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!
My fav baking memory is trying to suprise my parents with peanut butter cookies before they got home from work. I didn’t pay close enough attention to the recipe and mistaked a 1/2 tsp salt for 1/2 cup. All I could here was pop,pop,pop in the oven and I didn’t figure it out till we tasted them.
I have many fond memories of baking. My most recent is when I baked one of my dearest friends her birthday cake. Four layered, alternating red velvet and white cake with cream cheese frosting and sprinkles. Top layer was in the shape of a heart. It was a big hit with the birthday girl and everyone.
i always help my mom cook
That’s tough. I think I’d have to go with baking black moons (whoopie pies) with my grandma :)
My uncle was a phenomenal baker that we only got to see twice a year, once in the summer and once during the holidays. Of course, it was a given that every holiday he made the desserts! One summer for he let me help him make his yummy red velvet cake! This was a big deal because he never wanted anyone in the kitchen while he baked! When Christmas time came I felt extra special because I was the only one who knew how he made his red velvet cake! I still haven’t found anyone’s who’s comes close to it!
My memories are the ones I am creating with my 4 year old daughter now. :-) she loves to bake!
baking12 dozen cookies for our family’s annual Christmas Cookie exchange :)
I just love making chocolate chip cookies the night before Christmas. The kids insisted on warm cookies for Santa. The smells coming from the oven, made the holidays even more special.
When I was baking a cake for a party, I had read the instructions wrong and added vegetable oil instead of shortening to my icing. It was a warm day, so when we opened the container the icing had completely melted of the cake! It was a mess, but it tasted delicious!
Sitting on the kitchen counter as a little girl, helping mom mix the ingredients for delicious chocolate chip banana bread!
My favorite baking memory goes back 45 years ago when my best friend’s mother bake me my very first doll cake for my birthday.
My mom and I bake dozens and dozens of cookies to give as Christmas gifts every year. The week leading up to Christmas is the best part of the holiday for me because I get to spend time with my mom baking, talking, listening to music, (and having the ocassional spat or mishap). It is a great bonding experience and I can’t wait to do the same when I have children.
Making molasses sugar cookies with my Mom every year!
My best bakery memories come from baking with my children during the christmas holidays. We make different kinds, but especially sugar cookies shaped like different Christmas things and then decorate with icing. It sure does make a mess, but my girls love it!! And all of our family and friends do too because we give everyone some delicious cookies. I’m sure my kids will remember these times forever!
I have beautiful memories of making “stained glass” sugar cookies for Christmas with my mom and brothers.
Making Christmas sweet rolls with my mom. Every year, we make them the night before.
When I was little my mother , grandmother and aunts would get together each holiday season for a few days in a row and make fruit cakes and date cakes as well as cookies . I always loved the laughing and chopping of all of the fruit and nuts . Miss those days !
My favorite baking memories are actually more recent, probably within the past 5 years. Baking with my husband is priceless and really make the best memories. (Usually, it involves some sort of “bribe” for him to actually help me…but it’s so worth it!)
My favorite memories are of baking with my Mom each Christmas. We’d make a large variety of cookies and would make cookie trays for family and friends. I now carry on that tradition with my niece and nephew. A few weeks before Christmas, we set aside a day and bake cookies, make fudge, decorate gingerbread houses, create cake pops and in general have a great time. We also make cookie assortments and pack them in decorated Christmas tins to distribute to family and friends. At the end of the day, we’re exhausted as we pack up the cookies, candies and treats that they take home to share with their parents…I’m not sure who looks forward more to this annual tradition…my niece or nephew or myself !!
I think one of my best baking memories would be just learning to bake from my grandma. She grew up in the deep country, and my earliest memory of her baking is an applesauce cake. She’d make them in mass quantities at Christmas time- I’ve never made anything in such high demand as her applesauce cakes! I remember so well all the ornate bronze pans she’d have hanging all around the kitchen. So thankful for being able to learn from her!
I cherish the memories of making cornbread from scratch, homemade sweet potatoe pies with mom, and pineapple coconut cake with my Auntie Ella.
Christmas always brings back great baking memories. Every year, my mom makes sugar cookies and buttercream icing. Then, my siblings and I would decorate them sitting around the table together. Now, my mom still bakes cookies (I help) and she still makes buttercream and we decorate cookies together – but now my kids and sister’s husband join us!
My best baking experience was in my first year of culinary academy and we made scones. BEST SCONES EVER. they totally changed my view of baking for the rest of my life and made me realize that I HAD to bake. i used to not like being in the kitchen until then.
Since I love baking so much, there’s not a specific favorite memory. But I love it when fall rolls around and my home constantly smells like apple or pumpkin baked goods!
My mom and I used to bake together for Christmas ever year. It was one of my favorite things to do.
I’d have to choose a holiday baking as my favorite – my mother makes a family recipe for a dry, almond cake for Christmas every year. One of my favorite baking memories is her finally teaching me how to make one, and us making one together for the first time. :)
I have a couple favorite baking memories, so I’m going to share both (they are different, I swear!) :)
1. Christmas baking with my mother. I’m originally from Maine, currently residing in Virginia, and my job makes it hard for me to make it home for the holidays (Have to put in Christmas vacation requests in June to have a chance). I try every year, just so I can have the chance to go home, and make pies with my mom. Lemon Meringue, Pecan, and pumpkin – all just for the holiday. I have learned so much from her (important things like the little t means teaspoon, and the big T means tablespoon), and it’s just fun to take over the kitchen and watch the Patriots Christmas Eve game. I bake to try to recreate this experience.
2. Becoming known as the resident baker at work. Whatever I bring in, my coworkers love, and they are the reason I keep trying new recipes. The self esteem boost these people give me is so wonderful, especially after the last few trying years.
