Category: Christmas

Christmas Cookies in July

On By take2createIn Christmas, Holidays, Seasonal, Summer1 Comment

It’s Christmas in July at our house and what better way to celebrate than to bake a seasonal mash up cookie. We are combining our tradition around Christmastime (12 Days of Cookies) and a favorite summer flavor – root beer floats. This worked out perfectly! We had made a root beer float cookie back in December of 2013 so a throwback to that Christmas season was fitting. So grab an iced coffee, and if you’re like us at embracing this whole Christmas in July celebration, some Christmas music, and let’s get baking!

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Christmas Stocking Holder in July

On By take2createIn Christmas, Crafts, HolidaysLeave a comment

My love of Christmas absolutely embraces the phrase “Christmas in July”. With a new apartment a whole new opportunity for Christmas crafts opened up and I could not wait to make the first decoration any longer. I made a custom stocking for my boyfriend this last Christmas, so it was fitting that the first decoration would be a stocking hanger. I am already excited to hang this up in our cute little home this holiday season. Even though it’s a little weird to be wearing shorts while working on a Christmas craft, I loved every minute and I’m sure that this won’t be my last one this July.

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Cinnamon Roll Cookie Makeover

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

My ideal morning is waking up to a hot cup of coffee and a warm cinnamon roll. To add a new spin, these are cinnamon roll cookies that taste delicious dunked in a hot cup of coffee (tried and true!). It’s okay to have cookies for breakfast if it’s these right? One of the components to this cookie that might make it taste the most like the sweet bread is the addition of yeast to the dough mixture. It’s been a busy day of Christmas activities, so we made the dough and rolled them before throwing the logs into the refrigerator and heading off to lunch and then the Nutcracker ballet. Once we got home we sliced and baked these fun treats.

4th Day Before Christmas – Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Cinnamon Roll Cookies.jpg Continue reading “Cinnamon Roll Cookie Makeover” →

Cinnamon Chips + Cookies = A Perfect Pair

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

Has anyone ever heard of Cinnamon Chips before? I have not so this discovery is revolutionary! This cookie combines cinnamon chips and one of the most underused spices in baking (in my opinion), Cardamom. The combination of the two adds new flavor and depth to the normal snickerdoodle cookie dough recipe. Cardomom adds an additional spicy component and accentuates cinnamon when used. Is there a baking chip you have found that was amazing to you?

5th Day Before Christmas – Cinnamon Chip Chai-Spiced Snickerdoodles

Cinnamon Chip Snickerdoodles.jpg Continue reading “Cinnamon Chips + Cookies = A Perfect Pair” →

Gingerbread Love

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

Whoever created gingerbread is a genius! Thankfully for everyone on this blog, my other passion is history so I went on a quick research adventure to learn more about the spiced treat (While of course snacking on some gingerbread of my own). Although ginger originates in Asia, most of the credit to today’s popularized “gingerbread” flavors seems to be by the Europeans in the middle ages. Elizabeth I is mostly credited with decorating cookies into “gingerbread men” after having some made that resembled guests. Even better, George Washington’s mother, served gingerbread to the Marquis de Lafayette and the confection was passed down for generations in the family (I recently finished Washington by Ron Chernow so this fact made me quite excited to learn).

6th Day Before Christmas – Gingerbread SpritzGingerbread Spritz Continue reading “Gingerbread Love” →

It’s a Pie! It’s a Cookie! It’s a Pie Cookie!

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

There are so many different pies that we make at Thanksgiving! Pumpkin, Apple, but my favorite is Pecan Pie. Cold Pecan Pie is my after Thanksgiving snack, and what I have when I take a break decorating the Christmas tree. But wait, it’s not Thanksgiving, it’s almost Christmas! What are we doing talking about pies then? Well, the cookie on the 7th day before Christmas we are making pecan pie thumbprint cookies.

7th Day Before Christmas – Pecan Pie Thumbprint CookiesPecan-Pie-Thumbprint-Cookies.jpg Continue reading “It’s a Pie! It’s a Cookie! It’s a Pie Cookie!” →

Minty Fresh Christmas Cookies

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

It’s 8 days before Christmas and my dreams are in cookies. After this recipe, tonight I hope to drift off to powdered sugar capped mountains filled with giant versions of these peppermint cookies. My dad loves candy canes, but more specifically his favorite are the green and red striped peppermint ones. He says they aren’t ripe until they have both the green and red stripes (I think it might be his favorite too because they look extra festive with both bold colors). In my dreamy candy world, you can be sure that ripe candy canes grow everywhere like weeds.

8th day before Christmas – Peppermint SnowballsPeppermint Snowballs.JPG Continue reading “Minty Fresh Christmas Cookies” →

Nutty for Christmas Cookies

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

It’s the 9th day before Christmas and this is one of the ones I was looking forward to the most. Peanut butter is one of my all-time favorite flavors (perfect for anytime of the year!). I’m a day late on getting this post up and it might happen more than this once. Life always gets a little crazy, in a good way, around Christmas for me. Balancing life already and the addition of cookie making daily can be a challenge but it’s also one of the most rewarding additions to my life this time of year. Cookie making is a comfort to me. It’s a warm hug of traditions and a way of focusing on the joys of sugar instead of stress.

9th Day before Christmas – Frosted Peanut CookiesPeanut Cookies.jpg Continue reading “Nutty for Christmas Cookies” →

Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Eggnog?

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

Eggnog is an iconic flavor of the Christmas season right alongside peppermint. The nutmeg and rum taste is comforting but it can be a tricky flavor in a cookie. Most of the time it seems to bake out. With a few slight tweaks to an Eggnog Cookie recipe found in Taste of Home Magazine’s Christmas Cookie edition (pg. 45), the eggnog flavor was prominent and delicious. The cookies practically flew off the platter we brought to a Christmas party tonight!

10 Days Before Christmas – Eggnog Cookies

First of all, eggnog + cookies = delicious! The biggest burst of eggnog flavor ended up coming from our impromptu eggnog glaze. It brought out the warm nutmeg taste baked in the cookie and it added a nice decoration to our cute trees.Eggnog Cookies Continue reading “Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Eggnog?” →

Sugar Cookie Delight

On By take2createIn Christmas, Food, Holidays, WinterLeave a comment

Does anyone else get slightly nervous about decorating sugar cookies? I was worried about the cookies being perfect but after the first mistake (on the first cookie), I accepted that mine were not going to be like the ones idolized on Instagram and to enjoy the process. As soon as I put it into perspective, it was a blast! We sat with our 4 colors of royal frosting and laughed at our silly designs and sang along to Christmas songs. Who know decorating sugar cookies would lead to advice on life – enjoy the process.

11 Days Before Christmas – Sugar Cookies

This sugar cookie was new to any that we have tried before because of two main reasons, the dough contained cream cheese and we were using royal icing to decorate. We found the recipe for the dough and icing in Taste of Home Magazine’s, Christmas Cookies magazine. We ended up combining the dough of the “Best-Ever Snowman Cookies” on page 43 with the royal icing of the “Christmas Lights Cookies” on page 5. The results were delicious and a must try! Warning though, the dough requires 3 hours of chill time. We pulled the butter and cream cheese out of the refrigerator when we first woke up and made the dough right after breakfast so it was ready by noon to roll out and cook.Sugar Cookies.JPG Continue reading “Sugar Cookie Delight” →