I could not be more excited — my 2020 holiday baking list is here!
2020 has been one of the strangest years, but baking for friends and family remains a comforting tradition I cherish. This ritual began with my grandma and has continued ever since. While I may scale back some things this year or make fewer boxes, I still plan to bake many of our favorite treats. I love sharing my holiday baking list and hope it inspires your kitchen too.
Normally, Lacy and I bake several items together each season, but this year we’ll be apart for safety reasons. I’ll still make a few of the recipes we usually tackle as a team. Every year we make a buche de noel — typically a late-night project that takes longer than expected but is always worth it. We follow a favorite bon appetit recipe for that. We also always make candied citrus peels and amaretto; those are staples that I can’t resist. If I make the amaretto solo this year, most of it will be gifted to friends. We’ve been making these recipes for years and they’re a beloved part of our holiday traditions.
I also make my smoky vanilla bourbon pretzels, which are a hit as a snack gift, and a batch of caramel chipotle Chex mix to include in boxes. These savory-sweet snacks round out the assortment and are always well-received.
Below is my favorite holiday baking playlist. If you follow me on Spotify at howsweeteats, you can find additional playlists for the season.
My 2020 Holiday Baking List
Always included: the chocolate crinkle sprinkle cookies from The Pretty Dish — they are unbeatable.
Royal cookies from last year — a new favorite we still adore.
Cashew butter buckeyes and maybe traditional buckeyes too; sometimes I love them, sometimes I’m over them, but they often make the cut.
My perfect peanut butter blossoms — a longtime favorite and one I can’t get enough of.
Lemon crinkle cookies — everyone goes wild for them.
Soft snickerdoodles and chewy chai snickerdoodles — I can’t choose between the two, so I make both.
Soft gingersnaps — sometimes I make quadruple batches because we love them so much (and I’m not even a gingersnap person usually).
Old-school Oreo balls — a nostalgic classic that always appears in my boxes.
Bourbon-soaked cherry oatmeal chocolate chip cookies — I’m particularly into these this year.
Mother Lovett’s pink and green thumbprints — Christmas wouldn’t be complete without them; they’re favorites of my mom and aunt.
Mother Lovett’s orange cookies — a perennial hit that’s always appreciated.
I’ll also be testing a few new cookie recipes this month to add variety.
Perfect cut-out sugar cookies are another essential. They’re foolproof and simple; I frost them with cream cheese frosting or use a dip icing technique. For the decorated cookies in the photos, I sprayed them with edible glitter for extra sparkle.
How I Make My Cookie Box
Every year I assemble similar cookie boxes, a tradition that goes back to Mother Lovett. She used cookie tins and boxes as hostess gifts and to give to friends and family — everyone always anticipated them. I love keeping that tradition alive. While she favored tins, I’ve found good boxes at stores like Target, The Container Store and even dollar stores.
My favorite way to present a large assortment is using sugar paper gift boxes I find at Target in rectangle or round shapes. I often cut pieces of another box to create compartments for the cookies so they stay organized and look beautiful when opened.
I don’t mail these boxes; I deliver them in person to friends and family within driving distance. If you plan to mail homemade cookies, prepare for extra packaging like bubble wrap, as cookies often shift and break in transit. In my experience, mailed cookie boxes can arrive damaged, so I limit mine to local deliveries.
So tell me — what are you baking this season?