Every time I bake, all I can think of is my mother and my coworkers, and it makes me smile. :)
Easy! Baking with my daughter for the first time! :)
I love holiday baking. Cookies, cakes, pies, candies, all ready to hand out to friends. I even have my kids help deliver plates of cookies, etc to our neighbors each year.
My favorite memory is of “helping” my grandmother make her famous rolls. My job was to taste tiny bits of the sweet yeasty dough when she wasn’t looking. I excelled at it.
One year before Christmas my mother-in-law joined my mom, aunt, grandma, cousins and I in decorating sugar cookies for Christmas. We decorate with colored icing and sprinkles and then place on a platter. All is done while drinking wine. My mom in law politely decorated each and then ate it. After a couple she realized we weren’t eating our and we all laughed and laughed. Lucky to have a great combined family.
I love baking with my goofy boyfriend. He says he doesn’t like marshmallows and constantly overcooks things so I always try to steer him in the right direction. He is definitely into smores cookies now and is realizing that things don’t have to be super hard or super crispy to be fully baked!
My favorite baking memory is making sugar cookie and loads of other treats with my mom every Christmas. I hope to create the same tradition with my kids!
My favorite baking memory is making and decorating cookies with my mom and sister as a little girl. I have continued the tradition with my kiddos, but I don’t remember the mess. Was I super neat or just oblivious to mess because it was super fun? Hmmm
My favorite baking memory is coming home for Christmas and baking with my mom. She makes this amazing Orange Galliano cake that tastes fantastic!
I guess when you say “baking” the memory that floods back for me is baking with my best friend when we were just 7 or 8 years old.
Her mom’s style was to buy us mixes to whip up. My mom’s preferred not to spend the money on mixes. So we got hooked on baking in her mom’s kitchen and moved on to simple things like brownies in my mom’s kitchen.
Both of us have spent some 50+ years since then looking for the next challenge, trading recipes and fighting the scales.
My grandmother is a fantastic baker, and it is a family tradition for her to bake holiday cookies. She makes a dozen varieties and passes them out in special Christmas tins. I love hearing about her baking plans, and then tasting the different types and swapping with my sister!
My first and favorite baking memory is making 7-layer (magic) bars with my mom. I loved eating the gooy sugary mess scooped into a bowl warm from the oven. After that it was the first recipe I memorized and made by myself!
My neighbor was born in Iran, but left when he was really young. His sisters still lived there until they were in their 30’s. They had just moved to the US and it happened to be their birthdays. It was supposed to be their first American birthday celebration, with traditional American cake. I set out to make a cake from scratch (I was only 10). I couldn’t wait for the cake to cool, so I started to frost the cake. It began to crumble, badly. There was no recovering. I ended up putting the cake and frosting in a bowl and mixing the two together. I piled it on top of a cake stand and frosted the outside. It was the ugliest cake i have ever seen. I felt bad that their first impression of cake was my crumble pile. I did learn however, to be patient and let the cake cool.
I remember baking as a young teenager with my best friend. I was just on the phone talking to her about those ‘good ol days’. I also have very fond memories of my first cake pops. I made the pumpkins with my daughter and she had so much fun!
My favorite baking memory is baking with my mom at Christmas time!!
This past year me and my mom have been extra busy but we decided last Christmas to have a weekend just for us to bake and make treats for some of our friends and family. We literally spent three days laughing and making sweets we had never tried before such as biscotti. It was so funny how some of the sweets came out but we had the most fun just being able to spend the weekend together.
My favorite is making Christmas goodies to share with friends. And I love that I now get to share that with my daughter, and create even more amazing memories. My daughter loves delivering the plates of goodies to the neighbors, especially when she returns home with goodies from them!
I love to bake and Fall and Christmas are my favorite times of the year. I have 2 girls one is 12 and one is 7 and every year I find cute things to bake together. Like sugar cookies and decorating them. They like stuff with chocolate and marshmallows too.
Every year we make a yule log for Christmas. It’s become a tradition in my house and each year we make it more ridiculous, more colorful, more decorated than the last. I’m looking forward to it again this year!
I put microwavable muffin pans in the oven. They were made of plastic. You can probably guess what happened, but the awesome thing is that my sister and I just laughed and laughed and took photos of it all when it cooled. Kitchen mishaps are some of my favorite memories with my family because they are funny (and my family is cool about it).
so, in college, i couldn’t really bake at all, but i had been sharing recipes that i wanted to try with family and friends through the whole year. we all got back home for winter break, and we had a baking extravaganza! so much fun, so much gluttony, so much sugar, so much butter, and so much love.
My favorite baking memory is from when I was a child. My first memories of cooking are of me baking with my grandma. She’s the one who gave me my love of cooking and every time I bake something I think of her.
That is such a great tradition. Our family holiday traditions include a Yule log cake (buche de noel). My favorite baking memory involves me and my other cousins when we were young (10-12) helping my aunt bake and prepare food for our annual holiday party. This specific year the kids were in charge of dessert and the adults cooked the meal. Many other great memories come from annual holiday parties! Disney song karaoke, train races, and overall happiness with family. :)
When I was in High School, my sister and I decided to bake Christmas cookies. We were so excited about the idea of being able to select our own receipes that we got very carried away. We ended up baking 13 different varities in one day because we could not decide which cookies to bake! We had such a great time and it is a memory that we talk about every Christmas.
Making thanksgiving pies with my mom! She hasn’t been with us for over a decade now, but every year when I make pies it’s like she’s there with me.
My favorite baking memory was baking a 1st birthday cake for my niece and staying up until 7am to finish it. I had to to locate 24 hour walmarts at 3 am since it was my first time making a fondant cake and i kept forgetting ingredients. I had to go back and forth! oh what an adventure!
