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!
Since my parents both worked and didn’t enjoy baking, I was left in the day care of my grandma, who worshipped her microwave and burnt every slice and bake cookie her sparky oven could bake. However, since she knew the importance of holiday baking (regardless of those coal-like cookies), she’d make the effort to make it special for us by sparing us the crunchy burnt pucks. She’d make a trip to the grocery store and pick up store-bought sugar cookies, tubes of frosting, and a bagful of sprinkles and candies. She’d turn on Elvis Christmas music on her cassette tape and we’d spend hours in her dining room decorating sugar cookies. I fondly remember my little hands getting sticky with tubed icing as I decorated bells, ornaments and trees all afternoon, excited to show my parents my proud decorating skills when they came home. Even though it wasn’t baked from scratch in her kitchen, the idea that we were decorating together was awesome, and I remember it every year!
My favorite baking memory is baking Christmas cookies with my Mom. We would spend a whole Saturday rolling and cutting out and baking sugar cookies and Spritz cookies, and put them all in containers in the freezer. Then the next Saturday, we would spend the whole day icing and decorating all the hundreds of cookies. They were so yummy and beautiful. If we were lucky, it would snow the same day turning the whole world into a holiday winter wonderland!
I loved watching my mom bake for the holidays! She maked date balls and pies! Now my children and I make gingerbread men cookies, sugar cookies, pumpkin cookies, date balls, and creme brulee for our holiday treats!
One of my favorite baking memories is of making peach cake with my Mom-mom at the beach during the summer. We would go to the fruit stand and pick out the best peaches, and then go back to the summer house to bake the cake together. For the rest of vacation my favorite part of the day would be getting home from the beach or pool to a slice of peach cake.
Baking shortbread cookies for my wedding with my mom! Its a memory that I will cherish forever! the cookies were white and pink to match the cake.
My favorite baking memory would be decorating monster cupcakes with my three year old niece. Every “eyeball” she put on the cupcake would only be there or a few seconds before she took it back off of the cupcake and ate it.
I remember making Christmas cookies with my mom. She used to make over 10 kinds of cookies each year, and I loved using the cookie cutter or helping to roll out the dough.
I still make a lot of cookies that we used to make together, but now I make vegan versions for myself and my friends.
My favorite baking memory comes from my Grandma who lived in Kansas. I live in Iowa so growing up we would go every summer and spen a week with her on her farm. She was from russian mennonite descent and she always made Verenika, crepes, and Ziebach. I truely like verenika only because it reminds me of my Grandma spending time in the kitchen baking them. It just gives me warm fuzzys all over when I remember over visits and everyone coming around the table to gather and eat all of her goodies.
When I was a little girl my Aunt would take me and my cousins up to her house in Northern California for 2 weeks in the summer. We would watch movies, go hiking, spend time together and bake cookies. Specifically chocolate chip cookies, soft, thick and chewy. I still use that same recipe today.
In my family we have “Cookie Day,” my aunt, cousins and Nana get together the saturday before Christmas. We make all the same cookies that my Nana has baked for the last 60 years but can no longer plus one new fun cookie. it is so much and we make memories to last a lifetime.
I always loved making apple pies with my mom. It was always so much fun.
I grew up baking with my mom, my brother and I used to fight over the beaters (hello raw egg!?) Now I bake with my son, he loves it and I’m creating memories for him.
I’ve been in the kitchen with my father for as long as I can remember!
My favorite baking moment before I had kids, was when I was a kid myself. My mother and aunt used to make and decorate cakes for everyone. My cousins and I were lucky enough to help with the cake baking which was a lot of fun. The best part was being able to eat the left over homemade frosting after the whole process was over Yummy!
My mom was a health-nut who only let us have sugar once a week — until Christmastime, that is. Then it was baking every day with her and stuffing our faces with a huge platter of treats after dinner. Her gingerbread was (and still is) the best and it wouldn’t be Christmastime without it.
I’ve always been an avid baker even though my mom isn’t. I remember when I would beg her to let us make chocolate chip cookies and she would eventually give in. I loved being able to help mix everything together and watching her finish mixing the dough when my six year old arms gave out. I don’t remember the cookies being very good, certainly not as good as the ones I make today, but I would love to go back and make those cookies with my mom.
I have a baking memory!! My sister and I tried baking cookies together when we were kids. I was five years old at the time and she was ten. After we baked the first batch, I tasted one and it was SO salty! We accidentally used salt instead of sugar. Then I tried stuffing the rest of the raw dough down the bathroom sink before our parents got home. =)
Definitely baking hamentaschen and mandelbroit with my grandmother when i was a little kid. She had sewn me my own little apron too, made out of a dishtowel! Great memories.
Mine happens every year when my mom and I bake our candied pecans. It takes forever and can be painful but it’s always so much fun and so worth it.
My favorite memory is making gingerbread houses with my daughter’s class 27 years ago. I still have her masterpiece and bring it out every Christmas!
I love Christmas baking with my mom, sisters and aunts. It is a time a treasure every year. I’m getting excited thinking about how soon it is going to be here.
My favourite baking memory is baking my daughters 1st birthday cake and her “testing out” the melted chocolate ;)
Christmastime baking! When my three sisters and I were kids, we’d always bake cookies and bars as gifts. Chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies with decorative frosting, brownies, lemon bars… It was so much fun spending time with my family and seeing everyone’s faces light up when they get baked goods as a present.
My favorite memory has to be with my nieces and nephews on valentines day. We baked a batch of sugar cookies and the kids picked the shapes/designs that they wanted. They even had their own baking section and everyone enjoyed, the boys more than the girls. Kids do make things a lot better
My favorite baking memory is the first time I baked anything – an apple pie in Girl Scouts. We used premade crust and were given the unbaked pie to take home to bake. My mother ate it and loved it even though she didn’t like apple pie. I remember her going back for more and she was so happy. It was the reason I started baking.
