made pecan tarts (tassies) for the first time for my friends birthday! Her reaction was priceless when she opened her gift! The treats were so unexpected and she loved it! That’s the first time I felt how rewarding it was to give a gift of a baked good!
I remember baking all kinds of sweets with my mom every Christmas, even before I could see the countertop and had to stand on a chair.
I don’t know if I have any favorite baking memories, strictly speaking. Certainly MEMORABLE ones!
Oh, where to start… okay.
When I was younger and really learning to bake, I looked through every recipe book we owned. I made the Betty Crocker Starlite cake, with varying degrees of success. I made lemon squares once, though they turned out more sugar than lemon. And then there was the cake i made that had an ANT in it.
Yes, you read right. A LIVE ant! Don’t know HOW it got in there, but it certainly freaked my younger sister out. No one else but ME touched that cake after that, though I was very careful.
Well, a couple decade and several dozen cakes later. I can say with confidence I’ve improved. People LOVE my cakes now. And I love experimenting with different flavors and combinations.
A good baking memory I had was just last year, when my niece and nephews helped me bake, frost and decorate Christmas cookies. They had almost as much fun as I did doing it!
Banana bread with my mom! It wasn’t the holidays until we baked that delicious bread and passed them out to half the neighborhood. Whenever I smell banana bread I am instantly taken back to my childhood.
As a young girl, I always competed in the annual Girl Scout Cookie Bake-off each year during the Sugarcane Festival in my hometown. It was so much fun baking and competing with all of my friends!
My favorite memory is decorating my own sugar cookie at Christmas when we were younger! Sprinkles galore!
I used to bake when I was a little girl and I LOVED when the cookies would come right out of the oven! I always HAD to have one before they cooled down. :)
With six children in the family, having a family dinner on the table was always my Mom’s first priority, but when it came time for the holiday’s she would always set time aside to prepare and bake our families traditional Christmas cookies. And as my sister and I got older she would include us in the baking extravaganza, this is now a tradition I carry on with my own daughter and son. With each tray that goes into the oven I think of my Mom and how much she taught me and how much I miss her.
My favorite baking memory was just made last week! Is was the first chilly day, raining all evening, so my 2 year old son and I baked chocolate chip cookies together for the first time. He loved it! He was so amazed by the mixer and kept eating the dough as I was putting it on the pan. It was so cute and fun!!
My favorite baking memories are always of helping my Mom bake cookies during the holidays. We make lots of different kinds, wrap them up and give them to friends and family.
My favorite baking memory was a disaster. I came home from school to find smoke. She left a pie in the oven for 9 hours! Our house was fine, but we still talk about her ‘ lava’ pie!
I always love baking and preparing all the Christmas goodies with my parents each year. My husband and I moved recently, so we won’t be with them this Christmas. So, hopefully we can make some of our own baking memories. :)
Every year my mom and I spend days baking for our vip customers, we both own our own business’s, and we have so much fun. I look forward to it every year although it is exhausting.
My favorite baking memory is when I realized for the first time that baking was a very therapeutic thing for me. I had been going through a tough time in my life and learned that the motion of baking helped me find some peace and quiet within my life.
I loved making a bajillion different types of Christmas cookies. I still love the peanut blossoms with a Hershey’s kiss on top. Actually enjoyed unwrapping all of them, then sinking them into the fluffy tops of the warm, just-out-of-the-oven cookies. Yum!
I remember before I was too young to bake independently, I would help my sister bake and she called me her “little kitchen cadet.” I can’t put a finger on a specific favorite recipe we made together, because there were many times, but I do have the memories of it being so much fun! Many years later I had the honor of making the desserts for the dessert table at her wedding, so that was special that we used to bake together and then I got to bake for her special day.
My favorite baking memory is making a heart shaped cake that I had seen in a magazine (a square + a round cut in half) for my grandmother’s birthday.
I used cake mixes and store bought frosting, but I felt so accomplished making a “shaped” cake instead of the typical regular rounds that were the norm back then.
Just this week my daughter and I are making her first baking memories – Hello Kitty shaped cookies with darling royal icing faces for her 4th birthday party. We did our test run last week and ate our fill so this week should be a blast.
When I was 16, I wanted to surprise my mom with a birthday cake. That was the first time baking and I thought it would be easy since it was only a mixture of eggs, milk, and oil into the cake batter. Boy was I wrong. The cake overflowed and clumps of batter was still in the cake but my mom loved it. Although it wasn’t perfect, I considered it my favorite baking memory because after that experience, I wanted to learn to bake anything and everything. The memory of my mother smiling at me for trying to bake anything gave me motivation to do anything.
I’m fortunate to have lots of good baking memories around holidays with my daughter as she was growing up, but one of my favorites is when I gave her a standing mixer. I took my hand mixer as well as extra mixing bowls, baking pans, etc. to my daughter’s house before Christmas a few years ago. She, my son-in-law and I each had a station on her kitchen island and baked goodies for gifts until about three in the morning. Family baking together just about tops my idea of a good time. {smile}
As far as I’m concerned, pie is a food group of its own and pecan pie is probably my favorite! I’m looking forward to trying this recipe. We carry on my mother’s legacy by cooking and baking her recipes every holiday.
Thanks for a chance at the giveaway!
My favorite baking memory is a recent one. I love spending time with my two nephews but as they get older, it’s getting harder for me to think of things to do with them. Last fall, I asked them if they’d like to go apple picking, knowing that perhaps two teenage boys (15 and 17) might not think that was too fun. But they agreed and after we picked more apples than we knew what to do with, I asked if they wanted to come back to my place and bake some pies and they said, “yes”. I said, “are you sure?” My nephew said, “we don’t care what we do, we just want to spend time with you.” **melt** We went home and peeled and cored and rolled out dough and baked 6 apple pies. And I actually think they did have fun. I know I did.
