Let the Christmas Cooking Begin!

ByPamela Lutrell Hours Categories Recipes
Comments 28 Comments

Christmas cooking

Happy Frantic Friday!  I am in full “final countdown” mode so Let the Christmas Cooking Begin!

My Christmas Cooking is something I love and look forward to…it is also a part of the legacy I leave.

However, I am not a trained chef…unless you count lessons on Food Network!  But, I do like to experiment with flavors.

I repeat recipes that have worked for my Christmas cooking, and maybe I tweak them and maybe I do not.

You can see in my little handwritten recipe book in this top picture that there are recipes I have made over and over again for years.

One recipe that I have not tweaked, and that my family loves, is PIONEER WOMAN MONKEY BREAD.

It is simple and yummy.  Our 8 grandchildren are ages 12 to 1, so they do not like anything with many added ingredients to make it fancy.

They do not want nuts or fruit or chocolates on their monkey bread…but this recipe will be gone Christmas morning.  I usually double it and make two.

So, it is on the menu plan for my Christmas cooking and has been a very long time.

Today, I am featuring a couple of my baking recipes from Christmas cooking, and Monday, I will share with you about my menu planning for Christmas Eve.

Let the Christmas Cooking Begin with a Special Request from a grandson…..

LET THE CHRISTMAS COOKING BEGIN:  FOR CLASS PARTIES

Christmas cooking

The fifth grade grandson who found this spatula for me…at at Buc-ee’s…is the one who requests specific cookies the most.

A couple of weeks ago, he asked for these chocolate cookies for his end of year class party…of course, I said, Yes!

I love that as a grandmother, I can still participate with class parties. …as I did this year with their athletic teams.

Christmas cooking

These are delicious…especially if you love chocolate.

They are SALLY’S DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CRINKLE COOKIES.

I made them last year for Thanksgiving, and he remembered and has not stopped asking for them.

So, off they went yesterday to the class party!

LET THE CHRISTMAS COOKING BEGIN:  FOR GIFTS

Christmas cooking

My Christmas cooking always includes delicious gifts.

At Thanksgiving, I delivered my pumpkin bread all over town and it helped to open doors to building new friendships in our new comunity.

I took pumpkin bread to neighbors, to my hair salon, to the dog groomer, and to my favorite boutique.

It was so well received that my Christmas cooking needed to include another bread I make that is popular with recipients.

Christmas cooking

This Strawberry Nut Bread is moist and delicious.

I do use walnuts and I roast the walnuts before putting them in the bread…I use the food processor to chop them up.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup butter ( I use European Butter) Slightly softened

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla (I use Mexican vanilla)

1/4 teaspoon lemon extract

4 eggs (best room temperature)

3 cups sifted flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup strawberry jam  (I like Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves)

1/2 cup dairy sour cream

1 cup broken walnuts. (I roast them)

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
  2. Whisk together flour, salt, cream of tartar, and soda.  Set aside.
  3. Whisk together in a separate bowl the strawberry preserves and sour cream.
  4. Beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and lemon extract until fluffy. 
  5. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
  6. Then add alternately small amounts of the preserve mixture and the dry ingredients until well blended.
  7. Stir int he nuts.
  8. Divide into three standard greased and floured loaf pans….or five small pans.
  9. Bake 50 to 55.  (My current oven cooks faster and this bread was ready at 45 minutes). 

YUM!  (Note:  This bread is soooo good with cream cheese…but don’t put on the WW app!!)

LET THE CHRISTMAS COOKING BEGIN:  MY SPECIAL APRON

Christmas cooking

Yes, I have a special apron for my Christmas Cooking that has a happy, cute snowman on the front of it.

It is the only apron I embellish with Christmas pins.  Maybe I will decorate the apron I wear most during the year!  It’s fun!

Over the next week, I will be caught wearing this apron most of the time!

What are some of your favorite recipes to make and gift to others?

I am so encouraged by the reception of the pumpkin bread and look forward to sharing the Strawberry.

Our new town feels more and more like home each day.  If you need to make friends or open doors, hit the kitchen!

Thanks for joining me today for my Christmas cooking…and I will share more of my Christmas Eve Dinner Menu on Monday.

I need to see how shopping these recipes goes tomorrow…especially talking with a butcher.

Hope to see you tomorrow…until then…..

CHOOSE JOY AND KEEP SMILING!!

By Pamela Lutrell

For all your shopping, please use the links on my SHOPPING PAGE…thank you, thank you to all who shop this way and show support for this blog.  It means the world.

Christmas Cooking

28 Comments

  1. Isn’t it wonderful when the grands really like something you make and ask for it? Of course, the answer is “yes” as often as possible! What fun!

  2. Have you ever tried crockpot candy which has peanuts, peanut butter and chocolate chips, melted together in a crockpot? Then dipped out into clusters to harden. Such an easy candy and one I always share as it makes lots of candy. I’m going to also make some cranberry orange loaves to share with neighbors and friends.

  3. The last time you included a link to the Sally’s Baking double chocolate cookies, I made them, but included peanut butter chips. Wow, were those cookies a hit! I am now asked, no begged, to make those cookies for friends and family! Thanks for introducing me to that website

  4. I love making quick breads and there is such a variety to choose from. Your Strawberry Nut Bread is now on my list.

  5. I also make a cranberry orange loaf that friends expect at Christmas and I use to take to curling spiels and was always asked for the recipe. It is from a children’s Thanksgiving Day book and I use to make it with my grade one students. Lots of easy steps and measuring so everyone was part of the cooking. You can find the recipe if you look up ‘ Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Bread – book ‘.