Making cut out Christmas cookies with my mom, and then frosting them!
I love holiday baking every christmas each year…watching my kids cut out, bake, decorate, and then take apart and devour their gingerbread cookies is priceless!
My favorite baking memory was our annual tradition of baking sugar cookies at Christmas and painting them with colored Karo syrup.
My favorite baking memory will always be from when I was younger, watching my mom bake us brownies and cakes, eagerly awaiting her call to lick the beaters :)
When I was growing up, mom used to bake bread every Sunday. The house always smelled so good by the end of the day. When I turned 15 she taught me how to bake the bread. The best feeling in the world is pulling your first completely perfect loaf of golden brown bread from the oven! Now I bake bread every Sunday.
My mama bakes cookies every year. Gingerbread are only made at Christmas time. And my grandfather’s fruitcake cookie recipe… yum!
After my daughter with Autism showed me a Bakearella book of Cakepops she made me start making them for her and her class. They loved them. Now i make em for every occasion.
I loved making whoopsie pies with my mom. She would always let us use different food coloring in the frosting :-) I liked green.
My grandma used to bake “coffee cakes” that were really thin breads covered in butter and both brown/confectioner’s sugar. They still taste like Christmas to me- it has been passed down the generations and I’m getting close to being the official family baker!
My favorite baking memory is around Christmas time. My son and I love to bake gingerbread, sugar and chocolate chip cookies. It’s a great bonding experience and even though he’s 14, he still loves it just as much as when he was 5 or 6.
I loved getting our cookie plate from our neighbor’s. They always gave us a big pile of gingerbread cookies, they were soo good! I got married after my neighbor passed away and her daughters gave me the recipe in their mom’s writing with one of her potholders. That was the best gift!
I loved making simple cupcakes for my nephew’s first birthday. He stared with eyes at the bright green icing atop the chocolate cupcakes before smashing them everywhere. All over his clothes, face, and mom!
Making cookies with my family for Christmas
I loved baking cookies with my dad as a kid. :)
My mom, sisters, and I try to get together every year for a baking day before Christmas. Even when we’ve been living across the country from each other, we try to find a way to get every one together.
My favorite baking memory is watching my grandmother when I was young make Pizzelle cookies–the way she mixed the batter and carefully poured each one onto the iron. She NEVER dripped a drop, she could pour a perfect cookie–never had to trim them or anything. She always had this expression of pure love and joy on her face when she baked–and loved to teach us. I remember thinking that they were the tastiest snowflakes ever and that I hoped I could make them as beautifully as she did when I grew up.
My favorite baking memory is when my son and I made a gift package to send to his father in Iraq. We made muffins and cheese straws. My son had just turned 3 and we had so much fun (and so much mess lol), that we still talk about it today.
I love baking chocolate chip cookies my sister and I used to bake a batch almost every month growing up so good!
I remember baking in the kitchen at the farm with my mom, listening to The Judds and Bon Jovi while we worked. She taught me so much, and even with all the practice I still don’t think I’ll ever be as good of a cook as she is!
Making almond crescents with my grandmother!
I’m 31 and ever since I can remember my Grannie Bonnie and would make tons and tons of Christmas candy for family, friends and for contacts of my dads business. As I get older I truly appreciate the bonding time of our family doing this together.
My favorite baking memory is making Christmas cookies with my grandmother when I was a kid. She would let me dip the Italian Cookies in the icing!!!!
SO many to choose from in my neck of the woods – but with the holiday season just around the corner I always think of Holiday Loaf and my grandma Bonnie. I’m not a huge pumpkin fan, but this…this is fo’ shizzle :-). Pumpkin, chocolate chips, nutmet, cinnamon – come to momma lol. One of the best parts is that this is a recipe that is actually EASIER to double so there’s more to share for kin and friends alike :-). Holiday Loaf came from Grandma Bonnie, my mom’s mom. She and I are two country peas in a pod. She’s been gone for over 10 years now, but when I put on Patsy Cline and tie on my apron… I swear I can hear her singing along like she used to when the flour dust is in the air. Such a bitter sweet feeling I wouldn’t trade for the world. Thank you so much for your post today – I get to see her that way again in my mind’s eye :-). Take Care!
I have a TON of baking memories as I absolutely love to bake. One of my favorites is from quite a few Christmases ago. My Mom and I decided to go all out and make pretty hand iced, highly decorated sugar cookies. When it came time to ice them, it became apparent that I inherited my Mom’s artistic ability (or lack thereof). We had a lot of laughs that night!
My favorite baking memory was each birthday baking a cake with my mom. We would make it together and scrap the bowel when we were done and eat the batter. My mom has since passed away but I will always have those good times together!
I loved baking with my Grandmother for the holidays. I always got to put the sprinkles on the cut outs and my most favorite task of all……….adding the powdered sugar coating on Russian tea cakes, my all time favorite cookie. I miss Grandma all the time but more so during the holdays.
Baking bread with my mom. She would give us scraps of dough to knead and roll into our own mini loaves. :-)
My mom and I make chocolate covered pretzels every year around Christmas time. She dips them, and I put sprinkles on. It’s so much fun. I’m now well capable of making them, but I still love putting the sprinkles on. It reminds me of when I was younger.
My favorite baking memory is opening the top drawer in the kitchen and digging out my great grandmother’s handwritten Flan recipe. It was in Spanish, on an old 3×5 business card that had become so worn and thin that my mother had put it between a ziploc bag that she taped into a sleeve so it wouldn’t just disintegrate. It was yellowed and the corners were rounded off from wear. There was a big tear in the middle taped up (probably the reason for the ziploc sleeve in the first place). We didn’t even need the recipe, but we always brought it out. I haven’t seen it in many years; I believe it was lost when we had to move from the house I grew up in with little notice. I always think of that old tattered card when I’m baking.
any memory with the family is the best. i’ve always enjoyed bringing homemade baked sweets to family gatherings.
