My 2023 Holiday Baking List!
This is my favorite christmas cookie list! Here is everything I’m baking in 2023. These christmas cookie recipes are the ones that are tried and true! Lots of old favorites with a few new cookies sprinkled in, along with a few other holiday snacks.
It’s the best time of year! My holiday baking list is here!
This is such a huge tradition for me that started with my grandma. I can’t wait to hear what you’re baking this holiday season. It’s the only time I actually enjoy baking!
For years, Lacy and I would make some things together. Every year, we’d make a buche de noel together. We usually do this at like 11 at night and it takes us way longer than we expect, haha. This bon appetit one is the best. We also ALWAYS make Tracy’s citrus peels and amaretto – I can’t pass those up. If I do the amaretto on my own, I will gift most of it to friends! Seriously we have made these things since the year Tracy posted them, so… a really long time. It’s so fun.
Finally, we also make my version of whiskey pretzels! Everyone really loves these too. They are a fun snack to gift people. I also like to make a batch of my caramel chipotle chex mix and gift that too.
Finally, here is my favorite holiday baking playlist! If you follow me on spotify (at howsweeteats), you can see all of my other holiday playlists too.
MY 2023 HOLIDAY BAKING LIST
Below is my ideal list of what I’d love to make!
These chewy sprinkle cookies from last year. LOVE them.
Always: the chocolate crinkle sprinkle cookies in The Pretty Dish. They are unbeatable!
Royal cookies. A newish one from three years ago – we adore these.
These frosted cranberry drop cookies were a hit last year.
Also, my cashew butter buckeyes! and maybe regular buckeyes? Sometimes I love them, sometimes I’m over them.
My peanut butter blossoms for sure. Definitely my all time favorite and a cookie I just can’t get enough of. The kids’ fave too.
And these lemon crinkle cookies, Everyone freaks over them.
My soft snickerdoodles and these chewy chai snickerdoodles. I can’t ever choose between them!
These soft gingersnaps. Sometimes I make this recipe times four. We LOVE them. And I’m not a gingersnap person!
Of course these definitely these old school oreo balls .
I’m really feeling these bourbon cherry soaked oatmeal cookies this year. Love them.
And mother lovett’s pink and green thumbprints. because can’t have christmas without them – my mom and aunt’s faves.
Also – mother lovett’s orange cookies. huge hit all the time.
These peanut butter m&m cookie bars – made with red and green m&ms.
Peanut butter fudge. I google a recipe and use a different one every year, even though Mother Lovett had one.
And some peanut butter stuffed chocolate pretzel bark!
Finally, these perfect cut out sugar cookies. these are the BEST foolproof, simple sugar cookies. I use either cream cheese frosting or this dip icing technique (marbled or not!). For the ones above in the photos, I actually sprayed them with edible glitter.
I will probably also make some peppermint bark. And I love to do chocolate covered oreos! They are so easy. I also buy the white fudge covered oreos as a hack and drizzle them with dark chocolate and sprinkles!
HOW I MAKE MY COOKIE BOX
Every year I make similar boxes. Mother Lovett did this for as long as I could remember. Her cookie tins and boxes were her hostess gifts – and they were also what she would give to certain friends and family at the holidays. EVERYONE looked forward to them!
I’ve loved keeping this tradition alive. She used cookie tins – I have found some successfully at places like Target, The Container Store and the Dollar Store. My personal favorite way to give a BIG box is to use these sugar paper gift boxes that I find at Target. They have both rectangle and round boxes. I’ve used these for the last six years and I make my own box. I usually cut up some pieces of another box to make the spaces for the cookies. This is what I did above!
I have to note that I do NOT mail these, so unfortunately I don’t have a ton of tips there! I only deliver these to friends and family who live within driving distance. If I were to mail them, I think it would include a lot of bubble wrap. However, most personal homemade cookie boxes I’ve been mailed in the past? The cookies have always been broken.
So tell me! What are you baking this season?!
11 Comments on “My 2023 Holiday Baking List!”
Thanks for all the cookie recipies! The link to the sugar paper gift boxes you usesays product not available..is there a substitute you might use or suggest?
delicious, yummy!!!
Love your ideas!
I usually make 12 to 14 different cookies every Christmas.
This year I’m trying to make some dough in advance and freeze it. Then closer to the gift giving weeks I’ll defrost, bake, and decorate. 🤞
So far I have:
Triple Ginger cookies frozen. These have fresh ginger, powdered ginger, & crystallize ginger.
