Holiday Baking Game Plan

Each year, the hubby and I sequester ourselves in the kitchen for a weekend and bake up all sorts of delicious treats to hand out to family and friends. In the name of preplanning, I'm trying to nail down our baking list for this year.

We'll of course include our favorite standbys:

Soft Sugar Cookies

Peppermint Bark

And possibly Buttons. They are easy to make and addictively good but they tend to separate if knocked around.

Then I'm looking for another 2-3 recipes. Things that are fairly straightforward to make, are a little out of the ordinary, totally delicious, and nut free.

Here are the recipes I'm considering adding to our standbys:

Big Soft Ginger Cookies

Persimmon Cookies

Crispy Toasted Coconut Cookies

Chocolate Brownie Cookies

Orange Cranberry Drops

Right now, I'm leaning toward to toasted coconut and the ginger cookies. What would your vote be? What are your favorite cookies (holiday or not)? What are your holiday baking standbys?

Orange Cranberry Cookies

I realize this is not the most inspired cookie picture. You are going to have to trust me that while these are not the world's prettiest cookies they are quite tasty and very well loved. I found the recipe here and it made a happy addition to our holiday baking. Not only did it add some color to the plate but it was one of the most commented on cookies.

Puffy Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Another recipe from the depths of my draft folder...Puffy Chocolate Chip Recipes. These were part of our holiday cookie baking extravaganza this year as a way to incorporate an old favorite but amp it up a bit.

Salted Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

Craving something chocolatey, I started going through my saved recipes. And found these. Given how amazing the Salted Caramel Thumbprint cookies were, I decided to give these a try. Slightly adapted.

Salted Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

In searching for cookies to whip up during our annual holiday baking madness, I came across these. And knowing that a couple of my coworkers liked caramel combined with the fact that salted caramel has been an IT thing for a couple of years, I figured we had to make them. Not being a big caramel fan myself, I wasn't planning on falling in love with them, but the salty sweet combo did me in.

White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies

As a rule, I don't like white chocolate. It's overly sweet and overly processed. The one thing though that I just love it in? White chocolate macadamia nut cookies. I grew up adoring the ones from the mall cookie stands, and happily eating the Pepridge Farm versions. So the other day, when I was looking for something sweet, these jumped out at me. I used the recipe from Joy the Baker.

Drop Sugar Cookies

I love the soft, melt in your mouth amazingness of my favorite cut out sugar cookies. However, sometimes I don't really want to wait for dough to chill. Or roll it out. Or cut it out. Or get obsessive over neat icing. I just want quick, easy, and done. Actually, that's most the time, which is why the cut out sugar cookies are generally reserved for special occasions. And why, when I saw a recipe for drop sugar cookies, I simply had to make a batch.

Nut Bars

I was in a picky mood when I decided to make these. I wanted to bake--something easy, something sweet, something not my old standbys. And nothing was making the cut. They were too fussy, too samey, too requiring of a trip to the grocery store. And then I opened my copy of the Betty Crocker Cookbook, a wedding gift that I am almost embarrassed to admit, I don't think I had ever peeked in before. And I found these salted nut bars and happily got to work. They used butterscotch, I used chocolate and cut down the salt, but it's okay, we're still friends.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Last Friday, I got it in my head that I needed to make something with peanut butter. I'm not sure where this burning desire came from since I normally dislike peanut butter cookies (gag me sweet), but since we had two jars of peanut butter in the fridge I turned to Joy. That being Joy the Baker who has never failed me, not once. Lo and behold she had a recipe for flourless peanut butter cookies. I was leery. I mean what kind of cookie has no flour? But I trust Joy, and she promised, so I baked. (Spoiler: It was totally worth it.)

Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was looking for something to bake that (a) used only what we already had in the house and (b) was something a bit different. I found it with these--Mexican Chocolate Chip Cookies from Perry's Plate. (It's the cinamon and chocolate combination that makes them "Mexican", in case you were wondering. : )

Ambrosia Macaroons

I have a confession to make. I LOVE coconut. It really doesn't need too much else, a bowlful of coconut and I'd probably be a happy camper. But these? They make coconut better. And they're easy.

I found this recipe over at Perry's Plate

Coconut Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies

It's hard to go wrong with either coconut or chocolate, so naturally they are brilliant together. I used this recipe from Joy the Baker as the base. You might recognize it, since I also used it as the base for the Mint Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies we made for Christmas.

Soft Sugar Cookies

I love soft sugar cookies. The kind that they sell at store bakeries everywhere. I have no use for sugar cookies that are crisp, crunchy, or dry. A couple of years ago, I went on a mission to find a recipe that would match the soft, melt in your mouth-ness of the store cookies. And I stumbled onto an amazing recipe which has been my sugar cookie standby ever since.

Mint Chocolate Chip Chocolate Cookies

Several years ago my mother and I got into our heads to make chocolate cookies (something we had never done before). We tried two or three recipes without real success before I left back for college and, tragically, that was a quest left uncompleted. But it's stayed with me and this year, for our holiday baking, I decided to try mint chocolate cookies.

I used this recipe from Joy the Baker as the basis for my own. I hadn't made anything off her site yet, but I had been reading (and drooling) along for some time. I had faith that she wouldn't steer me wrong. And her recipie called for only real chocolate instead of cocoa powder which, in my book, was a Very Good Thing since the last two things I made with the Hershey's Special Dark Cococa Powder I have resulted in ooey gooey messes for no apparent reason.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

About a month or so ago someone brought pumpkin cookies into work and left them in the break room (a tradition that means "help yourselves"). I'd never had pumpkin cookies but they looked intriguing, so I gave one a try and was immediately hooked, I had to add these to my repertoire. Since these had been store bought I couldn't just sleuth out the baker. Instead I turned to the internet. Sadly, my local Publix must not have got the memo that fall=pumpkin because there was no canned pumpkin to be had.

So I waited and last week, when the grocery stores finally* deemed it decent to put out their pumpkin pie fillings I snatched up two cans for good measure. I found this recipe and got to work.

I followed the recipe fairly exactly (considering my current lack of teaspoon/tablespoons I actually use my silverware; good luck with 1/2 a teaspoon being very accurate with that). My only real deviation was to add about 1 1/2 cups of chocolate chips (that's a very rough guesstimate, I just added a bunch; then I stopped). Of course, that wasn't straying too far from the recipe since it's actually suggested on the page, but I was planning to do it even before I read it there.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

The cookies are a family recipe. I have no idea where my mother got the recipe from (I rather suspect a very old, battered, cookbook that survived being half buried in mud, but I digress...) but for as long as I can remember these were the only oatmeal cookies we ever made.

I often (as I did this time) add in chocolate chips, but they certainly aren't necessary for a delicious result. The coconut makes for a soft, moist cookie (even my coconut hating college roommate loved these) and the cinnamon gives them an bit of a lift beyond the ordinary.