This is definitely my favorite baking memory- I would go over to my Grandma’s house when I was younger and make snickerdoodles with her and my brother. She would let us choose a color to die both the cookie and the frosting then we’d make snickerdoodle sandwiches. Snickerdoodles are my favorite cookie to this day.
Each and every December I fake every weekend then
Make up platters of assorted goodies and give to neighbors
Friends and family. The look on their faces is priceless evrrytime.
Every year at Christmas my mom and my two sisters and I make big trays of goodies to give to family and friends. Usually peanut butter balls, several different cookies, caramel corn, and peppermint bark. This year I think we will add mini pecan pies! LOVE that idea. :D
I taught myself to bake growing up, and loved taking on new baking projects to see what I can do. One year I decided to try making a R2D2 cake for a charity auction. There was a young man in our neighborhood who had just been diagnosed with cancer, and they wanted to put together a charity for him. So I bought all the supplies and stayed up ALL night long making this cake.. I don’t know what else could have gone wrong. First I fell asleep on the couch while the first batch of cakes were in the oven, had to make a whole new batch… then I cut the head too small.. then the rice krispies for the legs got stuck to the pan and to top it all off the fondant ripped. I was so discouraged and upset.. I didn’t want to keep going. Eventually after much frustration.. possibly some tears, I was able to finish just in time for the cake to be auctioned off. It was experiences like those that make me so excited to learn new things and take on new challenges. I learned a lot of patience that day, but I had a little kid in mind that kept me very motivated to finish.
My favorite baking memory was teaching my 8 year old niece how to make a cake. She was so excited and interested (and helpful, of course!) in everything we did. Now we bake all the time!
My favorite baking memory is when I made a German chocolate cake (around age 11) and the dog got to it before the family. My mom didn’t think we should eat it, but that didn’t stop my twin from finishing it off.
My favorite baking memory is making Mexican wedding cookies at Christmas time with my mother.
my favorite memory is making cinnamon and sugar treats from the left over pie dough my mom made. Thank you for the giveaway!
My favorite baking memory was when I first learned how to bake in Jr High School. I couldn’t wait to take home what i made each week!
My absolute favorite baking memory has to be teaching my boyfriend to bake a couple of years ago, it was so much fun and it gave him insight as to why I love it so much. It was an amazing feeling to share something that I enjoy so much with the person that I love.
My favorite was baking with my mom growing up and now passing on that same tradition to my own daughters.
My favorite baking memory was last Christmas when I visited my family in California during winter break from college. My mother, my sister, my 7 year old niece, and myself baked classic family cookie recipes for 10 hours together. My sister and I even made the “silly mistake” cookies we used to make as children when mom wasn’t paying attention. It was priceless to share this experience with 4 generations of women in our family (my sister and I are 15 years apart). Our mother has recently lost her eyesight, and because baking smells so yummy, I am sure her recounting of that day will be vivid in more than one way.
I remember baking with my mom when I was a child. She was so patient and taught me so much. When I bake today, I can still remember how she explained certain techniques so well! I was 20 when she died of cancer. Now, when I miss my mom, I bake.
My favorite “new” memory is my husband baking pies for holidays. I detest making a fresh crust, but he enjoys it.
Baking with my son. It’s still memorries in the making, but it’s the best!
Every Christmas growing up my family bakes Christmas sugar cookies – there was lots of cookie dough eaten in the process – now that I have my own ?ohana in Hawai’i, when we visit Virginia in the summer we have Summer Christmas when we make Christmas cookies…and of course we still make in December too! It makes for great memories for me and our keiki!
My favorite baking memory would have to be when I was about eleven years old. I’d travel with my parents for two hours so that we could go see my nana. She was so special. I’d play outside for a few hours and then come inside and every time I was there I’d hop up on my stool and help her bake her apple pie. She’d do the cutting, I’d do the mixing, and I’d help her make the topping before she’d put it in the over and I’d set the timer. And I always got to cut the first piece for whoever was with us.
I remember this time when we had guests over and my cake just absorbed all the coffee frosting I put on it! Thankfully, a two minute microwave made it really smooth and fluffy and everyone loved it. I would gladly make the same mess again.
My favorite memory was baking with my little sister … she’s not one to follow instructions so instead of following the recipe and mixing in ingredients one at a time, she put them all in the bowl and turned on the mixer … the beaters couldn’t rotate and ended up breaking!
I love baking and could use a new machine! Thanks for all of your inspiration!
My favorite baking memory is with my late Grandma. Every time I went to her house we made chocolate chip cookies. She was so patient and loving in her teachings of baking with me. It is because of her that I have such a love and passion for baking. She passed when I was in high school and at her funeral the pastor asked each of us what our favorite memory was of her, mine was making those chocolate chip cookies. Still my favorite comfort sweet! Now I’m making memories with my own children and passing the baking love on!
WOW, those look amazing!! lol..I’ll definitely have to make them because I love pecan pie(being from the South haha) and my brother does too!!
I have many baking memories growing up..I think it’s what fueled my passion for baking….I especially love making fudge with my Aunt every Christmas(technically not baking I know lol). I also have vivid memories of baking cookies and other treats with my Mom growing up! (R.I.P.)
Actually, I still have THE very 1st ever recipe I got/made from her friend June…It was when I was 10. It is called “apple crunch” and it’s basically an apple cobbler..I still have it in my own handwriting lol…Thanks for helping me go down memory lane!
I have never been able to afford a nice Kitchen-Aid stand mixer, but it’s always been my dream to own one! Thanks SO much for the chance to win!!
ajoebloe(at)gmail(dot)com
My fave memory is when I came home from kindergarten having baked my first cranberry-orange bread (in a frozen oj can no less!). My mom and older sister loved it so much they fought over who could have more. I was so proud! And it’s still the best I’ve tasted:)
Oh, and only now I realise that I don’t live in the U.S. this time either. Darn. Well, it was fun remembering my early days in the kitchen.
