From 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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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!
Welcome 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}
3/4 Cup of Sugar
2 Pillsbury Pie Crusts (1 box)
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?
Caramel corn:)
Grandma’s mincemeat cookies I used to love!
Xmas cookies . Love to decorate them!
Christmas tree cookies- I use that recipe year around anyway! The secret is using almond extract!!!
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.
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.
My daughter is the sugar cookie decorator in our house. She has always made one batch this year and will definitely make more!
It always used to be marzipan cookies,. but now I love making (and eating!) braided almond loaf :)
Fudge :)
Oooooooh, so many good holiday recipes. My new favorite is bread pudding. I have a delicious recipe using panettone and amaretto sauce.
I like to make gingersnap cookies and dip them in white chocolate.
OH MY!! These sound delicious.
Peanut butter balls
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)
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.
I have a special pan that I use to make my grandmother’s Seven Layer Cookies in every year at Christmas
I love chocolate chip cookies.
Frosted Christmas cookies! :)
Homemade cinnamon rolls
Pumpkin Roll!!
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.
My mother in law’s butter cookies!
peanut-butter balls and sugar cookies in the shape and colors of the candy-cane
Oreo truffles! So yummy :)
Christmas colored sprinkle sugar cookies
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!!!
My family resapy for cream cheese sugar cookies
Love this sweet ideas! What a fun series. I am having fun following. Love, Ruth, so glad you featured her! She’s an amazing blessing and so are you! :) Merry CHRISTMAS!
I love cute Christmas baking tins and apple pie spice :-).
Peanut Blossom Cookies and home made cinnamon rolls
carmels
Brownies with cream cheese frosting and green and red crystals sprinkled on top. YUM!!!
Mint brownies!! It has a chocolate cake base, mint filling center and melted chocolate chips on top! Oh my! Wonderful! :)
Snowballs, cut out sugar cookies, candy cane cookies, Swedish coffee bread . . . we love to bake together for friends and neighbors at Christmas time!
Cut out cookies. Love the fun of making and decorating them with my kids.
Good old spritz cookies!
I love Italian pizzelles (they look like snowflakes) and anything with sprinkles! :)
I love to make mt great-grandmother’s oatmeal cookies. It’s a family favorite that brings back childhood memories.
Being from the Buckeye state, I love buckeyes (peanut butter balls dipped in chocolate)
Gingerbread cookies…well, anything gingerbread!!!
I have a wonderful brownies with green mint icing recipe that I make.
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 : )
Gingerbread men (and women!) cookies. I love the cinnamon, cloves and ginger smell in the kitchen while they are baking. The kids love to decorate them!!
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:)
Spritz cookies-homemade. Store bought goodie would gingerbread cookies.
Peppermint cookies and Chocolate log cookies
Sugar cookies :)
Homemade cinnamon rolls fresh out of the oven on Christmas morning!
In our house, it’s tea rings. Second is cookies.
Love the Snickerdoodles and Peanut Butter cookies
Gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies!
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!
Gingerbread People, yes people.
Chocolate cake. Yum
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!
Coffee cake. Hubby’s favorite
Sugar cookies cut into Christmas shapes with a cup of tea! YUM!
This is a hard one to answerbut it would have to be homemade cinnamon rolls and iced sugar cookies
Love to make spritz cookies – but I need a new “super shooter.”
One of my favorite holiday treats to make (both to share and enjoy myself) is peppermint bark…yum!!
Gingerbread cake with warm lemon sauce poured over it.
cookies cookies and more cookies but I love the idea of cinnamon rolls on christmas morning
I love it all but we have to have pink icing cake, buche de Noel, sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies.
Date bars rolled in powdered sugar!
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!!!
Grandma’s jam cake!
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!
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!
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!
We love all the baking at Christmas time, but we really love to cut out the cookies together and decorate them.
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.
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!
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!
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.
Russian teacake cookies rolled in confectioners sugar.
gingerbread men – could really use the target gift card to buy a new cookie sheet :)
We love trying and baking anything gluten free!
