Holiday baking with kids; a festive cookies and treats feast

The holidays are around the corner. My kids’ vacation is about to start. I am reading to bake with them! Are you into holiday baking with your kids? I have bundled all my recipes in this blog post; holiday baking with kids; a festive cookies and treats feast.

You will find everything from Christmas granola and chocolate to the ultimate Christmas cookies box filled with all types of cookies. All these recipes are on the healthier side, easy to make (with kids) and they will put a smile on your face. Happy holiday baking!

Here’s a list of all my festive holiday baking recipes:

Cookies

1. Owl cookies
2. Surfing gingerbread men
3. Ugly sweater cookies
4. Gingerbread village
5. Gingerbread house cookies filled with almond paste
6. Shortbread Christmas tree cookies
7. Dutch gingerbread cookies AKA speculaas

Treats

1. Holiday donuts
2. Mini cinnamon rolls with orange cream cheese frosting
3. Festive chocolate bark
4. Dutch Christmas bread

Owl cookies

The perfect bake-with-your-kids cookies; they are easy to make, healthyish and great to occupy your kids with for a while.

Surfing gingerbread men

The coolest-dude-around cookies! I had so much fun making these surfing gingerbread men cookies with my kids. We used a cookie cutter for the gingerbread men, but got creative and crafty when we made the surfboards. We cut out surfboard from regular paper, placed them on the dough and traced them. Same for the Santa hats.

After we baked the gingerbread men cookies, we used different colors of icing to give them all fun boardshorts! These cookies are far from perfect (as you can see), but it is all about having fun together! My kids iced most of these cookies theirselves. It can be a bit challenging, but practice makes (almost) perfect!

Have you spotted the surfer wearing camo boardshorts? And surfing Santa with a big heart?

Ugly sweater cookies

Another cookie with icing (same recipe as the surfing gingerbread men though)! Let your imagination run wild while coming up with your ugly sweater design! This is the perfect cookie to decorate when you are kids over on a (cookie-decorating) play-date. I usually make sure there is a pile of cookies ready (can be these sweaters, but any other holiday inspired cookie cutter will do the trick), different colors of icing already in piping bags and a big plastic table cloth on the table (because things can get messy)… then the kids are allowed in!

Some tips for success:

• A large size cookie works the best. This way the kids will have space to add details;
• Don’t have (enough) piping bags? Use ziplock bags to put the icing in and cut off just the very tip. A thin stream of icing is best! This does mean you have to make sure you sift your powdered sugar very well to avoid lumps (so these lumps won’t clog your piping bag);
• Make sure your icing is not too thin. Otherwise the icing will run of your cookie;
• Outline your cookies first and then fill them in/flood them;
• Let 1 color dry first before adding another color, otherwise the colors will mix/bleed.

Gingerbread village

I have to admit something. Even though I love baking and I have this food blog, baking layered cakes, piping detailed holiday cookies and putting together a gingerbread house (without it collapsing) is not my forte. I am not very detail-oriented and I don’t have a lot of patience either, so I try to stay away from delicate, detailed baking. So I have come up with this gingerbread village snow globe!

No icing needed; the gingerbread cookies are dusted with confectioner’s sugar to create a snow effect. No gluing the sides of the gingerbread house together; you just stick the individual houses in the ‘snow’. SWOON!

Gingerbread house cookies filled with almond paste

These filled cookies are a Dutch tradition. Not necessarily for the holidays, but I made them holiday worthy! Soft gingerbread cookies filled with an almond citrus paste.

The dough for the cookies comes together really easy and quick. I roll it out between two pieces of parchment paper until the dough is about ½ cm/ ⅓ inch thick. For better handling I place the dough (still between the parchment paper) on a baking tray and slide it in the freezer for about 5-10 minutes. That chills the dough enough to be able to cut out houses from the dough. Use a cookie cutter or, as I did, draw a house on paper, cut it out then place it on top of the dough and trace it with a knife (a bit more work, but it gets the job done).

Now either place it back in the freezer again or, if your dough is still cold enough, cut out the windows (stars or hearts or just make a cross with a knife) and cut out doors from the leftover dough and place them on top of the cookies/houses and add a doorknob. Only do this on half of your houses (the other half will be the backside of your cookies so make sure you have an even amount of cookies).