My favorite baking memory is recently inheriting my grandmother’s recipes. I can’t wait to make everything!
When I was growing up, we went over to my mom’s best friend’s parents house (whew, that’s a mouthful!), to make Christmas cookies. We would spend the whole weekend there, and bake until we couldn’t bake any more. I loved it, and have such fond memories of the delicious smells, and wonderful laughter. I got the recipes when I got married, and continued to bake every Christmas. Now, I share that tradition with my three girls, and we have the best time!
My favorite baking memory would have to be helping my Nana out with the pies every year since I was little. Since we go apple picking it’s usually apple pies, but we have been known to do a blueberry pie on occasion. We freeze a few to eat later, but my favorite thing to do is steal a slice after they come out of the oven with a bit of vanilla ice cream on top. Since I’m older now, she usually slices it for me before I even get into the kitchen!
My favorite baking memory is visiting my great-grandmother when I was very young and experiencing first hand her homemade hot fudge sauce over homemade vanilla ice cream. Unfortunately I didn’t get to meet her many times before she died when I was 7 but a few days after her funeral, a box came for me in the mail. We opened it and inside was my great-grandmother’s favorite apron with her handwritten recipe for the hot fudge sauce. 25 years later those are still two of my most prized possessions. Now I have the privilege of watching my young kids enjoy Grandma Ruthie’s famous fudge sauce while telling them my memories of visiting her when I was their age.
The first time I successfully made chocolate chip cookies–surprisingly, harder than it should have been! Picking at the too-hot cookies as they sat cooling on the tray and devouring the gooey goodness was… awesome.
My favorite baking memory is one of my Dad and myself when I was a little girl. Every Saturday morning he would get up at the crack of dawn (or so it seemed that way to me as a kid) and while I was out in the living room watching Saturday morning cartoons (Smurfs, Snorks, etc.), Dad was in the kitchen making me ‘Smiley Face Pancakes’. They were the coolest pancakes ever! It was always a thing I looked forward to and a memory that will always stay with me. <3
My mother was an inspiration in the kitchen. My babysitter said it was OK to make cookies while my mom was working one day. I read the recipe & was confused by 1/2 tsp soda. We didn’t have any POP in the house. I subbed it for Kool-Aid. I figured 1/2 tsp was tooooo small for this tasty recipe that my mom had in her special recipe box. I added at least 1/2 cup. WORST COOKIES EVER.
But, the lesson? Baking = science. Mom’s cookies = the best when cooked by mom.
The time when I was little and I swapped the proportions of sugar vs flour in brownies… and my family ate it anyway, crumbled over ice cream!
I remember making my grandma’s spiced chocolate chip oatmeal cookies with my mom every holiday season. We would bake things all year round, but those cookies always remind me of holiday baking.
Certainly baking and decorating cutout cookies with my brothers at Christmas!
My mother doesn’t bake. I have the cooking & baking itch since my grandpa was a baker. Last Thanksgiving, I cooked chicken & dumplings, one of my favorite comfort meals. Then, I baked a pumpkin angel food cake. It was a tasty and perfect for the fall season!
My best memory was when I was making cookies with a girlfriend, and she had never used a mixer before mi gave her the recipe for chocolate chip cookies, and she just read the ingredient list and dumped it all into the bowl together! And she couldn’t understand why it wasn’t combining!! Lol!
My favorite baking memory would have to be the first time I baked home make from scratch cupcakes for my family. I was so proud! and my husband loved them!
When I was little, my mother, sister and I would bake up dozens upon dozens of Christmas cookies. It seems this tradition fell through the cracks when we moved (I was in 6th grade). I recently found a cookbook at the bookstore with updated versions of all the cookies we used to make, and I cannot wait until my kids are old enough to share this tradition with them!
Hand pulling taffy with my mom!
Baking Christmas cookies with my best friend in High school. We’d spend hours baking and decorating them!
Our family tradition is fudge. We invite one family over for a sugar-filled evening. Usually, we make about 100 pounds of fudge. The counters are filled with marshmallow, sugar, chocolate chips. We have tables set up for cooling and packaging. Then we give it all away (well, not all…we do enjoy a bit of it!)- just bring it all in baskets and have the kids run around at church giving it away to anyone and everyone.
My mom didn’t bake from scratch but I always remember baking cookies from the roll from the refrigerated section of the grocery store. I still remember them till this day but these days I try to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch!
One of mine would have to be getting together with all my female cousins and decorating cakes for our grandmothers Birthday party!
Favorite baking memory is making cutout cookies for Christmas in our little trailer in Alaska with my brothers!
Making cupcake batter with my 5 yr old daughter
In our family, favored baking was all about pies. We usually would rather eat pie than cake. My mom’s favorite was lemon meringue, my dad’s was chocolate cream, my next brother’s was cherry. Mine was coconut cream with toasted coconut meringue and my mom baked it for me for my birthday for as long as she was able.
My mom baked “brown bread,” using the recipe her mom made. The smell of bread filling the house is still one of my favorite aromas, and even though I’ve lived all over the world, I still love to make the same family recipe.
Every time my mom made it, she would take one bite, sigh, and say, “It just isn’t as good as when my mom made it.” We said it couldn’t be true.
Now when I make it, I take one bite, sight, and say, “It just isn’t as good as when my mom makes it.” My husband said it couldn’t be true.
Until he had my mom’s.
Then he said I was right, and that in a few generations we probably should just stop making it because it won’t be worth eating at this rate.
My favorite memory was when my grandmother would come visit my family during the holidays and she would come with baked gifts. She made us such delicious melt in your mouth cininim cookies, that to this day no one can match. Once we would run out of them she would get to work and make us a fresh batch. I wish I could remember all the ingredients she used. So I could attempt to make them, but I was young and more anxious about eating them then making them because those cookies were heavenly.