My memory is a fresh one (pun intended). I’ve recently started baking in the last year. I am single, I live alone, so when I try out a new recipe or cupcake decorating idea, I bring my treats in for my wonderful first grade students. Since I’ve pretty much given up on finding the perfect guy, I may never get married which means I may never get to register for a KitchenAid Stand Mixer. Hint hint…
Thanks!
My favorite baking memory is making gingersnaps with my grandma when I was a little girl
My fave baking memory is of my mother baking cakes and working on sugar flowers. I remember being so little that I could barely see the top of the kitchen counter. To this day, I remember the smile she gave me. Just pure joy.
My favorite baking memories are when I would make roll out sugar cookies with my daughters. The dining room table was covered with sprinkles of every color and frosting galore. Those are by far my best memories.
Every Thanksgiving and Christmas we make ‘Granny buns’, rolls from my great-grandmother’s recipe. Arm wrestling competitions have been known to take place over the last bun!
My favorite baking memory is when I was baking cupcakes with my friends and we ran out of eggs so we went door to door asking for eggs!
My great grandmother won a baking contest when she was young with something we call a twist in my family – basically a yeast bread rolling in sugar and formed into a twist. I remember rolling the twists standing on a chair with my great grandmother, grandmother, mom, several aunts, and several cousins. It is a happy memory and one I remember yearly at Christmas when I comes time to make the twists with my mom. Family, tradition, and yeasty holiday goodness all twisted in one. :)
I love baking with my kids during the holidays. Sometimes (all the time) I have to remember that I won’t remember the mess, but will remember the time I am spending with my kiddos. Baking cookies is absolutely our favorite thing to do. Halloween and Christmas cookies are the best!
I love to bake, so I have *many* baking memories. My favorite is from Christmas Eve either junior or senior year of college. I brought my boyfriend home with me and we were all dressed and ready for Midnight Mass when my mom remembered that she forgot to dip the peanut butter fingers in chocolate and it absolutely could not wait until Christmas Day. So there were were (my boyfriend and I), in our best clothes, with aprons on and towels tied around our necks, dipping peanut butter cookies in melted chocolate. They were delicious and we didn’t spill a drop of chocolate on our fancy clothes. :-)
Anytime I’m baking with my sisters!
Making Christmas cookies with my daughters when they were little. They would mix the icings and the end results were far from Martha Stewart. However they had fun and were proud of the cookies they made for daddy (and Santa)!
My very earliest memory is “baking ” with my Mom, that is she would have sitting on the table with a piece of dough to play with. She taught me everything I know and she gave me the gift of loving to cook & bake, I miss her & her apple pies.
My mom and I love to bake and then decorate the cakes we bake. It is something we love to do together. Since I was born she has done birthday, halloween and different cakes depending on the occasions. And as I got older she taught me how to bake and decorate cakes. We’ve done some amazing ones together. Last one we did was just beautiful. It was a coco channel pink pastel cake. We have also done pizza cakes, all flavors :) look just as real pizzas.
Apart from decorating cakes, we have also done different deserts that turned out great. Like the crepe tower I cooked for my friends special occasions, and she loved it. it tasted great. I just hope I keep doing this with my mom and some day with my own kids. Baking is just my passion.
My Grandma would bake sugar cookies every year for Christmas and frost everyone of them,When she passed away I have carried on the tradition every year with my 3 daughters and we will get together and make batches of the sugar cookies and decorate them for family and friends.
My favorite memories are baking our Christmas cookies. Me and my sister would measure all the ingredients and pour them in the bowl so mom could mix the dough. Then she would roll it out for us so we could cut them out and use sprinkles to decorate them. One year we had gotten a set of different size star cookie cutters so we stacked them up and made a Christmas cookie tree, it turned into our centerpiece. We still bake the cookies together every year. It’s one of the best parts of Christmas. The best part is eating all the cookies we bake though ;-)
Baking cookies with my grandmother.
A couple years ago I made a mental decision to try to bake something every day between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I managed to do about 1/2 of those days but it was so much fun to stock my freezer and give lots away and my boys just loved helping…good memories.
My favorite baking memory is a fresh new one. This past July 1st was my granddaughter’s 3rd birthday party. I made more than 60 Hello Kitty cake pops for her party and was tickled pink with how cute they turned out and how much she adored them!
My favorite baking memory is laughing with my mom and sister making cookie-shooter cookies when I was little. The electric cookie shooter we all still use takes a little getting used to and it’s so fast that there are always a few messed up ones that can’t help but be funny. It’s still a favorite holiday pass time and the cookies are yummy! :)
I love baking at Christmas time. When I was younger Mom always had the staples that we made every year. We still get together to this day, but with all the great recipes out there we like to change things up and try some new things. But the fudge….it will always be made. :)
My mom, sister, and I make Lefse every Christmas. My mom’s mom used to make it all year and it’s such a treat in our family – but especially around the holidays. We have such a fun morning – and it’s ridiculously messy. BUT – we are getting better each year and last year my son and daughter joined us. Pretty soon my nieces and nephew will be old enough as well. I love carrying on these traditions! Thanks!
My first boyfriend taught me how to bake pies and provided me with the majority of the baking pans still in my armament today. Ditched the boy, kept the pans!! (I hope this doesn’t make me sound like a terrible person…)
My family weren’t big bakers. But I loved making peanut butter balls with my mom and grandma growing up!
One of my favorite baking memories is from when I first baked cookies by myself. I was making hazelnut cookies and couldn’t find already hulled nuts, so we had to buy the nuts with the shells on. After tediously cracking a crazy amount of these hazelnuts, I then tried to peel them. I didn’t know then what I know now about how to do that easily. It was a long painful night of trying to peel off that skin…if only. Fun memory though. :) Thankfully the cookies turned out great and that was the beginning of a long love affair with baking.