Check if your dough is still cold enough, if not, place it back in the freezer for 5 minutes. Now add a tsp of almond citrus paste on the cookies without cut-outs and spread it out a little bit with your finger. Place the cut out cookies on top of the cookies with almond paste and seal them by using a fork. Now the cookies are ready to be baked. For a step-by-step video tutorial click here.

Shortbread Christmas tree cookies

These Christmas tree shortbread cookies are airy and light, so easy to make and lots of fun to bake with kids. Mine love dipping them in melted chocolate and adding sprinkles to them.

Dutch gingerbread cookies AKA speculaas

Speculaas is an iconic Dutch holiday cookie. Even though it is traditionally a ‘holiday cookie’, it is actually eaten year around (probably because it is so delicious). It is a crispy cookie spiced with speculaas spice, similar to gingerbread cookies. Curious about all my holiday spice blends I use for baking and the difference between the blends? You will find them all here.

Speculaas comes in different forms. It can be formed into cookies made with a cookie cutter or a special mold. The dough can be rolled out on a piece of parchment paper, baked and, when cooled off, broken up in chunks. Or you can roll marble sized balls from the dough and bake them until crispy and crunchy. When they are shaped like this, they are called ‘pepernoten’ and are eaten around the Dutch holiday of Sinterklaas.

Holiday donuts

Who doesn’t like a good fried donut? Not the healthiest, but it’s the holidays! You can go as easy or elaborate as you want here. EASY? Buy simple donuts and festive sprinkles, make green and red glaze and glaze your store bought donuts with your kids and add sprinkles!

I don’t have a recipe for donuts on my website. I make them on rare occasions though and I always use this recipe from Sally’s baking addiction. Her donut recipe is the best in my opinion.

Using Sally’s glaze recipe as well, I divide the glaze in two batches and add green gel food coloring to one batch and red to the other. Because I want to make sure my glaze is thick enough so it is not transparent when I glaze the donuts, I use heavy cream in stead of milk. This way my holiday donuts shine bright! After glazing, I decorate them straight away with festive holiday sprinkles.

Mini cinnamon rolls with orange cream cheese frosting

I am all about quick and easy recipes, especially when it comes to baking. If it takes too long I am often times reluctant to make it. Same for cinnamon rolls: Why does one make cinnamon rolls? They’re complicated, difficult and time consuming. That’s why. But not these. For the love of healthy and easy treats, I have come up with these quick and healthy mini cinnamon rolls! Orange cream cheese frosting recipe included!

Festive chocolate bark

This chocolate bark recipe is SO easy to make and you will probably have all of the ingredients in your pantry already. The recipe is adjustable so add-in whatever you feel like.

Here is a list to give you some inspiration on different add-ins for your chocolate bark.

• Nuts; almonds, pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, cashews, macadamias or peanuts;
• Seeds; pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds or even chia;
• Dried fruits; cranberries, raisins, apricots, blueberries, cherries or even mango;
• Coconut; dried unsweetened coconut flakes or shredded coconut, coconut chips/shavings;
• Candied citrus, cacao nibs, candy canes, pretzels, popcorn, and so on..
• Spices; chili powder, cinnamon, ginger bread spices (don’t go overboard on this… maybe 1/4 tsp?);
• Make it festive with chopped up candy canes, glitter and sprinkles! Oh and mini marshmellows!

Dutch Christmas bread

If there is one thing each year I look forward to around Christmas time, it is Christmas bread – Dutch nuts and dried fruit bread with an almond paste stuffing.

Dutch Christmas bread AKA ‘kerststol’ is an iconic Dutch holiday bread that dates back to the 13th century. It has a sweet almond paste filling and is packed with nuts, dried fruit and often candied citrus peel (called succade). It is mostly found on a Christmas morning’s breakfast table.

This bread requires some work (well actually mostly waiting) so take your time to make this. My kids always help me kneading and rolling out the dough and adding the almond citrus paste filling to the bread; they call it: ‘putting the secret inside the bread’. And even though it takes some time to make, IT IS SO WORTH MAKING IT! I can’t imagine Christmas morning’s breakfast without it.

And what better way than to end your baking day creating a Christmas cookie box with all you baked goods? >>>

DID YOU MAKE ANY OF THESE RECIPES?

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