Christmas Baking Ideas

The tree is up, the lights are twinkling and the Christmas baking is well underway.  With the big day just around the corner I thought I'd better do a massive, hopefully highly inspirational Christmas baking post for you all to get you in the mood. 

It is going to be a big one, with lots of ideas, both old and new, so grab a cuppa and enjoy!

Christmas Cookies

Christmas Cookie Tree Decorations

I made these adorable cookie decorations for a fabulous event recently, I also made a few extra to decorate my tree.

For these I have made these cookies in Chocolate (above) and Gingerbread (below), all the decorations are handmade using sugar paste icing.

I love Santa!

 I also painted some of the cookies with an edible glitter glaze for added magic.

 Gingerbread is fantastically versatile, you can find my favourite recipe here and with that recipe you can make all sorts of goodies, here are just a few gingerbread goodies I have made recently.

Mini Gingerbread Houses

These are so cute and easier to make than you may think, you just need to make yourself a few little templates, the pain is cutting the shapes out of gingerbread, it takes ages! 

The result is well worth it though, I didn't get precious with the decorating, opting for a messy look with crushed candy canes and chopped toffee to top.

Gingerbread Melting Snowmen

I also love love love these melting snowman gingerbread cookies....

Too cute for words and again pretty easy to make, just make a wiggly template in your desired cookies size and cut the shapes out of your rolled gingerbread cookie dough.

Once baked and cooled, ice using either fondant or royal icing (if using fondant use the same template you used for the cookies). Add arms and buttons in black fondant or piped royal icing, a ball of white fondant for the head, not forgetting the carrot nose and coal eyes of course.

I think they are so effective and kids, including grown up ones like my hubby will love them.

Other Cookie Ideas

If you are looking for something more traditional to leave out for Santa, I highly recommend either these Chewy Oatmeal & Raisin Cookies....

....these awesome Peanut Butter Cookies or one of my Christmas favourites gorgeous Forgotten Cookies.

There is something so magical about putting dollops meringue in the oven, turning it off and leaving them overnight, to come back to glorious snowy white meringue cookies in the morning.

Christmas Cupcakes

For me Christmas wouldn't be complete without cupcakes, to decorate I like to keep things pretty traditional, with lots of candy canes, Christmas trees, Santa hats, Christmas puddings and of course Christmas sprinkles.

However you decorate your cupcakes here are a few recipes I think will go down a treat:

Unbelievably delicious French Toast Cupcakes

Scrumptious Gingerbread Cupcakes

Gorgeous S'more Cupcakes

Amazing St Louis Gooey Butter Cupcakes

All of these cupcake recipes are seriously delicious and not too heavy after a huge Christmas dinner.

Mini Cupcakes are also a great idea, especially if you have a lot of people coming over.

Almost all cupcake recipes can be made into mini cupcakes. Mini cupcake pans hold around a third of the amount of batter as regular cupcake pans, so if you have a recipe that yields 12 full sized cupcakes, you’ll get around 36 mini cupcakes from that batter. 

Christmas Macarons

This Christmas I will mainly be making My Favourite Ferrero Rocher Macarons...

...and Yummy Mince Pie Macarons.

Chocolate Macarons are a good choice, they are always a winner and you can decorate them to look like Christmas puddings using just a little melted white chocolate and fondant Holly leaves and berries.

I also recommend trying these yummy Chocolate Orange Macarons

Christmas Cakes

When it comes to traditional Christmas Cake I love Nigella's Recipe and Delia's Recipe but if you're looking for something slightly different and maybe a little less rich, here are a few ideas:

Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake With Caramel Rum Frosting

Pistachio Loaf Cake

Nigella's Spruced-Up Vanilla Cake

I'm making one of these Spruced-Up Vanilla Cakes to slice and toast for breakfast on Christmas morning, seriously yummy!

Christmas Breakfast

Speaking of breakfast, I like to start the day as I mean to go on and with that in mind why not try some of these glorious breakfast teats:

Double Chocolate Loaf With Peanut Cream Cheese Spread 

 Waffles 

 Doughnut French Toast

Christmas Chocolates

Rather than buying truffles this Christmas why not have a go at making some.

I love these dusted Mocha Truffle Kisses.

You can also try White Chocolate Vanilla Bean Truffles & Milk Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles both are wonderful.

Instead of dusting the truffles with cocoa powder, icing sugar or rolling in crushed nuts, you can also dip the truffles in melted chocolate.

Honourable mentions must go to the following recipes:

Beautiful Old Fashioned Sticky Gingerbread

Sweet & Salty Crunch Nut Bars - These went down a storm at my house last Christmas.

 Apricot Peach- & Vanilla Jam - which would make a wonderful Christmas gift, as would A gorgeous jar of Vanilla Sugar or some little jars of Homemade Spice Blends.

I will leave it there for now but stay tuned because I will of course have more Christmas baking ideas coming up very soon. I have Peach Pomegranate & Vanilla Bean Vodka steeping in the kitchen as I type. x

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Christmas Baking Ideas