I loved making Christmas cookies with my kids when they were little. They loved putting the sprinkles on! Now, they are teenagers, so they aren’t so willing to bake with me anymore. I miss it!
My favorite memory is the looks on my kids faces when they came in the house from playing outside to find baked cookies on the counter.
My favorite memory of baking was with my mother and grandmother when I was a young girl. They would bake filipino treats that needed to be steamed (that’s still baking, right?). Of course, with limited steamer space, it was always an assembly line, mom mixing ingredients….grandma filling the cupcake pans and putting them in/out of steamer…and me….taking them out of the pans and doing some quality control! Somehow, the first pan NEVER passed inspection and made it to the serving trays!
I remember baking cut out Christmas cookies with my mom and dad – and since we have a warped sense of humor in my family, there were always some funny ones. I hope that I can start the same kind of traditions with my two boys (who are 3 and 9 mos.)
When I was a little girl my mom would make about 20 different types of cookies and brownies at Christmas time. We would have several hundred cookies by the time she was done. She would package them in small trays to give as gifts and would make 2 large (cafeteria-sized) trays – one was always for Christmas day and the other was for my dad to bring to work. When I was really small I was only allowed to stick on the bow on top but as I got older I would spend hours helping her to arrange all of the cookies on trays and wrap them. Now that I am grown I have continued the tradition, but on a smaller scale. It just isn’t Christmas to me unless my mom and I are baking cookies!
but we actually have williams sonoma here in canada! argh! oh well, good luck!
My favorite baking memory is when my daughters helped me make croissants. They loved rolling the dough and it was funny to see them using their play set rollers on the dough. After the initial rolling, they were covered in flour! But I didn’t mind since they were having sooo much fun. Now whenever they hear my mixer, they run into the kitchen to see if they can help me bake :)
Last year my sister and i made her wedding cake, it was such a great experience together and also a great cake! Now Im getting married this year so hopefully will do my cake now with this super duper mixer !
My favorite memory is making sugar cookies with my aunt, sister and cousins at Christmas. When we were little, aunt would make the dough and roll it out. We cut out the cookies and decorated them. A tradition that I plan to carry on with my little ones.
My favorite memory would have to be when I first started baking and my friend and I accidentally set the oven to broil. Bam, instant flameo cupcakes. XD We fixed them and redid the batch, but that definitely taught us a thing or two about baking. :) Now I’m at a point where I make my own recipes and yes, I check the oven before I put anything in. ;)
I love the holidays!!! Every year we make tons of cookies and fudge. Its almost like its ok to eat until our stomach explodes with goodies. Every year my mom makes chocolate balls, wedding cakes, cut outs, fig cookies and different types of fudge
I remember when my oldest son first went to school. It was almost the Thanksgiving day so we thought it would be nice to share something with his classmates and teachers. We baked pumpkin shaped cookies and wrote each classmates’ names with the icing. It was a lot of work but we really enjoyed doing it.
My Grandma use to make the most amazing cookies and as she got older (and I got older) we decided it was time for me to learn her recipies… she wrote them down on index cards (which are some of my most prized posessions) and taught me one by one how to make them. As her health began to fail, she wasn’t able to make them for the family events, but I was able to keep up her tradition. She passed 3 years ago, and we even made “Grandma Honey’s cookies” for all of the visitors. To this day, we still make her cookies and feel her love with every bite. I even made them for my cousin’s wedding and we labelled them “Grandma Honey’s cookies”… They are heavenly… just like her :)
My first introduction to baking was making cookies with my 2 older sisters as a kid. I was always so impressed that my oldest sister knew the chocolate chip cookie recipe by heart!
When I was 12, I used to love going to my friend Cheryl’s house for chocolate chip cookies. Her mom made the best cookies I ever tasted! We would help crack the walnuts for the cookies. I love to bake but I don’t think I ever found a recipe to compete with those cookies I remember so fondly.
My sisters talked me off the ledge when I was having trouble with the 275 wedding cake cake pops I decided to make for my wedding. They helped me decorate them and they were a huge hit! Love my sisters!!
My favorite baking memories are of my mom and me baking chocolate chip cookies. We use her grandma’s ceramic bowl to mix them up. It is always fun and yummy!
One of my favorite times of year is the fall for baking. It’s tradition that my friend, Steph, and I get together to bake pumpkin bars. We both love pumpkiny desserts so it’s so fun to bake with her and enjoy the final product together!
I love to bake! Cookies, cakes, pies all of it! My best memory with baking was with my mom. Everyday after school she would have us something to snack on. On several days she would make home made donuts out of can biscuit dough and would set up a dipping bar with all kinds of sprinkles glazes and candies!
My favorite baking memory is making my grandmother’s butter cookie recipe with my sister Jessie.
Learning to bake angel food cakes from scratch with my grandma, using 12 egg whites and sifting the cake flour a bunch of times! Actually, lots of cake memories with my grandma!
My best memory is when I was teaching my fiance how to bake! We had a lot of fun and the bars ended up being very good! It also ended in a flour fight which was fun!!!
My grandma loves baking and she used to bake different cakes depending on the occasion so there’s a cake per memory. Yolk cake (she called it like that but it’s delicious) for my first comunion, chocolate cake for my birthdays, tres leches when my uncle came over from philadelphia… non-stop loving memories.
Favorite baking memory. Hrm. Once a friend and I tried making binary cookies for our teacher, but we let the batter get too warm, so they spread and didn’t look at all like 1s or 0s. Another time I was making pumpkin cookies, and offered pumpkin to my cat. I created a monster.
For the holidays my mom would always make pumpkin pie and lemon meringue pie. When I was a kid, I hated the meringue so I would always scrape it off and eat the lemon and graham cracker crust. Eventually my mom taught me how to make the perfect meringue and it’s always a crowd pleaser!