My mom made Christmas sugar cookies with us as kids once, and only once, because they’re so messy. That is my favorite baking memory. :)
I loved baking with my grandmother whatever it was. And especially when we were making a small cookies filled with wild roses jam.
My dad & I used to bake cookies all the time!
I love those pies! I have a fondmemories memories of them already. I do have another memory though. My older sister and I were attempting to make blondies one Sunday afternoon by ourselves. We had already borrowed chocolate chips from a neighbor and we discovered we were out of a few other key ingredients. We decided we could make a few substitutions. Let’s just say milk mixed with sugar and vanilla is NOT the same as sweetened condensed milk. They were probably the grossest treat I have ever made, but what a funny memory!
My favourite memory is how i always snuck into the kitchen when my mom was away (unfortunately she was home a lot, something I didn’t appreciate enough at the time) and made crazy baking experiments. I mixed all the good things I found in the cupboards, baked weird cookies (or just ate the batter) and tried to hide the evidence of my baking sprees by washing the greasy dishes in the bathroom sink with ordinary soap (don’t ask me why I didn’t do it in the kitchen, I have no idea. Probably because the sink there was full of other, equally greasy kitchen tools). My mom was not too happy about it but taught me how to bake real things, and today, at the age of 32, I am a happy, baking mom myself, with two daughters who are probably going to drive me crazy with their baking experiments in a couple of years. Baking karma at its best.
I just lost my Grandma 3 weeks ago and I loved making bread with her! I do this every week for my kids. They refuse to eat a sandwich on any other bread!
Last year, my mom and I instituted our first baking day! A few days before Christmas we invited all of the women in our family to spend the day baking all of the goodies for Christmas. We had so much fun and is already on the calendar for this Christmas as well!
I always loved to bake. When I was in 5 th grade and home alone with my brother and sister I decided I wanted to make donuts using a recipe from Betty Crocker. Never having made them before I filled a large pot full of oil and set the heat to high. I continued making my dough and was so proud of myself. I had all the donuts cut out and my cinnamon sugar made. Before I knew it the oil was overflowing and the kitchen was on fire. I ran screaming out of the house leaving my siblings behind. I fell down the stairs running to the neighbors who came and put a lid on the pot. We were all fine but our kitchen and living room walls were covered in black smoke. We quickly sponged mopped the walls before our parents got home. It wasn’t pretty just smeared grey muck. I remember my dad getting home first and sitting in a chair taking taking his work boots off and him looking puzzled. I confessed trying to include my brother and sister in the “story” as to lessen the guilt. He was grateful we were all ok and had us continue scrubbing the walls. I contined to practice my culinary craft as a youngster and later went on to attend Western Culinary Institute in Portland.
My favorite baking memory is, every thanksgiving and Christmas, my Mom, sister, and I are always the ones chosen to make the deserts for Grandmas house, (it for about 50-65 people and thats just our family). We do this every single year and make a few pecan pies and pumpkin pies, a double chocolate cake, a few fluffy cheesecakes, and 1 special mincemeat pie for my grandpa. It is a lot of baking and takes a good amount of time but we always have fun while we make them!
Baking toll-house cookies with my dad!
Not trying to suck-up, really!
My best friend and I get together before Christmas to bake and decorate dozens of cookies for our families to enjoy during the holidays.
My mom used to make cheesecake for restaurants when she was younger and one year she decided to show me how she makes them (because, trust me, they are the best cheesecakes). She actually arranged for a restaurant up the block to buy some of them so we ended up making a bunch and selling them just like she used to!
My favorite baking moment was the first time my daughter, Holiday, and I baked some Oatmeal Banana Bread.. it was this time last year.. she was 2 1/2. She has always been right by my side in the kitchen, and helping her discover and explore her talents is a dream come true. Kids do have a place in the kitchen and are very capable of doing many baking tasks. I’ll never forget that first moment together with her, making baking memories to treasure for a lifetime.
My best baking memory is having a Christmas baking day with my Mom, we made 5 different batches of cookies to give away to friends.
I’ve always hated and been so scared of baking… Then one day, out of nowhere, I decided I wanted to make my own cookies and did! I did it and wondered why I’ve been so scared of this!! Now, I love making cookies! :)
My Mom taught me hoe to cook and how to bake. She passed away 4 months ago, but I’ll carry her memory with her delicious recipes :)
One of my favorite memories is, helping my mother with the pies. Our favorite was apple pie from scratch.
I loved baking sugar cookies for Christmas and then decorating them as a family!
Sophomore year of college, a week before Halloween, the roomies and I carved pumpkins and baked pumpkin seeds. We had four whole pumpkins worth, and made a bunch of different flavored seeds. Delicious holiday snack!
I remember during the holiday season I would go over to my friend’s house and bake cookies and other desserts with his mom. She always overbaked and taught me a bunch of new recipes I still use to this day. I always loved mixing batters and doughs together and listening to the stories of where each recipe originated from. It was very peaceful and always makes me think of the holidays.
My favorite baking memory occurs almost every year; baking cookies every christmas for santa where my whole family would sit down and decorate the sugar cookies together until way past our bed times. I’m sure that part of the was because my parents didn’t want me to get them up at 5 in the morning!
I remember when my mom used to make pionono ( colombian dessert) And after she was done making the frosting I will eat the leftover frosting from the bowl…
My favorite baking memory is definitely baking Christmas cookies with my mom, my sisters, and my friends over a three day period during high school. We had a huge sleepover and made over two dozen kinds of cookies for thousands and thousands of morsels, which we then divvied up and used as Christmas presents. Whenever I bake any of those cookies, I can’t help but smile. I still do Christmas cookies every year, and hopefully I’ll be able to do it for many more years to come.