  6. My Mother used to make Prune cake at Christmas. While the name might generate laughs, it’s very good.
    When I cleared out her apartment this year she still had the mini-bundt pans she used to make it in for gift giving.
    It has a caramel icing which, if the weather is dry, sets up and becomes hard. Did anyone else’s Mother blame baking mishaps on the weather? If the divinity was sticky it was always because it was a cloudy day.

    Her recipe came from a church cookbook she acquired when they lived in the South.
    I had never seen it anywhere else until she and I went to the Pioneer Woman restaurant in Pawhaska Oklahoma. There it was on the menu! Even though it was the middle of the Summer we ordered it. It wasn’t quite as good as what my Mother made -more a pudding than a cake. Someone else had done all the baking so we let that go and we enjoyed it together.

  7. Hi Michele, I am going to steal your idea and do this the next time…I bet they will love it too. Thanks for sharing!

  8. Of course, the answer is YES! That is why Snickerdoodles are on the list for next week. Thanks Kim

  9. I have not heard of this…but I bet it is simple and yummy. I will try to find a recipe, Celia! Thanks for sharing.

  10. This strawberry bread is so good that it is dangerous to have around me and Mr. B…we love it!

  11. Thanks so much, Linda. I will check it out. My daughter makes the cut out cookies with all the kids…but it would be nice to know another idea.

  12. You made me laugh, Rose, with a memory of my mother blaming failed pie crust on humidity…but West Texas is very dry, so I do not know what she was talking about! I have never heard of Prune Cake, but I am glad to know it tastes good!

  13. I wish Celia was my neighbor, as I love cranberry-orange loaves!
    Your chocolate crinkles look very much like mine, from Mom’s old Better Homes tattered cookbook. 😋
    My baking will include snickerdoodles for my youngest, Ben, the crinkles for everyone, fish-shaped sugar cookies for my oldest, avid fisherman, Zack, and peanut butter blossoms for my husband. If I have time, I’ll make thumbprint, which everyone enjoys, but especially me. ☺️🎄 My husband may take a brief turn in the kitchen to make some of his apple strudel, if we’re lucky! Dad will eat and enjoy all of the above. 👴

  15. I don’t bake often anymore. When I lived near family I used to make sweet breads and scones at Christmas to share and I would have tried that Strawberry bread. I’ll save the recipe just in case. I still check out the recipes you link from Sally’s Baking Addition. A few weeks go Pumpkin Pie in a Jar (no bake pumpkin parfait) caught my eye. I made these for Thanksgiving and my husband though it was one of the best desserts he’d ever had so I’m making again for Christmas. Highly recommended. The same week you posted a link to Mini Cranberry Brie Puff Pastry Twists. I’ve made these twice now. I took them to a potluck luncheon and everyone raved about them. Another highly recommended recipe. I bet these cookies are wonderful but I don’t have grandchildren to bake for and its not a good idea for us to have a lot of sweets calling our names.

  16. Pam, The crockpot recipe I use comes from the “Crock Pots and Flip Flops” website…” Crockpot Peanut Clusters”. I forgot to mention the white almond bark ingredient. A couple of notes I’ve added to my recipe: chop or shave the almond bark into small pieces (I weigh the bark to get10 oz.), mix everything together before heating, and stir well or you will get hot spots. It takes my crockpot about 30 minutes to begin melting then an additional 15+ to melt everything. I always stir several times to be sure everything gets melted. Then I scoop out with a small cookie scoop on to parchment paper.

  17. We have received so many sweets and cookies that I will not be baking for a while. I did make the Sally’s chocolate cookies and loved them. But I eat them all! Brent just doesn’t like cookies. That is why he is slim and I’m currently ten pounds overweight. Ugh! Good luck on your baking and cooking! It is just us and I got a good chuck roast to slow cook for our Christmas dinner.

  18. Well, you have now given me two recipes that I must try…that puff pastry one sounds so good…it really helps when someone like you says you tried it and will make it again! Thanks Kathie.

  20. I just got back from delivery bread to various places. As long as I share it and not keep it in the house, then we are good to go!

  21. My favorite recipe for the holiday season is banana bread with a Christmas touch. I add the nuts, then mini chocolate chips and chopped maraschino cherries. Hmmmm, so good! I give them out to friends, family, and some professional workers. Merry Christmas

  22. Your Strawberry bread with toasted walnuts so yummy! Its now on my list bumping out cranberry and pumpkin breads. Hurray! I’ve been baking all fall with my 7 year old grand daughter and can barely zip my pants so the future baking will be gifts too!
    Have a wonderful weekend!

  23. I am from the South (North Carolina) and love Prune Cake! It sounds terrible but is so spicy, moist and delicious. One of the main ingredients is baby food prunes. You would never know they were in the cake. This recipe was very popular when I was first married in 1975. I haven’t had it in years but might have to make one soon. I love strawberry bread too. The recipe I have uses frozen strawberries. Yours sounds yummy and I will try it. Merry Christmas! Thank you for the gift of a lovely blog!

  26. Pam, the first time I made the twists was a trial run. I didn’t twist them tightly enough and they unraveled which didn’t affect the taste only the presentation. The second time, for the party, I wound them more. I also left out the thyme the second time as I didn’t feel it added anything. I used my homemade cranberry chutney. Its an old Cooking Light recipe I’ve used for ages..

Comments are closed.