Karen Ehman

Live Your Priorities. Love Your Life.

The 6th Day of Christmas with Ruth Schwenk {The Better Mom}

chaos.calmFrom unrealistic expectations to traditions to your screaming schedule as well as those annual holiday encounters with the in-laws and outlaws, this free 5 Day challenge will allow your holidays to go from chaos to calm. Click HERE for the free 5 Day Challenge and they will automatically come to your inbox. Merry Christmas!

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12 days graphic

IMPORTANT NOTE: You may comment to win on all of the 12 Days of Christmas posts until Sunday night, December 15th at midnight EST so be sure to read through those you missed and catch up!

RuthProfilePicWelcome to the 6th Day of Christmas with my guest Ruth Schwenk from The Better Mom. Ruth is the wife of a pastor, who is her best friend and the love of her life. She is a blessed mother to her four beautiful children, and she eagerly awaits meeting her five others in heaven. Ruth is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.  She has a passion for following God, leading worship, rescuing orphans, and inspiring others to create a God honoring family.

Now, here is Ruth!

Holiday Fun for Kids {Mini Apple Pies}

One of my favorite memories of the holiday season is the sweet smell of apple pie in the air. I am referring to the traditional apple pie cooked season after season, but just recently I came across a fun idea and decided to mix things up a bit! Making mini apple pies is so easy and such a fun activity for the kids… not to mention just plain delicious!
MiniApplePiesReSizeMini Apple Pies
4 Cups of Apples (cut into small 1/4 inch pieces)
6 TBS of Flour (I used Coconut Flour)

3/4 Cup of Sugar

2 tsp of Cinnamon
1/4 tsp of Nutmeg
2 TBS of Chilled Butter (cut into 12 equal portions)

2 Pillsbury Pie Crusts (1 box)

photo_(60)Preheat oven to 400 Degrees F. Cut 4 cups of apples and combine/stir with all ingredients except butter. Spray muffin pan. Unroll your first pie crust and cut several circles out. (I used the top of a glass) Continue this until you have enough crusts. Line each cup of your muffin tin with a tiny pie crust.

Gently fill the crusts with your apple mixture and put an equal portion of the chilled butter on each pie. Cover as desired with left over dough. Brush with melted butter and bake at 400 for 20-25 minutes. Be sure to serve with Vanilla Ice Cream! Recipe makes 12 mini pies.

Enjoy!

TODAY’S GIVEAWAY:

Leave a comment telling us your favorite holiday baking item and you might win a $20 gift card to Target to buy some baking supplies!

I’ll go first. Fruitcake. Seriously. I have a FABULOUS recipe from the 1960’s.

And you?

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Comments

  5. I make my famous Sticky Buns that rise overnight in a cold oven and then wa la, wake up Christmas morning and they rose and I just keep it in the oven and bake. Oh the yummy smell of this on Christmas morning is priceless.

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  6. I need some more cookie sheets because mine are getting old. I love to make snow ball cookies with the walnuts inside —they melt in your mouth! Have a blessed Merry Christmas.

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  10. Oooooooh, so many good holiday recipes. My new favorite is bread pudding. I have a delicious recipe using panettone and amaretto sauce.

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  13. It’s always hard to pick a “favorite” because I love to bake! I have a delicious fruitcake recipe handed down through my family for years. It has Brazil nuts and whole dates and pecans and marchino cherries in it. (NO candided fruit)

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  14. I am 11 years old and I love to cook. For Christmas I am asking Santa for baking supplies. I love to make the strawberry dessert with the pretzel crust. Everyone in my family loves it.

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  20. I love making peanut butter cookies with my son! He is 6 years old and loves to roll the dough and press the fork into them for the design on top.

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  25. Most of the goodies I like to bake are passed down from my mom and grandma. Christmas Candlelight Cookies – uses sour cream, almond extract and colored sugar–so delish. Swedish Crisps – lots of pecans! Bit’s O’ Brickle – bag of Reeses peanut butter chips, box of baker’s german chocolate, and 1 bag of Heath bits of brickle. Melt over low heat and drop by spoonful on wax paper. Put in fridge til hardened. Store in air tight container. Yummy! Oh the list could go on and on!!!

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  32. Mint brownies!! It has a chocolate cake base, mint filling center and melted chocolate chips on top! Oh my! Wonderful! :)

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  33. Snowballs, cut out sugar cookies, candy cane cookies, Swedish coffee bread . . . we love to bake together for friends and neighbors at Christmas time!

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  37. I love to make mt great-grandmother’s oatmeal cookies. It’s a family favorite that brings back childhood memories.