I totally agree with you, fall is baking time! Last year I made a sweet potato pie that turned out to be very memorable. My friends still talk about it; this KitchenAid mixer would help me make pies for all my friends! :)
I didn’t bake much with my mother growing up, but my favorite baking memories now are baking cookies with my daughter. :)
I didn’t grow up with baking parents, but the fondest memory I have is when I baked Snicker Doodles with my significant other. It was the first time I ever attempted to bake, and it was for my favorite season (Christmas).
Baking cookies for Santa!
My favorite baking memory is making Pumpkin Cake Rolls with my Mom!! My fave fall dessert…so good it sticks around all through the holidays including new year’s!
My cousin and I began a holiday baking tradition with our children 3 years ago. The kids would decorate sugar cookies for Santa and my cousin and I would stay up eating the cookies while wrapping the presents!
I do a lot of baking and taught even our sons how to bake. After one christmas baking event our son, Mark, decided he wanted to be the person who put sprinkles on for a job! That was his ultimate dream job at 4 years old! Now at 23, he’s married with a lil girl, and going to school to be a doctor.
AS a kid, it was always my mom and I who baked the pies for Thanksgiving. Eventually the pumpkin pie became my sole responsibility and still is to this day.
Baking with my dad. Dad isn’t much of a baker at all but being a single father, having two girls and super sweet tooth he gave it his best. We’d go into the kitchen with a basic boxed cake or brownie mix and somehow end up messing it up. The next day he’d always show up with a grocery store pie to make up for it. This drove me to be a baker so that I could make memories with my children some day and show my dad how he helped me discover my happiness.
Baking and decorating Christmas cookies with my kids.
When my youngest son was about 2, his favorite activity was baking cookies with me. He would stand on a chair next to me and watch as I measurde and mixed all the ingredients, then he would “help”me by licking the beater. He’s 21 now, and still loves to come over and eat chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven.
Teaching my daughter how to make baklava and decorating cookies with my boys:) Messy but so much fun:)
I have so many great baking memories it’s hard to pick one, but I do think of when I started baking. I was fourteen years old and a friend of mine would come over and we would bake a lot. We had a lot of mishaps, that make them more memorable but it was fun and it brought us together. My love of baking has continued from there. Now the fun is not in only the process of baking, but the joy it brings to people when you give.
Making cookies for my baby sister, watching her munch away while its still hot still makes my heart crumble
My favorite baking memory is when I was @ 5 years old standing on a chair by the counter helping my mom punch down the dough for bread. She’s 87 now and starting to become frail but that memory is so very strong in my mind.
Thank you for the wonderful give-away – God Bless.
Two faves come to mind for me…helping my Mama bake a “Tunnel of Fudge” cake, and having to do it “just so”….so the fudgey center would work. The other was her showing my sister and me how to make a Genoise, beating air into the eggs and oil , by hand, to get a light, airy cake. So fun, and delicious!
I have fond memories of baking with my grandma when I was really young and her letting me lick the bowls. When I became a teenager, I went to live with her and our baking continued. We would bake pumpkin pies from scratch around this time every year. Now we live too far apart to have that tradition continue but the memories certainly make me smile.
Every Thanksgiving with my family, in my mom’s kitchen, are great baking memories. Half of the family is crammed into the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on the big meal. We’re dancing around each other, trying not to step on little kids and flicking little fingers that are trying to snatch olives. It’s beautiful chaos. I love every minute of it.
I grew up on the east coast but moved to a small town in the Midwest 20 years ago. The nearest real bakery (not in a supermarket) is at least 30 minutes away and doesn’t carry a lot of the sweets I remember, like the black & white cookie.
My husband’s grandmother found a recipe for black & white cookies published in a NY paper and sent it to me. When my sister and SIL came to visit, we spent a day in my kitchen making them. It was like being home all over again. That’s what I like about baking. It brings back the sweetest memories.
Thanks for the chance to win this mixer. The one I had belonged to my MIL before me and was a good 30 yrs. old when it finally wore out while mixing our Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I can’t wait until I can get another one.
Hugs,
Snoopy :D
Every Thanksgiving, my mom and aunt would bake a huge spread of pies – often 25-30 pies, even when we only had 15 people coming for dinner. I loved helping them and trying one slice of every kind (or as many as I could handle!).
My favorite baking memory is making Christmas cookies with my mom, sister, niece and daughter. We have so much fun laughing together while making a huge mess and love sharing our cookies with friends and family.
My favorite baking memory is giving my friends a housewarming “party favor”…6 cupcakes in summer flavors–strawberry lemonade, watermelon, and red velvelt cupcakes. The reaction on their faces was priceless. :)
Baking sugar cookies with my mother. My mother never liked sweet food but she would always help me make sugar cookies because I like them.
My love of baking comes from childhood memories. My mom would bake while we were at school. When we goT home we could smell the sweetness which she hid. We would go on a scavenger hunt through the house looking for our baked treat!
My grandma (that has since passed) showing me how to make pie crusts. Every time I make a pie I think of her and remember that day. :)
Many baking memories but the most unforgetable was baking three pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. The pies were left on the counter too cool and when we returned home we found that the dogs at all three pies.
My favorite baking memory is around Christmas when I make sugar cookies and decorate them with my mom each year.
My best baking memories are with my dad, who isn’t much of a baker at all! Our times together usually consisted of boxed cake or brownie mixes and somehow always finding a way to mess it up then dad coming home the next day with a pie from the grocery store. So much fun but also drove me to learn to bake from scratch. Now I show up at my dads with a bunch of ingredients and he watches as I bake and we talk about old times. Love my dad so much and baking too!