I love spending Saturdays in December making three or four batches of different Christmas cookies a day with my mom. We’ve been doing it since I was young, and I hope it continues for many years!
My favorite memory is baking treats wiht my grandmother every christmas. We would spend days making all sorts of different candy, cookies, and bars. She had a recipe book that was given to her when she got married. We used that book for every recipe. I have that book now and am the one making all the christmas treats with her nearby watching. My Grandmother was just diagnosed with cancer so dont know how many more christmases we will have together but i will cherish all those memories. She will be 88 next month. My mom, grandmother, and best friend.
Every year since I was a kid I would bake with my mother I’m talking cookies, brownies, fudges, pies, peanut brittal, barks, and chocolate covers things. We. Would share everything with family’s and neighbors. We always used the same mixers. The same mixers that my mom had befor she had me, 20+ years
My mom taught me how to make my own pie crust and also how to make a mean pumpkin pie. I am still trying to make my pie taste as good as her, but I am getting pretty close!
my favorite baking memory was first making cake pops with my girlfriend. We spent all day making the cake right then learning how to melt the candy melts for the coating. They were made of red velvet cake with a red colored chocolate coating. They were delicious and it was so much fun to make!
Making homemade peanut butter fudge with my grandmother. Real sugar and peanut butter out of the jar, it was soooooo good.
My favorite baking memory has to be when I first made cake-pops!
I made red cake-pops with a blue webbing, for a spiderman kind of look. There’s just so much room for creativity.
:D
Each year at Thanksgiving, we have Pie Day. My mom, 4 sisters, and often various aunts and cousins, and I, get together to bake all the pies that will head to the different dinners. We usually churn out 20+ pies (completely from scratch, mind you) in one night. It’s nuts and I absolutely love it!
My favorite baking memory has to be from last year when I made Bakingdom’s cinnarookies for my staff. I am an RA in college and my fellow RAs have to meet once a week to discuss issues in the building, programs we put on for the residents, etc. Since it is once a week, I try to surprise them with a different baked good every meeting. When I made the cinnarookies, one of the RAs, who I am very close to, decided to surprise me in the kitchen. He and I had so much fun together talking about the holidays (it was around Christmastime that I made them) that we almost missed the meeting!
I think that may favorite memory of baking is with my great grandma and sneaking gingerbread cookies off the cooling rack and trying not to get caught…then of course get in trouble when I got caught, then getting to decorate the cookies with her. She made every one I made seem like a master piece! Now one of my favorite things is getting to decorate them with my little niece around Christmas at my in-law’s house. We come up with some funny cookies.
My favorite baking memory is baking at Christmas time with my Mom. I still remember one of the first years i helped, i must have been 6 or 7, and she gave me the task of measuring out the ingredients and I mixed up the sugar and salt. Oops! :)
My fondest baking memory is of baking with my grandma. We would make delicious peach or blueberry pies with fruit picked fresh from Grandpa’s garden. They were the BEST pies… As I grew up, I grew more and more interested in baking, thanks to all the fond memories. Thanks for bringing it all back to me, Bakerella.
I remember the first time I baked a cheesecake. It was for the person I love. I put so much heart and effort into it. I will never forget the smile he had on his face. One of my sweetest memories in baking.
Watching as my boyfriend tried to bake a cake for my birthday. He was very confused but he tried his hardest.
My favorite memory is baking cookies for santa with my daughter. every year i would bake cookies for 2 days and the last cookies i would make would be the sugar ones. She would decorate one for santa..
My favorite time baking has always centered around making Christmas cookies with various friends and family over the years. There is just something so special about spending time in that way, the time of year, the company, the delicious cookies. It’s just PERFECTION! Thanks for the giveaway!
Our family loves to make our own gingerbread houses! We would always have to make lots of extra gingerbread so we’d have some to build with. I still love the smell of gingerbread baking, it always reminds me of my childhood and makes my tummy rumble!
My great grandmother was from Norway and would always make special desserts during the holidays. Most of them I can’t even spell but my favorite was a very thin wafer type cookie rolled up on a conical shaped mold after being pressed in a special iron. The whole house would smell like cardamom and it was wonderful. She is long gone now but whenever I smell cardamom it brings me right back to the kitchen with her.
My best baking memory was with my Great Aunt, making apple pie completely from scratch when I was eleven. It not only introduced me to the wonderful world of baking, it made me realize my love for it too!
My mom has never been very good at baking, so I sort of took it upon myself to make treats for the family. I loved trying new desserts.
My favorite baking memory is baking PW’s cinnamon rolls with my brother and baking Christmas cookies with my mom. :) It’s all about family!
My fondest memory of baking is being dropped off at my grandfather’s sister’s house and learning to make christmas cookies, breads, and doughnuts. I arrived as a cranky 12 year old and left having fallen in love with baking!
My kids (7 and 5) and I have been baking cookies this year for their daddy and my husband while he has been deployed. It has been fun to bake with them and watch them be able to do more as the year has gone by. We talk about him and then ship them off so he gets a taste of home while he is away.
My mom would make Norwegian cookies that you press into a tin with cardamom in them. YUMMMMY.
My favorite baking memory would have to be when my grandma, aunts, uncles,cousins ,parents ,and sister all bake cookies. we love to decorate sugar cookies with all kinds of sprinkles and make them look like gingerbread men. another thing we like to make is homemade rice krispy treats.
My favorite baking memory would have to be when I attempted to make soft pretzels from scratch. It was a total disaster and I had to throw away the 1st batch and start all over. It sounds awful, but my friend and I had flour in our hair and were crying from laughing so hard! We stayed up until 2am to complete our pretzel project. They turned out delicious and we had an unbelievably fun time making them!
