Favorite Christmas Recipes

To our kids-
It's Christmas baking day!  (again!)
I don't know what you'll remember about Christmas in our home.
Maybe the smell of sweet treats baking?
There are some things that you want to make every year- gingerbread and pretzel treats and our birthday cake for Jesus.
And some things that I want to make- lemon cranberry bread and Christmas cookies.  Just in case you are looking at a blog book twenty years from now and wishing for some recipes, here they are!

 
Pretzel Treats

Warm your oven to around 200 degrees.

Lay out pretzels on a baking sheet.

Unwrap Hershey Hugs and put one on each pretzel.

Bake in the oven for 2-3 minutes or until the chocolate is beginning to melt.

Remove from oven and immediately press an M&M (or two) on top of the melting chocolate.

Let them sit until the chocolate has hardened, usually several hours.

Mom's (Mimi's) Christmas Cookies

1 pound chopped dates

1/2 jar chopped cherries

1/4 pound walnuts/pecans

2 eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 sticks butter

2 1/2 cup flour

1 t. baking soda

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Cream sugar and butter.  Add eggs. Mix well.

Mix the dry ingredients and mix in a little at a time to the sugar/butter mixture.

Stir in the dates, cherries, and nuts.

Bake at 350 for 8-12 minutes.

*We have a nut allergy in our house so no nuts at all in our cookies.

 

Cranberry Lemon Loaf

 Beat until well blended:

1 8oz. block of cream cheese

1/3 cup softened butter

1 1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla (we used 2)

Add three eggs, one at a time.

Stir in 2 Tblsp lemon juice

1 tsp lemon peel

Toss together:

1 1/2 cup chopped cranberries

2 1/4 cup flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Add cream cheese mixture to flour/cranberry mixture until moistened.

Pour into greased and floured bread pan.

Bake at 325 for 1 hour, 15 minutes.

                             (We used mini-loaf pans and baked at 350 for around 30 minutes.)

Finally is our Christmas morning birthday cake for Jesus.  I don't have a picture but we make this each year.  Delicious!

Grandma's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup oil (scant)

1/4 tsp salt

3 rounded tsps brown sugar

2 rounded tsps cinnamon

4 eggs

Grease and flour tube pan.

Mix first seven ingredients with the blender well.

Add eggs one at a time.  Beat well after each one.

Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes in tube pan. 

Glaze while still hot with 1/2 cup sifted confectioner sugar and 1 tablespoon warm water.