One of my favorite memories is of my mother and I making press cookies for Christmas swaps with her battery-operated press that, over the years, would become more and more finicky and occasionally shoot out huge clumps of dough that vaguely resembled cookies. She taught me her recipe for the most perfect almond cookies that we rolled into balls, dipped in sugar, and stamped. They were best right out of the oven, warm and melty and oh so delicious. I’m 25 now and, even though we don’t bake nearly as many dozens of cookies as we used to, cookie-making time with my mom is still one of my most treasured special moments. It never fails to make me smile! :)
Every Christmas, we make a family gingerbread house. Some have been made from kits, many have been from scratch, but every year we have some sort of gingerbread house. It’s a tradition that I started with my own kids…and who knows, maybe they will carry it on when they are grown up and have their own families?
:)
Every year at Christmas when I was a kid we’d make magic cookie bars. To this day just the smell of chocolate and coconut baking makes me think of the holidays.
Always…..Christmas cookies with mom
My mom loved to bake when we were growing up – from cookies to bundt cakes. So I think I inherited that love from her. Ever since my hubby & I have moved into our house in 2005, I’ve taken up the mantle of making some dessert for the holidays. And after being introduced to your site, Bakerella, I’m known as the cake pop girl! Can’t wait for the holiday season to start making treats!
My favorite baking memories involve baking big batches of cookies and sharing them with my best friends from grad school when we weren’t sure if we were going to make it through our program. It was a hard time, but we definitely made it!
My favorite baking memory was when my husband and I were first dating. One of the first times I met my now mother-in-law, I brought her some cookies made from my favorite recipe. He had told me repeatedly what an amazing baker and cook she was, so I really wanted to impress her. She absolutely loved them and asked me to write the recipe down for her right then and there… that’s when I knew I was “in,” when I had my man’s mother’s thumbs up ;)
My favourite baking memory is making Christmas fruit cakes with my mother in Jamaica. I didn’t like the fruit cakes but it wasn’t Christmas if we didn’t bake them. After the cakes were steaming away, I’d then bake a plain cake for myself.
My favorite baking memory was making chocolate chip cookies and having to improvise on several ingredients. One batch turned out amazing but I have been unsuccessful in trying to duplicate the recipe!
My favorite baking memory is actually a baking disaster that showed me just how much my boyfriend loves and encourages me. He had wanted pumpkin pie so I said I would make one. We were in our 20s at the time and I had never had pumpkin pie before; at the time I wasn’t wild about pies I always have been and still am a cake girl. I put all of the ingredients of the recipe in to individual bowls so I would not forget to add anything. I mixed everything together and poured it into some pre-made pie crusts. Once the pumpkin pies were baked (the recipe made 2) I took one of the pies to his apartment. We sat down to watch some TV and eat the pie. I took a bite and thought “this is really gross, how in the world do people like this”. I looked over to see my boyfriend eating the pie. I took another bite and said “this really isn’t good”. He said “it’s not that bad”. I took a third bite and begged him to stop eating saying “this is vial, please stop eating it.” He put his fork down after much persuasion. About a moment later my eyes bulged out and I sat straight up and blurted out “I FORGOT THE SUGAR!!!!” In my mind I could see exactly where on the counter the sugar I had measured out had been and sure enough when I had returned home it was right where I had left it. I asked my boyfriend why he had kept eating the pie when it was so bad and he said “I didn’t want to discourage you from trying to make it again.” It was one of the most disgusting things I had ever eaten and he kept eating it so I wouldn’t be discouraged. He’s not really the type to eat something that doesn’t taste good, but he loves me and is very supportive, and if eating pumpkin pie with out sugar in it didn’t convince me of it then the blueberry chicken incident sure did…but that is another cooking fiasco story for another time. I would like to say that with his encouragement I have become a darn good cook, an excellent pie maker, and I have not forgotten to put sugar in the pumpkin pie since.
My favorite memory is of my dad making brittle at Christmas and pouring it out over the kitchen table. Then handing each of us a small hammer to break it up with- so much fun!
My favorites baking memories are my kids birthday cakes. They are now 17 and 16, still bake a cake on their birthday. But the first at least 10 birthdays the cake was not pretty, but in my mind always was the idea of putting my love in everything I cook or bake for them specially on their special day. Love is always the best ingredient in the baking or cooking business. Now I make cakes that are really nice, but the passion my daughter put on her baking is my real pleasure. Guess she has good memories of those not so pretty cakes.
My favorite baking memory is making cookies with my grandmother. My grandpa’s favorite cookies are snickerdoodle, and my grandma always wanted us to help her bake them. She passed away when I was 12, but I got her love of baking and have a lot of her recipes and love to try to recreate them. Of course, nothing is as good as when she made it, but I give it my best shot. She always made everything from scratch and took pride in everything she made. Making her recipes is my way of keeping her with me.
I love this post about making pecan pies with your grandmother, and I am so glad you and your uncle have carried on her tradition.
My favorite baking time is listening to my little girls bake their own special creations while in the bathtub. They are so creative!
The first time I hosted my own Thanksgiving, I went way overboard on the baking and had piles of pie, bread, and cookies. I had no complaints from my guests, though!
The short answer for me would be making Christmas Cookies during the holidays when I was little. The long answer would be making the cookies with my absolutely amazing late aunt Nancy (and her very Italian mother), or my grandmother, or with my own mother. I couldn’t even try to pick one of these times but they all involve cookies and they all remind me that life is short and sweet for certain!
Every year around Christmas time, my Mom and I set out to bake all of our favorite treats for all of our favorite people. This by far is the best memory because I get to bake with someone I love, for the people I love, year, after year!
I have many fond memories baking with my mom and my sister. We made small cherry pies using freshly picked cherries from our aunt and uncle’s tree, and rolled sugar cookies using the same recipe every Christmas.
baking christmas cookies with my mom!
i used to help my mom w/ blueberry muffins (her favorite) for saturday morning breakfast. my earliest memory is when i was in elementary school – we’d make rice krispie treats & chocolate cupcakes for my school’s bakesale!