My mom, aunt, sister and I get together and make a gingerbread creation every year. Our best was a church with melted candy stained glass windows! Now my sister and I have children and we have continued the tradition with them!
Attempted pumpkin pie with my best friend. We were 15. The pie filling came out great but the crust was not edible! Still not sure where we went wrong;-)
Just long days of baking cookies and donuts and anything really.
I have my great memories of making Portuguese sweet bread each spring with my siblings and mother. I learned the most about my mother’s culture through the food we made together and Easter bread was my favorite!
I love when I made some Cookie Monster Cookies on Saturday, I’m pretty new at baking so when they came out great I was freaking out. =D
My favorite baking memory is made every christmas season when i use to bake Cristmas cake (recipe from my country) and when cakes are done my mom pack them like gifts to share with family and friends
Baking with my gram! As soon as I was able to reach anything (chairs were my best friend…still are) she let me do all the dumping and mixing, I think by the time I was 10 she sat there and made sure I did it all right, but I was doing the majority of it. She taught me so much during these times.
My favorite memory is my mom just popping in frozen cookie dough in the oven for my sister and me after school. She wasn’t a big baker but she loved making us food after school for snacks and so I always loved it when she made us cookies because who doesn’t love chocolatey goodness?!
My favorite baking memory is when I made 180 pumpkin cupcakes from scratch for my wedding, and then frosted them with my bridesmaids the night before! I love baking and I do it for others all the time, but since this was for my wedding, it kind of made it extra special and memorable :)
My favorite baking memory is when my sister and I decided, for no particular reason, to bake 72 Chocolate Stout cupcakes. We spent the entire afternoon baking them and the entire next week giving them away to keep from eating them.
My favorite baking memory is having the honor of baking my sisters wedding cake.
My favorite baking memory is baking holiday cookies with my husband (then, my boyfriend) in our first tiny apartment kitchen. We were broke and decided to bake cookies as gifts. They turned out horrible because of the cheap oven but that doesn’t even matter.
My favorite memory is baking sweet potato pies with my best friend in the 8th grade. We didn’t know much about baking, but it was so fun trying to make something from scratch.
My favorite memory is baking Christmas cookies with my mother and grandmother as a child. My mom even has a recipe card that reads “Karly & Mom – the best bakers” in the “from” line in a kindergartener’s handwriting.
I have a “new” tradition. I bake cookies with my daughter every Christmas for her to give as a Christmas gift to her teacher for the year. We make big cookies on sticks, decorate them with royal icing and make beautiful cookie bouquets. Her teachers have loved them.
Of course Christmas baking. Making a plethora of treats to arrange on cutesy paper plates and hand out to neighbors and friends. And of course to snack on the entire holiday season.
When I was young someone showed me how to make graham cracker Christmas houses and now I have passed this tradition down to my nieces and nephews. They are so easy for little ones to make and decorate and they are so cute when finished.
My favorite memory is at Christmas. Baking batch after batch of Christmas cookies and pies with my mom. We would also invite friends over and make sugar cookies and decorate them together while we listened to Christmas music and ate lots of dough!
I keep this tradition alive with my daughter and hope she will with her children too.
Baking with my grandma. Christmas cookies with my mom.
I doubt I will win.
i remember learning how to make sweet potato pie from my Granny. She was so good at making a smooth filling. She’s gone now and I still haven’t perfected it. And STILL no one else’s sweet potato pie compares to her’s.
Most of our holiday traditions center around food! My maternal grandmother had a real sweet tooth as did her mother before her. We make mini tarts, Chinese chews, fudge, and English toffee every year at Christmas. But the goodie with the most meaning for all of us is her shortbread. There’s even a secret to the recipe which makes it extra fun. Biting into one with eyes closed takes me back to all the Christmases of my childhood and in a way, it’s like grandma is still here with us!
I remember trying to bake a cheesecake, everything was going fine, I had my ingredients ready, cream cheese softened and it was time to get things mixed together. I have only been able to buy the cheap five dollar handheld mixers and I pulled out my new one, as soon as I turned it on, it made a weird noise and I saw a light flash (never saw that happen!). I suppose it occured because of the day before when I made cookie dough and was too impatient to let the butter reach room temperature. This was a time I wish I had a Kitchen-Aid! So, I decided the next best thing was a blender. Surprisingly, it came out okay! This was my most memorable baking experience. (:
My favorite baking memory is baking chocolate chip cookies, from scratch, with my mom. I had just seen a child and her grandmother do the same on Sesame Street, and my mom agreed- even thought it had to be hard to bake with a 4 year old! The cookies were delicious and have always been my very favorite since then.
FAVORITE baking memory is helping my aunt make and decorate sugar cookies! never ate a one of ,em! but decorating was the best thing ever.
My favorite baking memory is baking sugar cookies with my grandmother at Christmas and then decorating the cookies with frosting and sprinkles. captainliss40(at)gmail(dot)com
I love any time my boys and I bake together. The older one helps while the little one just tries to eat sugar or berries out of muffins.
Before I could even read, I had the Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe memorized, from making it so often with my mom. When I was about 4, I’d wake up early on Saturday mornings (in that odd way that kids can on the weekends, but can’t during the week), rush downstairs, and whip up the dough…but I knew I wasn’t allowed to touch the oven. I’d excitedly break the news to my (very sleepy) mother, who would always pull herself out of bed, turn on the oven, and then supervise from the dining room. I’m so lucky I had a mom who knew, early on, that fostering a passion for baking would only lead to good things. :)
ooh! my favorite baking memory so far has got to be the winter that my roommate and I hosted our very own “Holiday Cookie and Cocoa Hunker Down Movie Marathon” Each of us baked about 4 different types of cookies and other goodies to share with our guests, the ovens were on most of the day while our friends came and went, and we shared the love of our favorite holiday movies on a snowy saturday right before christmas. definitely one of my favorites :) fingers crossed tight for a winning entry!!!!!