My favorite memory of baking is with my Grandma Grace. I LOVE October!! We both have our birthdays in October and all things pumpkin start coming out. She taught my how to make a pumping roll (best thing ever) and we would always make it together. She’s not around anymore to make it with me but I still make it every year.
My favorite baking memory is when I was making pumpkin pie with my mom for Thanksgiving one year. We had tons of relatives over so we were going crazy trying to make everything perfect. When it finally came time to eat our delicious looking pumpkin pie, everyone dug in.. and looked like they just smelled fifty farts. We forgot the sugar!! I guess it was healthy but man was that disgusting, haha!
My favorite baking memory is making sugar cookies with my mom. I loved frosting the cookies and deciding what color frosting to make. I also loved picking out the cookie cutters. I’m 28 and still love doing this when I go home! I think I need to get some cookie cutters of my own soon….
Baking boxed yellow cakewith canned chocolate frosting with my mom for everyones birthday (i have to make everything from scratch now but it was still delicious back then). That started my love and passion for baking.
My baking memories are making “Christmas cookies” with my mother. i don’t know whether it’s the perfect;y delicious dough, the cream cheese icing, or the fact that just by changing the cookie cutter these cookies can help celebrate Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, St. Patrick’s Day, etc. And yet they’re invariably called “Christmas cookies.” The best part is being able to share the recipe (and memories) with my friends, who now bake “Sarah cookies” at every opportunity to celebrate just about anything.
Making a stuffed smore cookie! It was so much fun to experiment with my girlfriends and watch it bake.
I think my favorite has always been baking brownies with my grandma when we would visit. She would let me eat as many as I wanted as long as I didn’t tell my mom! :)
My favorite memory is my mother, with her fresh-out-of-the-oven Apple Slices dessert, which was essentially an apple pie with no crust at the bottom, only on the top :) Wonderfully tart and sweet at the same time with a flaky crust. Oh, and the way the kitchen smelled when it was baking in the oven… :)
My favorite holiday baking memories are when all the women in our family get together at my grandmas house to make all sorts of goodies for christmas. My mom, sister, aunt, grandma, and myself get together in late november early december every year to make all kinds of goodies. We make peanut butter balls, homemade fudge, peanut butter fudge, chocolate cover pretzels and ritz peanut butter crackers covered in chocolate. It all goes in christmas tins and the whole family gets to enjoy what we have made.
I remember baking as a child, teenager and now, as a mom. I would watch my grandfather bake his homemade french bread, his famous brownie ice cream sandwiches (specialty marked pans and all), and his Christmas specialty of peanut brittle. I quickly became a fan of all 3! I now enjoy baking weekly with my children- they learn and I learn more about THEM.
Early in December, I have my boys invite a few friends over to make snowman cookies. I bake huge sugar cookies and have all sorts of candies available for the kids to make a snowman face.
My Aunt Emma made the most delicious rum cake…the only problem was that she had to send Uncle Hollis across the state line to get the rum as they lived in a dry county of Alabama. We all pledged to bail him out of jail if he got caught. The cake was THAT good!
I usually do all the baking but there is one recipe that I won’t make- it is my favorite – “Hello Dollies” which are also called seven layer bars. My mom makes them. I sit and watching my Mom make them for me. She has a certain way she scoops out the remnants in the sweetened condensed milk can. I could make them, but they are so much more special that she makes them. Also, one of her pet names for me was Dolly. When I was in college she always made sure to bring a batch to me when she visited.
Last year around the holidays, I made a huge batch of my Great-Grandmother’s sugar cookies and invited all of my friends to come help bake, decorate, and eat them while we had our little holiday party. We are not artists, and they looked just awful, but were delicious nonetheless. It’s my favorite baking memory because I managed to get everyone together (hard when you have a big friend group) and we’ve since moved all over the country, so I know I’ll never be able to do it again.
I loved baking with my mom! Gingersnaps were my favorite.
Making Thanksgiving dinner for my family for the first time :)
I was making mini key lime tarts at home one weekend when my cousin came to visit with her two young children. They saw what I was doing and immediately wanted to help, so I pulled out a couple of chairs so they could reach over the counter and help me out. Watching my godkids roll out pie dough and pour filling with me so painstakingly was amazing fun. Now they want to help Mommy make “cuppycakes” all the time! Yay for the baking bug!
I have great memories of baking with my grandmother when I was about 7 or 8. We made potato chip cookies which are some of my favorites still! I don’t make them often but they require butterscotch chips and plain Lays chips! She lived in Denver and I lived in CA, so it was extra special to spend the time with her.
Right after I got married my seizures got really bad. I’ve been married for 6 years and we’re still struggling to get them under control. It’s really put a slow-down on our progression…graduating, fulfilling our career goals,buying a house, and having a family. I lost my job one year and we had to move to an apartment in the ghetto and not only did we feel stuck, we felt like we went backwards. I love to bake, and did so often, so that same year my father-in-law gave me a Kitchenaid mixer. I opened the box and burst into tears. I was so happy, because to me, it was a symbol of progression. I knew someday I would have one to bake for my kids, but I had one now. I was so happy! That same Christmas night we all got snowed in at his house and had a giant family sleepover and played with everyone’s new toys. It was the best! Recently, my mixer broke (right when the warranty ran out) and I don’t have the money to ship it to be fixed or to buy a new one…not yet.
yes, another christmas memory: baking cookies with my mum in december, listening to nat king cole and dean martin – some of my best childhood memories!!