I used to make homemade applesauce with my grandmother when I was a child. We’d spend all day, washing, peeling, and chopping apples. I’ll always remember the way she sang as we did this…. It was a lot of work, but a ton of fun!
My mom used to make cookies with me and my sisters, and just cookie cutters to spell out our names in cookies.
My favorite baking memory has to be baking with my dad. I always loved baking fresh gingerbread to make adorable little houses to give to my friends!
My favorite baking memory would have to be during thanksgiving, when my family all comes and we bake about 30 pies. It takes almost a whole day and then on thanksgiving all the boys in the family eat a whole pie themselves.
My favorite baking memory was when my Mom taught me how to make my favorite pie – lemon meringue. I make just a few a year but I can still picture the day she taught me.
I remember recently teaching my 2 year old daughter the fun in baking. It was a terrible mess but well worth it. She even learned what “mixing” was and now everytime she sees me mixing up another recipe she wants to help mix ingredients together, but her favorite part is cracking the eggs! Im glad I got to have that moment with her so early in her life.
My favorite baking memory is my grandma letting me help make the Christmas cookies and lick the bowl when I was a little girl.
MY SWEET BAKING MEMORY WAS WHEN I HAD TO DO 200 CUPCAKES FOR MY SISTERS GRADUATION PARTY THE HOUSE WAS SO HOT TOO AND THE CUPCAKES WERE GOOD AS YOU CAN TELL BECAUSE THERE WERE ONLY LIKE 10 OR 5 LEFT AND I REALLY WANT TO WIN THIS BECAUSE THIS WOULD MEAN THE WORLD TO ME I ALWAYS WANTED THE KITCHEN AID STAND MIXER
I do not have childhood baking memories, but I am creating baking memories for my children who love to help me bake.
My favorite baking memories are with my girls. With the oldest I started putting an old tablecloth on the floor with a toy tray when she could first sit up. I covered it with cupcakes, different colored Frostings, and tons of sprinkles and played and decorated with her for hours. The youngest, when she was 3, stayed up to help me make her favorite cookies when she was sick. I let her sleep in the living room that night, and I woke up to her crying. Sometime in the middle of the night she started feeling better and had helped herself to the cookies left in a bag on the table. Poor little thing had climbed up there, ate all the cookies in the bag, and couldn’t figure out how to get down!! Poor baby. Chocolate all over her face, crumbs all over as evidence at the scene of a cookie napping, and her outstretched hands reaching to me with a smile and tears still rolling. I ubersexual been baking with their help ever since. They have a love for baking just as I did at their age. :)
My favorite baking memory was baking my grandpa’s favorite cake for him with my grandma one year. chocolate chip date cake. and I loved seeing his face when he came in from outside working.
I remember receiving the CareBears Cookbook for a young birthday years and years (and years) ago. I was too young to know what all the measurements were, but old enough to bake on my own. Long story short, I was making thumbprint jam cookies and it called for a tablespoon of something. Well, I was 8 or 9, so I went to the drawer, grabbed the spoon we used at the table, and carried on. Luckily, they turned out okay. Thus began my love affair with baking. And fudging the measurements here and there.
Thanks for an amazing giveaway (yet again!).
My favorite baking memories are shared with my daughter. From the time she had to stand on a chair to now that she is teaching her own daughter, the memories are priceless!
My favorite baking memory would definitely be making Christmas cookies with my mother. We would bake huge amounts and give them to everyone from the milkman to my grade school teacher. The giving was as fun and exciting as the baking :)
Every year our family would celebrate Christmas Eve with my Dad’s side of the family. Christmas Eve Day my siblings and all my cousins on that side of the family would get together and make sugar cookies for that night. We decorated the raw cut out shapes with food coloring that we painted on with Q-tips. Then the cookies were baked and we ate them that evening. They were a bit on the dry side with no frosting, but we loved being able to be creative making them, and boy was there a lot of colorful mouths after eating them!
I love night baking with my cousins. Just recently we made the best brownies ever (made with olive oil and soy milk) because they noticed i was feeling sad
My favorite memory is actually pretty awful and funny! I spent hours when I was about 8 making an elaborate gingerbread house (even baking the house from scratch). We left to go shopping and came back to a few crumbs of the entire thing on the table. My cute little terrier had eaten the entire thing:). I should have been upset but all we could do was laugh.
My boys and I now make a house each year. Haven’t made the same mistake of leaving any of them out with the animals!
I love to bake, so I have lots of memories, but my favorite one would be making sugar cookies every christmas with my mom. I loved getting out all of our cookie cutter each year to make reindeer and snowmen, angels and trees. Its a tradition i look forward to every year.
Mine would be baking Rohlicki Horn cookies with my grandmother (dad’s mom) at Christmas. She came to live with us when I was in 5th grade and I helped her every year. Grinding pecans, her mixing the dough the day before. She’d roll out the dough and I’d help her fill and roll the cookies.
Years later, after she was gone, my dad would complain that she never shared her recipe. She didn’t give it out…but I have her original handwritten recipe now. The challenge is converting the recipe to today’s terms. I know double cream is usually whipping cream, so the single cream in her recipe should be half & half or something similar. But I know she used sour cream. Hmmm…I’m thinking I’m going to have to make them this year.
Rolling pie crust with my grandmother and helping her peel apples for her apple pies. Its started a lifelong need to have apple pie at every holiday!
Getting together with my great-grandmother, grandmother & mom to make all our Christmas cookies for the gifts baskets for family& friends. Even though my great-grandmother isn’t here any more, we still carry on this tradition. The smells and flavors remind us of great memories while we’re making new ones with the next generation.