My favorite baking memory is making banana bread from a Chiquita banana wrapper. My mom used to buy more bananas than the three of us could eat from BJ’s! Back in the day, we didn’t have internet so I used whatever recipes I could find without having to walk to the library. Lol
My mom baking bread when I was little. She would always give us kids a small amount of dough and we would make bread shapes and bake then eat them. Or it was the time my little brother (about 6 at the time) “made” a cake with his own made up recipe and the cake “blew up.”
My favorite baking memory is when my three year old son Aiden turned the speed up on my mixer – right after I added flour to our cookie dough! He, along with the kitchen, was covered in flour! We had a good laugh and the photos of his flour covered face always make me smile!
My parents, sisters and I would make plates of goodies for our neighbors and friends each Christmas. It was a 2-day all day whirlwind in the kitchen full of Russian tea cakes, caramels, English toffee, thumbprint cookies and a few specialty cookies each year. (And 2 years ago we added Christmas themed cake pops to the mix!) So fun and delicious!
I really enjoyed baking with my mom when I was younger. Even if it was just cake mix from the box! Since then I have ventured out into baking cakes from scratch all on my own. :)
As a child my mom and I didn’t bake often however as an adult me and my boys would bake for the holidays, what a special moment.
My grandmother showed me the magic of baking when I was younger. She’s the one who taught me to always sift flour, even with cake box mixes and that no birthday is complete without a homemade cake!
Getting my Easy Bake Oven for christmas and making myself one of those “tasty” little teeny cakes and frosting it myself = paradise?
My grandmother and I used to bake banana bread from her Cotton Country Cookbook put out by the Huntsville Alabama junior league. The recipe was well worn with caked flour and shortening. I love pulling that cookbook out, opening it to the banana bread recipe and running my finger over the stuck on mess. It really makes me miss my Nanny.
My favorite baking memory is from when I was seven and baking by myself for the first time. I still had a little trouble with understanding all the measurements, and instead of a teaspoon of salt, I added a tablespoon instead. The cherry coffeecake was terrible, you couldn’t eat it because it was so salty. At least I’ve learned from it, as I’ve never made that mistake again :)
My favorite baking memory has been baking and icing cookies for our annual family beach trip. My aunt started the tradition of making the cookies, and I took over the job after I finally got her to give in and give me her icing recipe! Now, they’re a staple each year…and gone before the first day at the beach is over!
I have these cravings of peanut butter cookies when I was pregnant for my first child. Everyday I would bake 300 pcs of peanut butter cookies and then they’ll end up in my tummy in less than 24 hours! I gobbled everything up and had to bake again- and again- and again- for two weeks. I think my baby really loves it! Now both my husband and I love to bake peanut butter cookies and give them as a treat to family and friends :)
My favorite memory is from when I was just learning to bake. I decided to try to surprise my husband with an apple pie to go with our anniversary dinner. I had never made a pie before and I was super excited about it and SO proud that it came out looking and smelling like a pie should. My husband said that he loved it. Days later his mother informed me that he HATED apple pie and was shocked that he would even eat a piece.He swears that he did like it. Either way, I think it’s sweet that he let me have my moment :)
My favorite memory is baking buttermilk pies and apple pies with my mom. We had a family friend, whom I called Granny Beth, and she taught us the buttermilk pie recipe. My mom and I would giggle because it never tasted as good (and never set in the center) like Granny Beth’s did. It was the first pie I learned to make and I still bake it to this day. When we moved from Texas to California, we rented a home for a year that had apple trees and I can honestly say, I’ve never had as much apple pie since then. We would go out together and dodge the bees swarming the trees, and pick apples together. Then she would slice them super thin (I have finally mastered this craft years later), and she would let me pour lemon juice, cinnamon and nutmeg on the slices. We’d sit in the kitchen and talk or play a game called Mancala and then gobble down slices together once it was out and had cooled (well…almost cooled…). I live 3 hours away from my mom these days, and other than my college years, have never been so far away from her. Baking helps me relive those memories and I find myself calling her to ask for help/hints/etc while I try my own recipes.
One of my favorite memories is making cookies with my Mom!
Every Christmas season all the girls in my family would get together and bake lots of yummy things to give away during the season. I have such good memories of doing that.
Almost every week, my mother would bake, and still bakes her Honey Rye Bread. We never waited for it to cool. We sliced it warm and smeared butter all over it. Delicious!
My sister and I have 8 children between the two of us, and we bake all their birthday cakes. It gets more interesting every year. ;)
I loved baking molasses crinkles with my mother.
I have a favorite aunt who always made pecan pies for Christmas, too. I still to this day love pecan pie and miss my aunt,
My memory is baking big honking chocolate cakes for my grandmother – I must have been in elementary school. Anyway, I would put walnuts all over the top of the cake and she would eat 3 slices a day until it was gone – she made a big fuss over me about this and it made me feel good. Also, not sure how she stayed skinny thru all of it.
My favorite baking memory is more of a long-standing tradition where we bake christmas cookies all day one day and then make up tins to give out as gifts for the holidays.
The first treat I learned to bake was banana bread. I loved it so much I would eat the whole loaf to myself. By the time my mom got home from work, all that was left of it was the sweet banana aroma. I don’t have the metabolism of an 8 year old anymore, so I quit that habit :)
Every year for Christmas, we make butter cookies and rugelach. The first time my mother allowed my brother and I to help, we each took a batch of butter cookies and decided to make it our own. I added red food coloring to mine, he added green to his. We spent so much time mixing in the food coloring with our bare hands that the heat got to the batter and it essentially melted. We had to start over, but it was the first time we baked as a family. Now that we’ve all moved apart, we wait for everyone to get home before baking any cookies so that we can do it together :)
When I moved away from my home state of Pennsylvania it meant giving up a lot of holiday traditions including spending an entire weekend baking Christmas cookies with my Mom and younger sister. Last year, I decided that I would host the baking weekend at my home in Maryland. It was the best decision I ever made. I was so sad that I had missed out all those years but I’m so glad that we can continue our tradition no matter where we live. It takes a lot more planning, but its worth it in the end when we have dozens and dozens of cookies and fantastic family memories.