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  41. Christmas cookies – so many wonderful memories making them as a child! But I love the idea of mini pies baked in a muffin pan. Whenever my grandma made a pie, she would make a mini one just for me : )

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  43. We have cinnamon rolls warm from the oven on Christmas morning. I LOVE cream cheese so I slather every inch of the huge rolls with cream cheese frosting. I frost when the rolls are warm so the frosting gets into the roll and on all sides. I have to share too that part of my enjoyment is the way my boys eat them while still in their pajamas and hearing them and my husband say how good they are:) Fun tradition:) Of course, there are lots of other delicious foods I love but the rolls are a delectable tradition mixed with fun memories so they were worthy of mention:) By the way, I have come to love Target in the last few years-it is a dangerous store for me to walk into:)

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  51. I like making blueberry muffins. If I find a recipe I like and I have the ingredients I’ll try it. Getting more adventurous in baking!

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  54. My favorite baking item is the rolling pin given to me by my mom many ears ago. I’m 58 now, so the RP has been around a while. My favorite baked item is Kolachy, made from an old family recipe. I only make it at Christmas time, usually on Christmas Eve, as it takes hours and hours to rise, fill, rise again, then bake. Worth every second and a decades old family tradition in my in-laws’ family. Merry Christmas to you and yours from me and my loyal companion, Shadow!

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  64. I just love to bake!! So, I love it all!! But I do love to bake shortbread and pop a little piece of red/green cherry on top!!!

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  66. My favourite thing to make special at Christmas is an old recipe of my grandmother’s. They are called Pork Pies, but don’t ask me why…they are a shortbread tart base, filled with a date filling and topped with a maple fudge icing. Yum, yum, yummmmm! I love anything made with dates!

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  67. Old fashioned oatmeal raisin cookies, 1/2 with chocolate chips and raisins 1/2 with raisins only! So good still warm! Helps that I like to consider these a healthy cookie (oatmeal & raisins)…in reality they just taste delicious!

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  68. My favorite thing to bake is pecan pie for my dad, however, I have never been a fan. I am a much bigger fan of fudge!

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  69. We love all the baking at Christmas time, but we really love to cut out the cookies together and decorate them.

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  70. Creme wafers…my grandma taught me to make them and according to my family I am the only one who successfully makes them…so I make about 30 dozen every year! They melt in your mouth.

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  71. I l ove my mama’s fruit cake–seriously, she makes me several mini loaves that I can freeze and eat when ever I want. She bakes them and mails them to me every year. It’s the next best thing to having her here to bake with me!

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  72. Oh, I love vanilla {no anise here girls} pizzelles…easy to make and light after all the rich goodies of Christmas! And best of all my sweet girls (21 and 14) help in the kitchen!

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  73. I love to make Christmas candy, I make crockpot candy. It is so easy. I love the make bark with peanut butter chips, chocolate chips and toffee chips.

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  78. Oh, seriously, too hard to pick one favorite! From cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting at breakfast, red velvet or peanut butter truffles to snack on, and cheesecakes and caramel apple pies for dessert, anything home-baked is a winner!

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  80. Since it says favorite holiday baking ITEM, mine would be my soon spatula from Willians Sonoma .. And I also love my cookie press! :)

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  82. We like to make cookies and bark. This year my daughter wants to make bark without peppermint though! She wants to add pretzels and stuff to it. thx

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  84. My kids and I make zucchini bread every year and pass them out to all their teachers (even past ones) and neighbors. Thankfully when you double the recipe it makes 8 small loaves:). We also make tea cake cookies every year. It is my great grandmothers recipe. This is a tradition my mom did with her mom, my brother and I did with our mom and now my kids and I make them.

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  88. Coffee cans and vegetable cans to make pumpkin bread and wrap in Christmas Arran paper with Christmas ribbons.

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  89. Peanut Brittle! Only time we eat it. Was my Mom’s favorite and I’m sure she’s enjoying it during her first Christmas n heaven.

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  93. I love the peanut blossom cookies with the Hershey kiss on top. I only make them at Christmas, so it’s a special treat!

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  98. I made apple crisp for the first time on Thanksgiving and it was so good. I think it can be my new holiday food.

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  99. Really?! I want your fruitcake recipe! A mentor mom’s husband is an award winning chef & he makes fruitcake every year & it’s like nothing I’ve ever had. So light & fresh tasting.

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  103. “Galaxy cookies” from the old Betty Crocker cookbook. They really had nothing to do with Christmas-except that one year my mom wanted to try something different and I absolutely LOVE them. They are really just butter, powdered sugar, almond extract , and four. We put a surprise in each one, choc chips, pb chips, sundae cherries, nuts, act. YUM!

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  104. Cranberry nut bread is a favorite even though I also like to bake a variety of cookies when I have time. The bread recipe was from my mom, who used to bring my family a loaf every Christmas. I finally asked her for the recipe because we all loved it so much!