My mom and I always baked cookies together, every holiday seasons. My favorite were candy cane cookies. As a kid, I never knew that my mom actually didn’t like making them because they were too labor intensive. Every time she’d ask what cookies I wanted to make, that was always my first choice. She always made them with me! Now, 20 years later, when she comes to visit, we work together in the kitchen like no time has passed at all!
Every year my friends from high school and I get together and bake and decorate sugar cookies. Even though we go to different colleges now and don’t see each other, we get to relive high school for one day each year. It is always a blast!
My favorite baking memory is a somewhat recent one. My mom is a wonderful baker, and she has been baking Christmas cookies with my boys since my older son, now 9, was little. I take pictures of them each year and love that they have this special time with my mom like I did when I was growing up!
my favorite memory was baking with my girlfriends recently for a baby shower for a mutual best friend. we stayed up until 3am making cupcakes, cookies, a cake, macarons & brownies. nothing like quality girltime!!
I grew up making candy cane cookies with my mom and have continued that tradition with my kids. The best part is that now I can sneak some dough and I’m the mom so if I get caught, it’s ok!
My favorite memory is helping my mom make buckeyes every Christmas and then eating them until I am sick…. everyone in my family loves them but my mom will only make them during the holidays!
Every year driving to my Grandma’s house in the country through the fog to make candy to give out as gifts at Christmas time.
baking the first pie with my husband… spilled it all over the oven, so you cant really call it baking but it was a fun attempt!
My favorite baking memory is of my grandmother’s brownies. She made them for every holiday, wrapped them each individually & gave them generously to her grandchildren. I’ve never tasted anything so delicious!
My greatest baking memory involves my dad, who passed away when I was ten years old. We baked together frequently, and I will always fondly remember those happy times.
I am the mother of boys who are not the slightest bit interested in baking with me! My niece, however, loves to bake with me. It’s become our thing to do when we are together now as my sister isn’t a huge fan of baking. Recently my entire family celebrated my mother’s 70th birthday and my niece and I made the cake together for her party. It was so much fun making it together and then having everyone enjoy it together!
My family has a candy/ cookie making day during the Holiday season and we always cook way too many delicious treats while listening to Christmas music, it is soo great!! Can’t wait!
When I was around 15 years old, I baked two birthday cakes for the month of March. One for my dad and the other for my uncle. My dad and uncle are both people who do not express themselves much but they enjoyed the cakes with smiles on their faces. They both insisted that I later become a baker.
My favorite baking memory is making peanut butter brownies for my family so often as a kid that I had the recipe memorized and was so proud that I could whip them up anytime for them! I wish I could remember the recipe now as an adult though!
I always loved baking with my mom growing up. She would always let me dump in the chocolate chips for her chocolate chip cookies or add the pecans to her fudge while she was beating away. Now I still add her pecans for her when I’m there and call her asking for recipes and tips every time I bake.
Before my grandma passed away, I used to spend the weekend before Valentine’s Day at her house and we would bake treats that I would give to all of my friends as Valentines. It was always so much fun!
I remember making mini nut cups with my auntie around Christmas. I wasn’t a big fan of eating the nut cups, but it was fun hanging out with my auntie and making them for the family.
I recently started making more cupcakes and the last time my three year old niece was here i let her help me mix the batter and decorate them. And she loved it so much that now she cant stop talking about helping me make and put sprinkles on her cupcakes!!
My newest favorite memories are having my little guy and girl bake with me. They fight over whose turn it is to help, and my baby girl constantly says, “Help you?”
When I wad 8 I made a pumpkin pie for my nani, it looked great till we tasted it, realized we used salt instead of sugar.
I fondly remember making Christmas cookies with my mom. I really never cared for the taste of sugar cookies, but they were always fun to decorate with her. My favorite were the snickerdoodles and peanut butter kiss cookies. I loved rolling them in the green and red sugar.
Baking chocolate sheath cakes with my mom. This is the first fall season without her, and I miss her more than I could ever have imagined.
My first baking memories are from when i was about 8 or 10, i’d bake a box mix with my mom’s supervision. I loved getting the white mix where you added pink and blue spots… we’d eat it without frosting. :)
i remember baking cookies with my mother. she wasnt a baker, so we didnt have a mixer. we mixed the batter with a fork :)
My favorite baking memory is when my Mom would leave me with an elderly neighbor when she needed a sitter in a pinch when I was maybe 6 or 7. She would make up a bowl of gingerbread dough and let me roll the cookie dough into balls of any size that I wanted. She was always so sweet and patient with me, how I thought a grandmother should be.
My favorite baking memories are from I was a little girl, and my grandmother used to watch me after morning kindergarten. She would teach me how to make roll out cookies, and she always let me lick the beaters. She had this avacado green old school mixer, and I loved the smell that came out of the motor, and would come across the countertop since it was about my height. She was so patient with me, and would allow me to put on my own Julia Child shows with her, and all of my stuffed animals that were kept at her house. Such fun memories! Every child should only be so lucky to have grandmother time like that.
One of my favorite baking memories is baking birthday cupcakes for my daughters school class and seeing her excited face as she shares them with her friends. Priceless.
My sister and I used to make a lot of cookie cutter cookies, thanks to our mom, who collected cookie cutters. We often made cookies for the entire football team of our high school. Our mascot was a leopard, so we would turn a Halloween cat cookie into a leopard, making all the spots individually! We often made each player’s jersey number as well, with a set of number cutters. I’m sure we thought we’d get more dates this way, but it didn’t quite work out that way!
My favorite baking memory is when my 2 girls surround me while I bake. I love when they want to help,lick the bowl, and think that everything is the best! I am still baking memories….for them I hope.
My grandmother used to make applesauce cake for special occasions. She baked it in a cast iron skillet. When I was a kid, I always thought that was so odd. The cake was always served with a dollop of Cool Whip.