I love getting together every year to make Christmas Cookies with my Mom and Grandma. We has made some of my favorite baking memories and cookies in past years
one of my older cousins would gather the younger cousins together to make and decorate sugar cookies. they weren’t super delicious, but they were definitely a great bonding experience!
My favorite memory is when i was young, baking cakes and cookies with my dad and of course i always got to lick the spoon!
We didnt bake too much growing up, so my most favorite memories, I’m just realizing are happening with my kids. Baking cookies on Christmas Eve was SO MUCH FUN!
my favorite baking memory is baking roll-out sugar cookies with my son when he was little (and not-so-little) and having him decorate them with sprinkles and generally make a big mess. Even the smell of warm sugar cookies brings back all of those memories – now he is married with baby on the way – time for new memories in a new kitchen with mom and dad!
I always bake batches and batches of cookies to give away for Christmas. Last Christmas, we started inviting friends and family over to decorate cookies. It’s a new tradition that I’d like to continue for my daughter.
Most of the time when I bake I’m running solo, but every now & again I get the opportunity to bake with friends. Not too long ago my friend D invited me over for dinner & baking. We first went on a run, then made dinner together & after eating and having great conversation with her & her husband we proceeded to bake some Pumpkin Nut muffins. Not only did the time fly by as we were absorbed in our tasks and conversation, but the results were these deliciously moist muffins. They didn’t even need to be served with butter. I decided after the pleasant experience that I never want to bake alone again!
My favorite baking memory is the day I decided to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I was 13 and decided to make them as a surprise for my mom. I have never made peanut butter cookies nor had we had ever ate them at my house, but we had a joy of cooking book and I went for it, I just threw in some chocolate chips for the fun of it. Little did I know, that peanut butter chocolate chip was what my grandmother had made for my mom and she never made them because it made her sad to think of her mom that passed away when my mom was only a teen. However, her daughter making them for her made her feel lucky because although I never met my grandmother somehow I am very much like my grandmother and I remind her of her mom in a good way.
In elementary school, my best friend and I decided to bake brownies from scratch. Once the brownies were finished we tried them and immediately spit them out…my friend had accidently added nearly a cup of salt instead of sugar.
My favorite baking memory is baking with my little girl – she loves to bake and wants to be a baker like her mama, so I try to bake something that she can help with as often as possible.
My grandmother had 5 kids, so she baked a cake every day for them to eat after school. I love baking her cakes. Most are depression-era, I guess, so most don’t have butter and some, no eggs.
My favorite baking memory was the last Christmas before my brother passed away. He and his family lived a few houses away from me so he would be by all the time. I always had to bake alot. I would no sooner get cookies or cupcakes or pies out of the oven and he would be right there helping to reduce the pile of goodies that everyone else could have. He never left with out a few containers of goodies for himself. He would say that they were gonna be his snacks for the road, (he was a truck driver). I miss having him there to eat up what I baked. I still bake a lot at Christmas, my neighbors, friends and family never go without goodies at Christmas.
My favorite baking memory is being huddled in the kitchen at my parents house making cookies and treats on Christmas Eve. The house smells like a bake shop on Christmas day…Perfect!!
Making and wrapping with my sister and her kids each Christmas.
Baking chocolate chip cookies with my son…we ended up eating way too much cookie dough though…
My favorite memory is cooking all day on Thanksgiving with my dad to make dinner for our family! Still one of my favorite days of the year :)
My favorite baking memory is baking cupcakes with my mom at home in Texas. <3
My husband is a member of the USAF and was deployed last Christmas. The nature of my husband’s job requires him to be gone more than he is home. Though always tough, it is especially challenging during the holidays. Last year I had told a friend that I was unable to attend a cookie swap at her house because I had to bake for my husbands team on one of my few evenings off. That evening, while baking and feeling especially sorry for myself, my doorbell rang. My dear friend had brought all of our friends, cookies in tow, and ingredients to bake more to my house. We baked and drank and laughed and cried all night! I am so blessed to have amazing supportive friends and will forever cherish the memory of that night.
When I was young, my cousin would come over and we would bake chocolate chip cookies. My mom would turn around and tell us not to take any cookie dough, and when she would look our cheeks would be stuffed like chipmunks.
I loved to stand on the dining room chair at the table while my grandma made pies for the holidays. She would give me several small cereal sized bowls the make my own personal pies.
One of my favorite baking memories was last year around Thanksgiving my Aunt Mickey taught me how to make her famous (and totally drool-worthy) dinner rolls. They take about 3 hours to make or so, so we ended up mixing, letting it rise and having lots of girlie talk. No matter that 50 years separates our ages…it was still fun to catch up on each others lives and learn to make these yummy rolls…a Thanksgiving tradition I plan to carry on for a long time!!
I have so many, and I love making new ones with my son baking with him. My favorite was when I was little and my mom let me do it myself. I was so proud of myself. In the end you could not eat them I had mixed up the measurement with sugar and salt, so I put in cups of salt and not just a pinch.
My Favorite baking memory is a new one. Every year my grandmother makes a TON of cookies and likes to give them to us leaving her house Christmas day. All of the cookies she makes are very different and are recipes she’s had for many years. This past year I decided that I needed to learn how to make all of them because in reality the tradition ends with her unless someone steps up to keep it going. And I chose myself to be that person. So one day we spent the whole day baking and by the end of it I attempted my own batch of Spanish cookies (my dads favorite). I invited my dad over for dinner that night and gave him a box of cookies before he left. Seeing that they were his favorite he had to try one right away. I was so nervous but he turned to me and said “these are better than my mothers!”,I was so relieved and happy i cant explain it, but that is a secret I will keep with me forever because it all started with my grandma and in my eyes she makes the best cookies.