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  105. Our family has so many favorites! At the top of our list are Big Soft Ginger Cookies and Russian Tea Cakes. My kids will ask for these other times of the year but it seems we make them most at Christmastime.

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  106. Buckeyes… but if you’re wanting to know my favorite baking “item”, it would be a handcarved rolling pin I received for my wedding years ago.

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  107. my fav baking item is my mixer kitchen aide we use it for everything and my pampered chef glass measuring batter bowl with lid, they come in so handy !
    we make ricotta cheese cookies and cheesecake from scratch :)

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  111. My sister in law makes the most delicious cream cheese cookies. They melt in your mouth and are very addicting. you can’t eat just one. And for that reason, she makes them once a year and that’s it. They are not friendly to the waist line at all. But they are so yummy. I look forward to them every year. And I have never gotten the recipe, because I would weigh about 500 pounds if that was the case. :-)

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  115. Sugar cookies cut out in Christmas tree shapes – lots of frosting and sugar on top! My current favorite baking item is my Cuisinart Bread Machine!!!!!
    Oh – and we like caramel walnut bars! Oh, and I love fudge, but always have to depend on someone else to make it for me!

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  117. I actually might make these this year! Super cute bad I imagine the delicious smel!! :-) So hard to pick!! My favorite is persimmon cookies I make for my hubby! His favorite! :-)

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  119. Just thought I’d mention a food item too :) since I think I misunderstood the first time .. :) I’m hoping to make fudge this year for the first time .. :)

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  121. Brownies! I would love to get one of those brownie pans where all the pieces are edges. :o) Either that or maybe a small crock pot to make dips in.

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  123. Four Layer Delight, with Chocolate, Oreo Dirt Cake and Turtles(made with caramel, chocolate and pecans). Our favorite family dessert that my brother always brings is Dishpan Cookies. The recipe makes a dishpan full.

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  129. Old fashioned sugar cookies that my kids cutout and decorate. Many memories of this with my mom and then my children and even neighbors.

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  131. Grandma’s Teenage Teasers–semi weet chocolate over a ground-pecan cookie…MMMMM!!

    Carissa in eastern Iowa

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  133. My Mama’s fruitcake. She makes it on Halloween each year so it has plenty of time to marinate…. It is the only fruitcake I eat!

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  136. Gingersnaps! This year I also made homemade dog biscuits with pumpkin and flax. I cut them into gingerbread men to make it more festive for the 3 wise pups.

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  145. Baking item? hmm…I would say the cookie cutters and rolling pin. It’s so fun for the kids to get to use these!

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  146. A couple of years ago my mom FINALLY showed me how to make her version of German Stollen (traditional bread) – I make them into mini loaves to give away! So delish!

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  160. I love baking butter cookies with my kids. Its a tradition I did with my mom and brother. We use cookie cutouts, bake, and decorate together! They never look ‘pretty’ but they do look amazing when you ‘see’ the memory in making them!

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  161. My mama’s German chocolate cake. She only makes it at Christmas and I look forward to it. My husband’s grandmother made the best red velvet cake ever. I am determined to start a baking tradition with my girls.

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  162. Gingerbread, chocolate pecan caramel candies (Turtles), sugar cookies and molasses cookies! Last year I added a Buche de Noel to the mix and I think I’ll make that an annual tradition as well. :)

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  177. I love to bake and eat all kinds of cookies for Christmas. Peanut butter, and chocolate chip and also, lemon snowflake cookies. Very good!

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  187. To this day, I remember making fudge, divinity, & peppernuts w my mom (whom I have a rocky relationship with at best :O. ) and my late grandma. Bittersweet.

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  188. My favorite baking item isn’t so much a food as a tool – parchment paper. I ABSOLUTELY love how easy and quick baking, cooling, and cleanup of cookies is with this stuff!!!! Woot woot!!! I use it everytime I bake cookies now.

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  194. Homemade Pumpkin Bread. It is easy to make, makes two loaves so I can give one away and it is super moist and delicious!!

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  196. honestly, I like wrapping our homemade treats the best, so I would say my baking item would be cute saran wrap and ribbon to make the treats look as cute as they taste yummy!

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  204. My husbands favorite Christmas cookie is a Thumbprint cookie so we make those every year. They’ve become everyone’s favorite!

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  207. Hmm when I think of a “baking item”, I picture my cooking tools: my favorite tool is my Silpat baking sheet. I received it as a wedding gift and use it for everything!

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  224. Cake mix cookies for our neighbor caroling and cookie exchange. They are so easy, quick and delicious, and they are very easy for the kids to make.

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  228. One favorite is Grandma’s rum balls that get a little better every day instead of becoming stale. I dearly love sugar cookies, but tend to put off making them because of the time they take; I’ll make a batch anyway when I think about the taste and texture.

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