Michelle Miles: Christmas Goodies

I love to bake, especially around Christmas. I like making special treats and then packaging them up and giving them away (much to the dismay of my husband – who loves the treats as much as I do. But hey, if I didn’t give them away, we’d be 300 pounds!). Anyway…this year I decided I was going to be proactive and start baking ahead of time. That way I wouldn’t kill myself the week before Christmas trying to get it all done.

I’d been reading up on how to freeze cookie dough and baked cookies. I had no idea it could be done. But I discovered that most cookie dough can be frozen for up to 3 months before baking. Cookie dough that freezes well: chocolate chip, sugar, peanut butter. I also have this recipe for chocolate crackle cookies. You have to refrigerate the dough for a certain amount of time before baking. I ran out of time that day and ended up freezing the dough. I made the cookies the following weekend then froze the cookies in Ziploc containers. You put wax paper between each layer and it’s wonderful and beautiful.

So far I’ve made about 6 dozen cookies. I also made these wonderful pecan cranberry tassies. Four dozen of them. They came out SUPER good. Since I made them ahead of time, I was able to freeze them too. Next I’m making sugar cookies and cranberry walnut oatmeal cookies. I’ll make those fresh, though, and then package them all up.

By the time I’m finished, I will have made about 12 dozen cookies plus the 4 dozen tassies. I’m also going to make and freeze mini New York Cheesecakes. This is an experiment as I’ve never tried it before. I found these mini graham cracker crusts, though, that I’m dying to try. I hope they come out. I’m going to get some strawberries and slice them to put on top. And yes, those will most likely be gifts too (don’t worry, honey, I’ll save you one).

I’ve found that baking and giving treats as gifts are always well-received. It’s a personal, thoughtful gift.

What about you? Do you enjoy giving (and getting) baked goods for Christmas?