Bonding Over Cookies

Christmas baking may not seem like anything that special to you, but there is possibly no better way to bond as a family than to cook together. You are collectively creating something special, not just in the form of cookies, but also in memories that will likely be with you and your children for the rest of your lives.

Even children as young as four love to help in the kitchen, whether it is pouring ingredients, mixing batter, or putting frosting on cookies. It can get a bit messy, but that is part of what makes it so fun. Your child will be happy that they get to be a part of the exciting Christmas-time preparations, and more than that, they will be glad to be spending time with you.

What to Make

Sugar cookies and gingerbread men/houses are great treats to make with kids during the holidays. Not only can your children help with baking these items, but they also get the chance to decorate them afterwards. No matter how old your children are, they will love frosting cookies and decorating them with colorful candies and sprinkles. After all, what is more fun for a kid than an edible arts-and-crafts project?

If you don’t want to make gingerbread yourself, you can also make “gingerbread” houses out of graham crackers and frosting. They are just as much fun to decorate as the real thing, but they are a little less work and so a good alternative for moms who already have a lot on their plate during the holiday season. All you need for this easy treat is some graham crackers, a strong frosting, and an assortment of candies to decorate with.

Passing Down Traditions

Whatever you make with your children, it is sure to create fun and pleasant Christmas baking memories that will stay with them the rest of their lives and encourage them to bake and decorate with their own children some day. It is these kinds of traditions that strengthen connections between children, parents, and grandparents and bring families closer together.

My family has been making the same Christmas cookies for generations, and they still evoke the same pleasant emotions in me when I make and eat them now as an adult that they once did when I was a child. There is something truly magical about my grandma, my mother, and I all sitting in the kitchen together mixing the batter of our favorite holiday cookies and sharing memories from past Christmases.

It’s difficult for anyone to be mad or upset with each other when the smell of gingerbread is filling the room. All the hostility that may exist during the rest of the year is gone when we are sampling dough and mixing frosting. We don’t remember how the other people in the kitchen may have hurt us in the past, but only how much fun we have had making cookies and celebrating the holidays together. That is why Christmas baking will always be a large part of the holiday traditions that we pass down to our children, because the joy and togetherness it encourages is what Christmas is all about.

I’m here to tell you that the problem with most home baking mistakes isn’t in the BAKING, it’s in the MIXING of your cakes that most mistakes are made.

There are three goals in cake mixing, whether it’s a Christmas cake recipe, or any other baked good at any time of the year.

The first goal in cake mixing is to combine all the ingredients into a uniform batter. This may seem obvious, but when you don’t scrape the mixing bowl during the process you can have streaks of dry flour in your batter. If you haven’t incorporated eggs in the precise way to get the best emulsification, then how you BAKE the item really won’t matter.

The second goal is to trap as much air as possible. This is most often overlooked by the home cake baker. When creaming fat and sugar together, or whipping egg whites, the idea is to gather as much trapped air to give the cake a light texture and even crumb. This is accomplished through concerted MIXING, not BAKING.

Lastly, ingredients for your birthday cake or Christmas cake recipe are mixed properly to develop the structure of the cake. How wet and dry ingredients are added during mixing are the building blocks of a cake that is either sunken or bursting from the pan.

With those universal cake mixing goals in mind, now you can have ultimate power over any written cake instructions. However, while all mixing methods have the same goal, they have different procedures depending on the ratio of ingredients. This yields five basic types of cake.

All cakes are defined by their mixing methods, and broken into two categories; high-fat cakes and low-fat cakes.

High fat cakes are almost always mixed using the “creaming method”. The best cookies from scratch are also made with a creaming method. This is the procedure where butter and sugar are creamed together to incorporate air. Remember? Trap Air? Here’s where it happens, and why it’s important to use room-temperature ingredients.

A “Two-Stage Method” cake uses egg whites that have been whipped to soft peaks. If you notice how the volume of egg whites increases dramatically when you whip them, you’re witnessing the incorporation of AIR into your batter. A batter of egg yolks, oil, water, and seasonings are added to the whites, along with two stages of alternating flour and liquid, thus the two-stage method.

Low-Fat cakes most often use an egg foam for structure and texture of the cakes. The first type of low-fat cake mixing method is a Sponge Cake. Whipped yolks and whites give solid structure and flavor to a sponge cake, again proving that the mixing methods are most important if you want your Christmas cake recipe to be the best it can be.

Angel food cakes are absolutely fat-free because they’re made entirely of egg whites, sugar, flour, and flavorings. But again, HOW you whip the egg whites for an angel food method will mean the difference between a dense, chewy cake, or light, fluffy Angel Food cake.

Chiffon Cakes are lower fat cakes that use the same method as angel food, but also include some egg yolks to give better structure, and use chemical leavening agents like baking powder or baking soda for extra rise.

Grandma’s Christmas cake recipe might make a comeback this year when you apply the basic mixing methods outlined here. Once you identify HOW Grandma was mixing her cakes, you can assure that you’re meeting the general goals of cake mixing; combine ingredients, trap air, and develop structure.

Stop blaming your oven for those cakes not BAKING correctly. You have no control over what happens to the cake once you shut the oven door. However, you have a tremendous amount of control over the MIXING of your cakes, and it is the most important skill to have when creating your own Christmas cake recipe.

As early as now, you can look for special sweets, tarts, candies, breads and bottled treasures in specialty stores or you can start learning how to make special homemade cookies that you can give to your spouse, friends, relatives, teachers, clients, associates or officemates.

GETTING STARTED

Through the years, possible Christmas food gift ideas or items people give out include boxes of chocolates in various Christmas shapes like star, snowman, or Christmas tree; a selection of fruits, different arrangements of fruit baskets, traditional Christmas hampers that contain Christmas specialty foods such as ham and cheese, traditional Christmas cakes and puddings, mincemeat tarts in different shapes and sizes, festive shaped shortbreads, fruit cakes, Dundee cakes, and bottles of wine like sauvignon blanc dry white wine.

If you want your Christmas good gift giving more personalized or intimate, you can customize it into different variations such as Wine and Gourmet food gift basket that contain gourmet pepper and poppy crackers, pacific smoked salmon with gourmet cheese spread with wine or a Sesame Crackers food gift which include a selection of garlic and cheese mix and chocolate drizzled almond biscotti and dark chocolate mint sticks with gourmet holiday coffee or bottle of chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.

You may also want to give a Christmas food gift that includes an assortment of various nuts such as almonds, filberts, cashews, pecans, pistachios, walnuts, peanuts, and Brazil nuts; a Candy food gift basket that include several variations of Christmas candies and sweets; or a Nutritious Christmas food gift that contains snack boxes such as fruit and nut mixes, maple syrup, jams, and fruit-filled pies.

But, among the so-many possible Christmas food gift items, cookies–in different shapes, flavors, and sizes–are always on top of the list. Here are some of the cookie basics you need to know before giving out this most popular Christmas food gift.

1. Choose your recipient’s favorite cookie. Knowing your recipient’s favorite cookie will make it easier for you to buy or prepare your gift. If not, opt for standard cookies favorites such as fresh ginger cookies, fruitcake cookies, holly Christmas cookies, Christmas tree cookies, and chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies.

2. Make the presentation attractive. Be creative in packing your cookies by embossing it with ceramic, metal, or plastic stamps or molds or by adding special add-ons to the finished product such as colored sugar, finely chopped nuts, or colorful sprinkles. Make that you decorate the outside of your cookie container with distinctive labels, unique cards, and colorful stickers or wrapping paper.