My favorite baking memory is spending the holiday with my dad baking dozens and dozens of cookies to hand out to family and friends. In high school, my girlfriends would all come over to help decorate the sugar cookies – the table would just turn into a mess of frosting and sprinkles.
As a kid, I only knew how to bake from boxed cake mixes. I thought they were awesome because for some reason they always came out “right” even if I mis-measured or forgot to take the cakes out of the oven according to the printed time on the box haha. Now that I’m older and my baking skills have improved, I still think back to my earlier years when baking was so simple and provide me such great joy (even with the boxed cake mixes).
Best baking memory~ first time I made bread! I was so surprised and pleased that it worked. My daughter (who was 4 at the time) said “oh Mommy, it smells so GOOD!” And it did!
We bake different kinds of cookies to give to family friends during Christmas, and the house smells so good during this time :)
I just got the cakepops kit from ToysRus, and my kid is just so excited to make cakepops with me. :))
Since I was a little girl my mom and I have done a Christmas bake day a few days before Christmas. We love to give out handmade gifts! My daughter was born eight years ago and since she was able to reach the counter she has joined in on the fun! We look forward to it every year and love to plan out all of the delicious recipes we’ll be making. This pie looks yummy and will be making some for Thanksgiving!
My dad and I would always baked Chocolate Chip cookies together right before Christmas. Those are some of my favorite holiday memories!!
Every year since I was 5, my mom
And I would bake a cake for my moms birthday. That day is one day of the year all about her and now that its been many years since I’ve moved out, it’s the one thing I miss most.
My favorite holiday baking memory is making fudge and peanut butter buckeyes, oh and chocolate covered pretzels. We made such a mess in the kitchen but loved every second of it!
My mom isn’t much of a baker but when I was young, I loved going to the bakery with her and picking out different pies and cakes for the holidays. When I was a little older, a friend and I tried making kruschiki and we were so proud when they turned out so well :)
One of my favorite baking memories was when my mom had first gotten her kitchen aid we made chocolate chip cookies, and realized that baking was a whole lot more enjoyable when you didn’t have to hold a hand mixer the whole time!
( now i want one!)
My favorite baking memories are with my grandaughter Nathaly. I enjoy baling birthday cakes and cup cakes for my family’s birthdays. She’s only 5 and already loves to bake.
My favorite is baking bread every Christmas with my Mom using her homemade bread recipe. It’s the best bread ever.
It’s more of a baking tradition that’s led to many memories. Even though we are grown now, my sister and I roll out sugar cookie dough to make Christmas cookies each year. We still use the ancient cookie cutters from when we were kids, and we still have just as much fun sneaking samples of the dough when mom is not looking and laughing hysterically when it comes to making the frosting and it turns out pink instead of red.
I don’t have many growing up as my mom worked a lot, but I love to bake so I think any time I bake is a good memory. I especially like it when my niece helps out. She lives with me and sometimes with lend a hand with decorating cookies, cakes, etc. One Halloween we attempted to make your Halloween themed cake pops. They weren’t as perfect as yours but we sure had a good time making them. :)
I looked forward to christmas baking with my mom all year. We made cookies (sugar were my favorite), puppy chow and fudge for friends and neighbors. I loved making a mess in the kitchen and sneaking licks of batter.
Every Christmas all the girl’s on my mom’s side of the family get together and make homemade lefse (a Norwegian specialty!) Each of us have our own roles in the process: My mom is in charge of the griddles, my aunt making the dough, my sisters and cousin rolling, and my grandma overseeing it all, of course! It is such a fun family time that I look forward to every holiday season!
Growing up, I used to help my Yia Yia with baking all her sweets during the holidays. Though she taught me how to make the yummiest Greek pastries, I still always loved baking sugar cookies because she let me be creative and decorate them however I wanted! Santa Claus, Rudolph, colored sprinkles, the sky was the limit! She just provided me with the tools and pushed me to use my mind. I still credit her for helping to cultivate my passion for baking!
My favorite baking memory is baking Christmas cookies every year with my cousins.
My favorite baking memory is the first time I made an apple pie with my Grandma. We rarely get to see each other, so this was particularly special. I don’t know whether it was just luck, since this was a first time making pie for either of us, but that pie was the best I’ve ever had. I think it was the love that went into it. Thank you for sharing your memory, Bakerella, and for the chance to win this lovely and generous give-away! :)
My favorite memory, being the huge nerd that I am, would be during the sophomore year of my high school career. Our chemistry class was assigned to create a model mole to celebrate “Mole Day” (similar to Pi day). Instead of going the normal right, two gal friends and I got together and baked ourselves an EDIBLE MOLE. Probably one of our better decisions; the cake came out moist, and was gone in 2 seconds when we brought it to class. The combination of my passions for science and baking makes this one of my fav memories.
My memory brings me back when I was in Junior High and I was allowed to use the stove by myself. To light our stove I had to turn on the gas, light a match and stick it in a little hole and wait for it to light! I made a little cake from a box and thought I was the best baker! I was in love with baking from then on. That memory still makes me smile.
I love baking empanadas during the season. I make pineapple and caramel ones. Yum!
Baking cookies and cupcakes with my 2 year old niece is always a lot of fun–messy but fun lol…plus having my boyfriend help me bake treats for our families always makes me smile.
I loved cooking/baking with my mom and her 70’s yellow KitchenAid mixer, especially making meringue. I still have that mixer, by the way, and it still works!
My favorite memory baking memory is from college, my roommates and I all worked together & went to school together. So when we had free time, we would gather in our kitchen and make a ton of goodies to share with everyone! It was a great time with some wonderful friends!
