It wouldn't be Christmas without what holiday treat?

[Gingerbread]

I've started my Christmas baking this past weekend! Mini Cheesecakes, truffles, peanut butter balls, spiced pecans, pizzelles, cannolis, pralines and more!

It got me thinking about the recipes I make, handed down through family and friends. I find myself thinking of those people when I cook their recipes and it makes me happy.

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, their advice and wisdom passed down in our recipes.

So what are you guys baking? What would it just not be Christmas without?

For me it's many but my Mom's peanut butter balls have to rank #1. Every year she'd make them by the dozens and they were my favorite treat. It just wouldn't be Christmas without them!

 

[The Cleo Collector]

Divinity with no nuts omg I love that stuff
and while not baking I cant stand not to have egg nogg.

 

[pikapal]

My mom's cookies. Although she makes cookies other times of the year too. I just really like to eat the dough.
Let's see what else tamales, See's nuts/candy and Hickory Farms cheese and sausage. We used to get petits fours, but after we moved to an apartment we were afraid they would be stolen and they are perishable.

 

[CJ Thimble Bright]

Potato candy! That's a family recipe for sure. Candy cane cookies, spritz, sugar cookies (called cut out cookies when I was a kid). Nothing like shaping and decorating those three. I love to make chocolate covered sugared orange peels. And my grandma's botterpunt is pretty special to me, though I probably won't make it this year as I'm the only one in the house to eat it. (Too crunchy/hard for the hubby.)

I feel the same way, @Gingerbread , about baking family and gifted recipes. While I make them I think of the person who gave it to me and feel love. I LOVE HOLIDAY BAKING!

 

[tulagirl]

Okay I will go with my list of foods before I could not eat anything.

Peppermint Ice Cream
Peppermint sticks
My Czech grandmother's molasses cookies
My mother's Sugar Cookies and gum drop bars
Ribbon Hard Candy
Mom's Green Christmas tree biscuits and Red Star Waffles with Whipped cream
The various cakes the elderly relatives always brought like Poppy seed cake and home made kolachies. However you spell that.
Sausage balls..

 

[Gingerbread]

I love that potato candy!! The kind with the peanut butter right?! SO good!!

It all sounds delish!

 

[CJ Thimble Bright]

I love that potato candy!! The kind with the peanut butter right?! SO good!!

It all sounds delish!

Yes! Boiled potato, mashed with oh-so-much powdered sugar. Rolled flat, spread with peanut butter and rolled into a log for slicing. Family tradition. My dad said they made it when he was a kid, as they were very low-income. In the little bit of research I have done on it, there are a few different ways to prepare it. Some without the peanut butter, some with flavorings. It is often referred to as a Depression Era candy.

 

[REBELHEART]

GingerBread Man cookies
Gingerbread Cookies
Divinty
Christmas Sugar Cookies
Peppermint Candy Canes