Some of my best memories of my mum were of us baking. We would make pineapple pies and other goodies when I was a child. Unfortunately, she passed when I was 11. I miss my mom dearly, but her love for baking remains with me. Now that I have a 5 and 7 yr old, I get to share this passion with them. I recently made pineapple pies with my kids. I told of my baking experience when I was their age. My job was to poke holes in the dough to make a vent for the pies and leave thumb prints around the crust to seal it. Baking brings back beautiful memories and helps create many more.
My 12 year old daughter loves to bake. We’ve made lots of things together, but the funniest thing was when she decided to surprise me by making cookies herself, when she was 10. I came into the kitchen because the cookies smelled so good. When I peeked into the oven, I found she had made one giant cookie with the entire batch of cookie dough. Oops!
Would have to be baking with my little sister (12 years younger) – when she was only around 12. Now that she’s a full blown teenager (16!?) and I live 5,000 miles across the world, any baking shenanigans would have to be via skype!
Growing up I was the only one allowed to be in the kitchen with grandma cooking and baking. Now im much older and on my way to being a pastry chef. But nothing beats just being in the kitchen with her. I teach her, and she teaches me :)
My favorite baking memory is Christmas cookie baking with my mom as a teenager… somehow we always ended up it a cookie dough food fight by the end!
My mother , my sister and I would make fruitcakes this time of year and wrap them in cheesecloth and soak them in brandy weekly until we gave them away at Christmas.
I have the best baking memories with my mom and sister. Making butter cookies and decorating them for every holiday. We still continue this tradition with our children!
My first attempt at making no-bake cookies as a child: I put in two cups of milk instead of two cups of sugar! So my mom turned it into buttery hot chocolate and we started over. So patient! So resourceful! I love her so!
baking pecan pie with my grandmother at the age of 5. one time she left the room for a minute and i ate the whole filling. when she came back she looked for it and couldnt find it!!
Both of my grandmothers could bake a mean scratch biscuit, and sometimes when I visited their respective houses as a little girl, I was allowed to “help” bake the biscuits. I got two very different experiences! One grandmother wanted everything to be done just right, so I had to follow her very specific directions and be very careful. The other grandmother was more laid back and she would have me just jump in and help whenever she had a small task. Two different processes, but always good biscuits!
One of my favorite baking memories is making plum cakes with my grandmother. Still a family favorite today to help remember her!
I remember baking with my dad on Sunday afternoons. We would just get in the kitchen and have fun! I miss those times alot! Our favorite was making sweet rolls from scratch! Thanks for the chance to win!
I am so going to win this giveaway. It is my destiny.
One of my favorite memories is baking gingerbread men with mom. She is a librarian and we decorated them as different book characters. Each year they would get more elaborate. If the shape got warped or a limb fell off we would adapt and make that one a giant or the guy from Star Wars that loses his arm. My favorite was usually Rapunzel because she had the most icing…
I remember when our sweet neighbor, who was like a Grandma to me, would come over and make angel wings with us. My mom and aunt were always after her recipe, but she wouldn’t give it up!
Definitely making (and eating) Toll House cookies with my sister when we were little. They’re still my favorite cookie and probably one of the first things I learned how to cook.
My favorite baking memory is very recent! A dear friend of mine and I started a small, home-based bakery called Bumbles Bakeshop. We’ve done local farmer’s markets and baked orders for friends. We’ve had such a warm reception and have made lots of orders for some great people! My KitchenAid is 10 years old and getting quite a bit of use these days, a new one would be A DREAM!
My favorite baking memory is rolling warm Mexican Wedding Cakes in powdered sugar. My sisters and mom and I used to make these around the holidays, or whenever we felt like! Yum!
My favorite memory is the year that my husband’s whole family got together to make pork pies. The little ones cut out decorations from pie crust with any mini cookie cutter that they wanted to use. My mother-in-law was in charge of making the pie crust, my father-in-law cooked and stirred the filling while two of the guys ‘taste tested’ to make sure the correct amount of sage and salt were added. My husband was the pie crust roller, one brother-in-law was the pie filler, I inserted the bottom crust, topped the pie, and crimped the edges, my sister-in-law helped the little ones with the decorating and placing. It was the most fabulous day spent with the entire family all baking, laughing, eating and having a grand time!! I still smile remembering it…our little ones are now 22, 17, & 17 and have 2 younger siblings who are each 12…it was a long time ago but it was the best day EVER!!
One of my favorite baking memories is making monster cupcakes for Halloween with my children.
My grandma used to make a lot of pies when we were litle. She always let us put cinnamon and sugar on the leftover scraps of pie dough and bake them for a special treat.
My Grandmother is an amazing cook and baker, her family owned a bakery when she was growing up. My first year out of college, I lived with my grandparents. Throughout that year I got to cook and bake with her all the time. It was so much fun, and such a special time that I got to spend with her and learn from her, and teach her a few things myself!
I loved making Apple cake with my grandmother we would cut up so many apples and a load of pecans. Grandma used to make this delicous brown sugar glaze. She only makes about one a year now so we happily carry on the tradition
This memory isn’t really a favorite, but it’s the craziest! I was making a brownie cheesecake for a holiday get together, it starts with brownie on the bottom, cheesecake on top of that and then you drizzle hot fudge on top. I grabbed the hot fudge jar and put it in the microwave for a few seconds to warm it for easier pouring, then I proceeded to pour it on top of the cheesecake, while pouring I realized it was beef gravy and NOT hot fudge sauce! Sooo not good!