Which is my favorite??… ALL OF THEM!!!! Bu if you’re making me choose. i guess it would be when I made cupcakes for the Vancouver Olympics. I was making them with a girl in my class who turned out to be my best friend :)
My favorite memory is baking chocolate chip cookies with my friends. We ended up eating half the dough, and spreading the rest into a pan to make a pizza! It was so yummy.
I love baking gingerbread with my son and decorating them! Every year, we get together with his grandmother and spend a day baking…so many good memories!
My mom and I used to bake plate fulls of different holiday cookies every year. We would wrap up the plates in colorful cellophane and ribbon and take them to all of our neighbors as gifts. I looked forward to spending that special time with my mom every year when I was growing up.
My favorite baking memory is of just last summer, when I made a chocolate raspberry cake to feed 25 people entirely from scratch for my grandmother’s 90th birthday celebration. I baked it all in my mom’s kitchen (and with her assistance in the complicated moments!), since I live across the country. It was a crazy 12-15 hour production overall, but I was so proud to have handmade her something to celebrate how wonderful she is!
My favorite memory has always been baking for my coworkers. It’s a great opportunity to get lots of opinions about new recipes.
When I tried my hand at baking for the first time with short bread, i was so worried nobody would likethem. They turned out beautifully and I’ve never looked back
Making gingerbread cookies with my two girls and then decorating them with frosting and candy.
One of my favorite baking memories is helping my mom stir banana bread mixture when I was a kid. Even better was when it was all poured and she let me lick the batter off the spoon, it was my favorite part & almost more delicious than the finished product :)
I love hosting cookie exchange at Christmas time. One year, I got ambitious and decided to make 12 dozen rolled ball teddy bear cookies. I did get them finished and they were very cute, but from that year on, I make a more simple cookie.
Late nights making butter cookies with my dad! We used a really old cookie press that his mom used in the 50s when she’d make the entire neighborhood batch after batch of butter cookies, spritzes, etc. My dad inherited the press when he was in his 40s and he made it a point, every Christmas, to set aside time a few nights in a row for us to make cookies. Granted, butter cookies are so delicious and we always ate more than we should have and I’d like to not remember the belly aches! But those moments will always be my favorite, especially because we didn’t have many holiday traditions or do a whole heck of a lot as a family since we lived so far away from any relatives.
I was about 4 years old and my mother was always baking. We lived in a very small house and had a little wooden table my mother did all her mixing on. She always made a cookie she called “braids”. They were like Mexican wedding cookies without the chocolate chips and rolled in powdered sugar and she braided 3 pieces. They were my favorite! I remember one particular time I was standing on my tiptoes watching and ask her who she was making them for. She smiled and said, “I am making sweets for my sweet.”
My most memorable baking experience consists of making cake pops for my dear daughter’s birthday every year for the past 3 years. Her smile and excitement makes me want to do it 100 times over.
I always loved baking with my daughter. We have had so much time to talk and laugh together because of our time in the kitchen.
Each holiday season I meticulously bake cheesecakes to give as gifts and serve to guests. It’s my alone time and stress reliever during a busy time. Last year my 7 year old son wanted to help and I let him do it all. His cheesecakes were gorgeous and since then I can’t imagine doing it alone!
My favorite moment was a bittersweet one. It was mothers day about 2 yrs ago an I was baking cake orders for that day. My 1 year old house kitten at the time who would ALWAYS Keep my company in the kitchen as i bake decided he would go outside. It was a beautiful morning an he decided to tap a nap under my uncles car. About ten mind later I heard yelling’ my heart dropped to the floor knowing that something was wrong. It was a tragic accident! During all my cries an screams he wouldn’t give up hope until I finally went over to him crying an calling his name. I gave him a kiss goodbye knowing that it would be the last time he’d keep my company in the kitchen an eat scrap cake as I baked. Miss u WOLFY! Xoxo
My favorite memory is baking banana cream cupcakes for my dad. I wish he was here so I could whip up another batch for him!
Baking red velvet cake with my mom is my favorite memory. I have a picture of me at 3 years old with stained face, hands, and clothing from licking the beaters.
I loved baking with my mom growing up, but some of my favorite baking memories are when my husband & I got our first home and I was able to invite her over to bake. It was like I was officially a grown-up and it seemed like we went from not only being mother/daughter but friends too : )
Making homemade marshmallows with my older brother for the first time!
My favorite memory of baking is when my 3 kids were young, and we baked and decorated cookies to send to my in-laws. We also taped the whole thing and sent that along with the cookies. They said that was the best gift ever!
Favorite baking memory might be making cupcakes and chocolate buttercream frosting from scratch for the first time. It was a mess, but it was worth it!
I remember my days in Peru baking and make ice cream for my ice cream parlor, once we did a cake and wisk with ice cream of cafe and it was a hit, It make me happy.
One of my favorite memories is a few years ago my cousin and i decided that we were going to bake all of our grandmothers cookies for christmas. we hadn’t had these cookies in a long time.. Not only did we have a wonderful time doing it together, but everyone that came for the holidays enjoyed them just as much. now it makes the holiday every year. we make sure to take time out of our busy schedules to be able to do this.
Last year, my parents were out of town so my boyfriend and I went back to my house (we’re in college) to bake some cookies. I ended up doing most of the baking, but that was probably because he tried to hug me the whole time. When the cookies were done, we took them into the living room with two cups of milk, sat on the couch wrapped up in a blanket, and watched a movie. I love to bake, and doing it with someone I love made it all the more special.
One of my favorite baking moments was when I made cinnamon rolls the very first time with my great aunt Louise…they smelled to wonderful baking and when I pulled them out and put the icing on i couldn’t believe I had done them they were sooo good! Now I try all kinds of different recipes for them. I love williams-sonoma too!! Their spices are so great!