Moms sugar cookies with green frosting & m&ms:)
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!
I make a really yummy turtle cake. I also love to make homemade coffee cake.
Since it says favorite holiday baking ITEM, mine would be my soon spatula from Willians Sonoma .. And I also love my cookie press! :)
decorated Christmas sugar cookies. They always remind me of the years I baked them with my grandma.
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
Actually, my favorite holiday item to ‘bake’ are No-Bake Peanut Butter Fudge Cookies.
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.
Caramel Corn, molasses cookies and russian tea cakes.
Buckeyes…. love those things! :)
Caramel Pecan pie
Coffee cans and vegetable cans to make pumpkin bread and wrap in Christmas Arran paper with Christmas ribbons.
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.
My mother’s banquet. Yummy!
no bake chocolate cookies :)
Date and walnut delights or butter tarts.
I love the peanut blossom cookies with the Hershey kiss on top. I only make them at Christmas, so it’s a special treat!
Snickerdoodle cookies! I make them with my daughter so that we can eat some and share some :)
I love to make oreo balls – they’re so delicious!!!
Fudge- always a crowd pleaser and easy to ship to family far away.
Oreo Balls – YUM!
I made apple crisp for the first time on Thanksgiving and it was so good. I think it can be my new holiday food.
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.
Grandma’s sugar cookies.
I love baking cookies. The kids usually help me decorate them for Santa.
Fudge!
“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!
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!
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.
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.
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 :)
My favorite baking item for the holiday is peanut butter blossoms
Kentucky Pulled Cream Candy
My mother’s tea cake cookies!! Definitely Christmas when those get made :)
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. :-)
My favorite is Irish Potato Candy! Yum!
Jello Cookies!
Roll out sugar cookies!!!!
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!
I enjoy making Candy Cane fudge: white chocolate fudge with a festive peppermint topping~
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! :-)
I think it would be Christmas cookies and biscotti.
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 .. :)
I love cobblers!
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.
Sour cream Coffee Cake, a Christmas morning tradition.
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.
My husband’s meatballs!
peppermint bark!
home made cookies !
Rock candy & fudge!
Frosted cutout sugar cookies!!
Old fashioned sugar cookies that my kids cutout and decorate. Many memories of this with my mom and then my children and even neighbors.
Cookies of all sorts to give out to others!
Grandma’s Teenage Teasers–semi weet chocolate over a ground-pecan cookie…MMMMM!!
Carissa in eastern Iowa
chocolate crinkle cookies
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!
I LOVE the sour cream sugar cookies… frosted of course.
I love the recipe. It looks incredible. My favorite Christmas baking item would be Italian pepper biscuits. Oh they are so delicious and we break them up onto our salads. Yum!
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.
It’s a toss up between buckeyes, frosted sugar cookies and a new favorite called Swedish No Names.
Peanut Butter Blossoms and Buckeyes
My Grandpa’s homemade caramel:)
cookies and fudge
Christmas sugar cookies! YUM!
My new favorite recipe is Pumpkin Crunch cake. It’s easy to make & tastes so good!
Potato candy, peanut butter fudge and tiger stripes fudge!
I make an awesome pumpkin pie! And this year, I taught my four year old daughter how to make them too. We had so much fun.
Baking item? hmm…I would say the cookie cutters and rolling pin. It’s so fun for the kids to get to use these!
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!
My yummiest Christmas goodie to bake is my Raspberry/Almond Strips
Homemade butter mints made outside on a marble slab in temps less than 32 degrees (just like my grandmother used to do)!
I love making rosettes and snickerdoodle cookies
White chocolate cranberry cookies and Oreo balls
I’m not picky – any cookie that has chocolate in it!
oatmeal cranberry pistachio lace cookies – chewy and crunchy and delicious, all at the same time! yum! xoxo
Pumpkin Roll
It’s all about the Christmas cookies. Sugar cut outs that the kids can decorate.