I also made chocolate thumbprint that will have peanut butter centers, and pumpkin drop cookies that will have a browned butter frosting.
Today I’ll mix up Russian tea cakes & Swedish walnut slices.
It’s not Christmas without coconut kiss cookies, lemon bars, pizzelles, & snickerdoodle bars. But those will come later.
I’m more of a crafter these days and did a lot of baking Christmas cookies from scratch when i was a teen and before i had my daughter. I began crafting more then and being my daughter wanted to be involved with cookie making i did like a semi homage thing. I’d get different cookie doughs and do my own thing like decorating with M & M. ‘s, hershey kisses, jelly, powdered sugar and sprinkles. It was an easy way to do a little esdy baking and my daughter to have fun. Fast forward through the years i did some years like back then and some years no baking. luckily i have a lot of friends who bake so i was not at a loss for cookies. i also during the years often did cookies (from bought dough) on popsicle sticks, decorated them and covered them with simple sandwich bags and tied ribbons around stuck over bag and put stickers on the sandwich bag to match the theme party. they were so easy and a huge hit- even for a bake sale at my daughters high school raising money for cancer. The teenagers ended up buying more at lunchtime than anyone else.
Today i’m a 30 yr experienced needlepointer and sewer but got back
into baking from scratch last year and already started this year. i do it with friends and older school age kids. We have a lot of fun do it dies t feel like work. it’s also great not having to many cookies on hand in the house for myself because we share what we make. i live by myself so i like to taste a little bit when making them but also gift for the holidays. That way i’m not eating too many and usually some people i gift my baking to put the cookies out for company when i’m visiting too so i get to restate. i do Christmas Eve
with my daughter and son in law so i do like to gift them some cookies and enjoy a few that night when opening presents with them. Last year we made Chocolate crinkle cookies and this year we added the blossom to them by outing a hersheys kiss on top after they came out of the oven. We also made the Candy-cane shaped peppermint cookies – last year with crushed candy cane pieces as sprinkle and this year with candy cane colored peppermint soft chips. And first time we didn’t frog dough enough before so they were very spread out but tasted good. this year they came out perfect shape and flavor. we used basic recipe we googled with almond extract last year. This year we used and peppermint extract also because we felt the soft peppermint chips were not as strong as crushed candy canes. we just chose a recipe that had almond and peppermint extract.
They came out fantastic this year – we read directions better and tips to ensure we got cookie just right. And last year we made butter for our 3rd cookie we did a sugar cookie recipe and did
1/2 like a thumbprint jelly cookie with snickers jelly’s and 1/2 with simple sprinkles. This year we did the sugar cookies 1/2 sprinkles and 1/2 with red m & m in middle as Rudolph’s nose and chocolate chips as his eyes and broke twisted pretzels as antlers for the ears. the cookies really taste so much better from scratch and it’s a nice feelin you made something that came out really good and worked so hard on it.
I’m making 7 layer bars for a cookie exchange. And for my dad a good friend’s Monster cookies. He loves them. And a batch of oatmeal half with raisins half with out for some very special couple in our lives. And of course chocolate covered cherries. I’d get in trouble if I didn’t
I’m not much of a baker. I always make Toll House cookies though and they are delicious. Made them all through the years as my daughter was growing up. For the past 10 years we have lived on opposite coasts. Let me tell you, these ship well !! I now live near her, so can give them in person ! Cookies ship well packed in a tin or other lidded container. I would fill with cookies, placing cling wrap every few layers. I would then scrunch up cling wrap to place on top of last layer of cookies to take up any space. Put enough in until there isn’t any movement when tin is lightly shaken. I have always admired those cookie trays people manage to put together ! The variety !! I just read Polly’s comment ! Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about ! I so admire the industrusness necessary for a feat of that magnitude ! Kudos to you ! Winter Greetings, everyone !
Not baking any cookies this year. I’m having reconstructive surgery on my right foot and I’ll be flat on my back with my foot above my heart for 10-12 weeks! By the time I am allowed to get up for the first time, it will be February. But y’all have a Merry Christmas.
I would like to have some of your wonderful cookie recipes I baked alot with my Italian grandma too and I miss that Thank you
We always bake sausage rolls and sausage balls. And for cookies we will probably just do Spritz cookies and peanut butter blossoms this year.
I always love all your recs! Made Bridget’s sugar cookies tonight and you’re right – they’re awesome! What gel food coloring do you use?
Does dividing the box like that help stop the cookies from all tasting alike? That’s the only thing I don’t like about cookie trays – they’re beautiful but the flavors start to blend. ☺️ Any tips?!