My favorite baking memory is “helping” my mom bake pecan sandies for Christmas. These were her signature Christmas cookies, and now when I bake them, I remember watching her bake them and seeing the Christmas tree and presents. I hope to have my own signature cookie!
I have always enjoyed baking, but especially remember last Christmas. My mom and & I baked sugar cookies. We had a blast, but it was a lot of work!
Every year I bake gingerbread houses for my closest friends and their kids. Then we all get together and the kids go nuts with the decorations. It is six houses, with chimneys and doors. They are awesome! and they are memories of a lifetime. A kitchenaid mixer would be awesome!
I learned to bake with my mom. She taught me from the 4H books and I have loved it ever since. When I was a young teenager, my mom was working full time but I still wanted to bake. We’d get in trouble if we called my mom too much while she was working so I’d call her mom, my sweet grandma. I always was full of questions as I tried out new recipes, new techniques, etc. I look back on those conversations with such happiness. Grandma was always so excited to hear about what “adventure” I was having in the kitchen that day. She was full of great advice (she was the one who taught my mom) and I loved being able to take a little piece of my new creation up to share with Grandma. I miss her everytime I bake now. I am so grateful to have a mom and grandma who inspired me to love baking. I hope my kids and grandkids will call me with their baking questions someday!
The first time I made chocolate chip cookies all on my own to surprise my father (they’re his favourite!)
My favorite memory is baking with my sister. She was always so awesome and let me help her bake the most delicious cookies.
My favorite baking memory involves my grandmothers Norwegian krumkake cookies and my almost fatal error. After she and I had spend many hours in the kitchen the previous evening, turning and rolling krumkake, she placed them in the oven over night to stay. The next day, my girlfriend and I were going to bake brownies for a high school pot-luck. Without looking in the oven, I turned it on to pre-heat… well needless to say, the krumkake cookies went flat. My grandmother is always understanding and forgave me, and we still laugh about it today.
Baking yellow cakes (box mix!) with tons of chocolate frosting for birthdays. It was a huge treat…I always imagined myself a famous chef, carefully measuring out the ingredients and frosting the cake to perfection. It didn’t always look great, but definitely tasted amazing. Nostalgia makes everything sweet, no?
I never really baked until the first time my wife asked me to help her bake a bunch of brownies for an event. Since then, I’ve helped her a lot, but it will always be my favorite memory.
Anytime I get to bake in the kitchen with my mom is always a treat. I really enjoy the day before Thanksgiving because we get to spend a day together prepping everything for the next day!
My favorite memory is the first time a made something from scratch besides cookies. I baked brownies and I was so proud of myself for stepping away from the box =)
My fiancee loves this blog and got so excited about this giveaway that I thought I would share one of our baking memories. She’s the best baker I know. I wan’t a big dessert or even sweets kind of guy before I met her, and now I’m the biggest fan (well she’s a little more fanatic than about anything sweet, especially anything chocolate)
I’m marrying a pastry chef, so of course she always bakes, but I try to help as much as I can, which usually means cleaning after her. However, one day we were invited to a dinner at some friends’ house and she had baked the cake that afternoon and had made the frosting too, but didn’t have time to frost the cake. I am a very on-time person. If you’re aerly you’re on time and if you’re on time you’re already late, that’s my kind of thinking… and she’s the complete opposite, she’s always 5 minutes late to everything. That night she was getting ready (we were running a little late as usual) and I decided I would help her with the frosting since I was all ready. Many times she said no thank you I will do it, but I kept insisting knowing it would be very late by the time she was done with everything, plus I knew she had worked a lot that day to have everything ready and I wanted to help her out, so she finally said yes. After a 10 minute explanation about how I was supposed to do it step by step I went on to get it done. I did everything exactly as she said and it came out decent (nothing like the exquisite things she makes) so I was very happy and proud of my work. On my way to show her how great it had came out I lost balance and the cake was all over our kitchen floor. Major disaster, which as any practical guy would do I tried putting all the crumbs together to fix it. Needless to say she almost had a hard attack when she saw me (what looked like) playing with play dough – she panicked for a second but then started laughing like crazy – we then stopped at the bakery by our house and bought some macaroons for the party! It was messy but we laughed and we still do whenever she makes that chocolate cake.
I love baking bread with my mom. It’s a multi-hour process but so worth it when you get that first warm slice right out of the oven.
One of my favorite memories would be baking cinnamon rolls with my mom. We would make them by the dozens for family, friends, and eating with mom’s homemade hot chocolate.
My favorite baking memory was when I hosted my first Christmas party. It was soooo much work to get ready, but it was all worth it, and I made the most delicious Boston Creme Pie.
My favorite baking memory is Christmas with my mom. She would let each of us kids pick our favorite kind of cookie and then make a few batches of each one. Mine was snickerdoodles, but one year I got adventurous and we made “spend-the-night cookies”. They’re basic meringue cookies, just cooked on low heat overnight. She told me stories about her mother making them with her and pulled out the recipe with her grandma’s hand writing. A whole generation of bakers! And it’s almost Christmas again! Maybe it’s time to pull out that recipe again!
my favorite memories are of holiday baking with my mom. we always manage to completely screw up at least one recipe.
Once when I was in elementary school, I tried to make french roof-tile cookies for class with my mom. Neither of us were very good at baking, so it was disastrous – the cookies were soggy, and went straight from the oven to the trash can. Although it was a baking-fail, it was a lot of fun baking with my mom. :)
For as long as I can remember, my Grandma had the tradition of baking certain specific cookies at Christmas time; we ate half the cookies at Christmas then froze the rest for our annual summer vacation together. One year, she invited me over to her house and taught me how to make two of those recipes….I later won prizes for those cookies at our state fair. Grandma can’t bake any more, so that tradition has changed….I’ll always treasure that day spent baking with her.
