Christmas baking pans

I took a different approach to my Christmas baking this year. Instead of scrambling to make something the day I needed it, I spent the better part of a day baking pan after pan of cookies and cakes and then froze them for later. 


So on the chosen morning, I pulled out several of my Christmas-themed baking pans and matched them up with the cake and cookie mixes I wanted to use. You'll see I have two silicon pans - the green Christmas trees and the red snowflakes - and several nonstick pans - the holly wreath, snowmen, mittens, penguins, Santas and miniature spoons.


I started with my mini bundt pan, which I found for a dollar at the local thrift shop. Click here to see how I decorated them.


For our church's cookie exchange, I made salted caramel spoons dipped in chocolate. (More on that tomorrow.)


And I put together my favorite of all, the holly wreath. This stack is two packages of snickerdoodle cookie mix. The pan is shallow enough that they come out all sugary and crispy, just the way I like them.


A good rule of thumb is to fill the pan 2/3 of the way full so they don't ooze out the top and lose their shape.


The takes on the shape of whatever it's pressed into, so you can see the veins of the leaves and the round berries on one end.


A little bit of icing on the top layer and you have a beautiful wreath of cookies. I only decorated the top layer, knowing full well that any layers underneath would just smear when they were stacked.

Having them frozen and on hand makes it easy to pull them out and have them ready to decorate without rushing. The girls in our teen Bible study are going to decorate the snowflakes this weekend for Sunday's fellowship, and I plan to make up some for friends in the upcoming days before Christmas.

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