Fudge from Grandma N. recipe
Cinnamon rolls on Christmas morninh
Coffee cake on Christmas morning
I like to make lots of cookies! I can’t this year but I love to make them for others!
love the CRACKER TOFFEE .. so easy to make and so yummy!
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!
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.
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. :)
My Mom’s frosted sugar cookie recipe!! And Snowball cookies are a close second. ;)
Pumpkin Cranberry muffins/bread
“Mocha logs” — a spritz coffee butter cookie that is half dipped in dark chocolate. Yum!
Peanut Butter/ Chocolate pinwheel cookies.
Deborah
Pink Scissors Design on Etsy
pinkscissorsdesign @gmail .com
Christmas sugar cookies
All kinds of cookies, but since we are now gluten-free our choices are more limited. I think now it will be fudge!
Spritz and Poundcake cookies.
I love spritz and the peanut butter cookies with the Hershey Kiss on top!
Decorated gingerbread men!
Swedish Tea Ring coffeecakes
Pound cake
I love to make and cut out orange sugar cookies with my daughter and then decorate them!
fudge
Cinnamon Rolls for Christmas brunch
and granola to give away
I love to bake and eat all kinds of cookies for Christmas. Peanut butter, and chocolate chip and also, lemon snowflake cookies. Very good!
I love making pretzel hugs. It’s a pretzel with a melted Hershey hug and an m&m!
My favorite baking item is my rolling pin for making sugar cookies and pies.
Oreo truffles and fudge.
Lebkuchen. Too awesome for words.
Russian Hot Tea
Mine are buckeyes. My Aunt makes these every year and they are so delicious!!!
sugar cookies
Cookies from my MIL!
Homemade fudge.
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.
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.
Baking item? Rolling pin! Baked good? Coffee cake or orange rolls! :)
Iced Sugar Cookies are part of our tradition. Baking, decorating and then sharing. fun times three!!
Gingerbread…or anything pumpkin! I love the spices and the smell of the kitchen while it’s baking :-)
Cinnamon rolls for Christmas morning
Cranberry bliss bars…..yum!,,
Homemade Pumpkin Bread. It is easy to make, makes two loaves so I can give one away and it is super moist and delicious!!
Oh so easy. Cookies…pretty much any christmasy kind
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!
I’d say cookies are my favorite. My family also like eclair cake. thx
Mini Pecan Pie Muffins! I could use the GC to purchase new gadgets for my kitchen.
Christmas cookies :)
A gingerbread recipe from my great grandmother’s 1970’s Betty Crocker cookbook.
I can’t choose between chocolate chips and cinnamon! :)
I love my mom’s chocolate fudge. It melts in your mouth!
Christmas cookies – I love getting together with good friends for a cookie swap!
My husbands favorite Christmas cookie is a Thumbprint cookie so we make those every year. They’ve become everyone’s favorite!
my Granny’s baked apples
Monkey Bread, mmmm
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!
Raspberry Ribbons….they are pretty, tasty and not difficult!
Any kind of cookie!
I wish I could cook! I am learning!
my grandmother’s recipes
I love to pull out my grandmother’s recipes
I love trying all kinds of new cookie recipes. I really like the macaroons recipe that I have.
sugar cookies and pumpkin jelly rolll
A variety of cookies~gingerbread, sugar, oatmeal raisin, jingle junk, chocolate peanut butter!
some delicious coffee cake for Christmas morning
Creme wafers
My daughters Apple Pie or Salted Carmael Sour Cream Cake. She’s only 14! but an awesome baker!
Pumpkin roll
Cream Cheese Dainties and 7-Layer Bars.
Peanut butter cookies with Hershey’s kisses on top
Pumpkin Roll
I like making cookies, but cooking a big Turkey is always great.
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.
Sugar cookies!
I love old fashioned Spritz cookies!
Peanut Butter Fudge and my hubby’s chocolate pie.
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.
Mint
My mother’s fruitcake is the best. I do love it also!!!
Spot on with this write-up, I really feel this amazing site needs much
more attention. I’ll probably be back again to read more, thanks for
the info!