I learned to bake bread from my Grandma. She had hands just about the size of mine. My sister learned from her, too, but her hands were just enough larger that her bread never quite worked out.
My favorite baking memory would have to be watching my unlce make apple pies. I remeber sitting on the linoleum kitchen floor watching him peel apples. My uncle could nevr make just one apple pie, he had to make enough to feed the neighborhood. I’ll never forget the sight of the kitchen table piled high with green apple peels. He showed love through his food. That’s something I will never forget about him…
I’m a big baking person. I just anything that includes butter, sugar and goes in the oven. One year for Christmas my best friend and I decided have a stand of baked goods for one day at a fresh market. We started baking the afternoon before, and the hours went by and we kept baking. It was a never-ending story. We pulled an all-nnighter baking our lives away. When the sun came up again we each showered to wash off any tireness and went straight to the fresh market. We spent the day freezing because it was a very cold winter day (for us Floridians anyway) we laso had our first (and one of the only) major fights we have ever had – it was over something completly stupid, but I guess we were tired and cranky… and to top it all off we did not sell much because not many people came by the fresh market because it was so cold out!
It was an exhausting day and it didn’t have much revenue money-wise, but the whole experience made us closer and we still think about our baking all-nighter and laugh!
My fondest memory is that of a cookie my Mother made each Christmas called Peanut Squares. It is actually a cake that is cut into small squares then dipped in thin white frosting and then rolled in chopped peanuts. She kept them in round decorated tins. They are absolutely addictive!
My favorite memory is making Christmas sugar cookies with my mom. My brother and I would be in charge of frosting and decorating the cookies, which was always so much fun. How anyone could eat the cookies we decorated, with as much candy toppings, sprinkles, etc we’d put on those…..ha!! Too funny. We loved it!
When my mom and I would bake a tres leches cake for Christmas
My favorite baking memory is definitely making Christmas cookies with my mom. When I lived with her, we would dedicate a whole weekend to it. Every year we rotated recipes, always keeping the favorites. Christmas movies played on tv, and we would just bake bake and bake some more!!! It was always fun finding enough tupperware to store them in, as well as me always asking my Mom why she couldn’t cook without throwing flour EVERYWHERE!!!! My son turns 3 this year, and I can’t wait to start baking with him (although it will be on a much smaller scale)
When I was younger my Mom encouraged me to take cake decorating classes because I am an artist and I was looking for another medium for my artistic outlet. I loved the class and I started to love baking too. A couple weeks later for my Mom’s birthday I wanted to make her a special homemade carrot cake, her favorite, that would matched her card with a cute bear on it that i had gotten for her. The cake “look” amazing but it didn’t taste very good…at all. She said that she loved it, like a supportive mother would. Love you Mom!
My favorite memory was baking my first batch of cake pops! Such a fun thing to do!
That prize rocks. I haven’t really had any baking memories that I can remember of although once when I was baking with my cousin I do remember my entire face ending up covered in flour as my cousin was sifting it everywhere
My favorite moment was making flour tortilla’s with my irish grandmother. And being allowed to sit on top of the counter covered in flour trying to roll out the tortilla.
When I was around 10 or 11 I was in a 4-H cooking club. My Mom was the leader and we had 4 or 5 kids that came every other week to learn how to bake. We learned how to make snickerdoodles and brownies. I learned then how to make a chocolate cake that I still make to this day (in fact I made it last week).
It’s fun to remember. :-)
My favorite memory is of being in my grandmother’s kitchen baking away in the oven and even the stove! Pecan pie, coffee cake and peach cobbler, yum!
My mom is a really great baker and cook and really I loved seeing how her recipes turned out! On a rainy and cold winter day my mom made the cutest bread rabbits with my younger brother and I. They were so cute and I would really like to do it with my own kids–I happen to have a fear of yeast that I’m over-coming!
Making spritzs cookies with my mom :)
My mom makes tons of Christmas cookies as gifts for all the family. I’ve been her helper forever. When I was little she would make me special ones of my favorite kind with extra chocolate.
My favorite memory is getting home from high school early enough to get a few batches of sugar cookies out of the oven before my younger brother and his friends arrived. I could never catch up to the eight of them eating, so i would sit out a gallon of milk and a bowl of icing for dipping was the only way to go.
I love making carmel and fudge with my mom at Christmas time to pass out to the neighbors.
Baking always gives me peace and that makes it hard to narrow it down. I remember as a little girl, my favorite cousin who babysat for me, purchased me a children’s cookbook. I recall that she let me pick out the first recipe and thus began to teach me how to measure, mix, etc. That’ where it started!
We’re a tamale making, tamale loving family!
My favorite baking memory is of sitting on the kitchen counter making chocolate chip cookies with my mom. We always ended up eating more of the dough than we baked, but some of the dough did make it to the oven.
my fav baking memory is getting to decorate the iced sugar cookies my mom and grandmother made at Christmas time. the kids got to dip the iced cookies in all kinds of sprinkles and colored sugar.
I remember baking at holiday time with my mom…i still bake those same recipes to this day. Great times and memories to hold close for a lifetime.
My favorite baking memory is when my mother let us make “crusty wustys” with leftover pie crust.
I love making baking memories with my kids. I let them pick what they want to make and then teach them how to do it.
My favorite memory is baking a gingerbread house with my daughter. It’s an annual Christmas trdaition.
My favorite baking memories have got to be making apple pies with my parents. We had one of those peeler, corer, slicers and they’d let me turn the crank for it. It was a family endeavor.
Any memory that includes baking and eating. Mostly eating.