There are so many fun and unique ideas for holiday baking, and it seems to increase year after year! But if you want to keep it simple, there are some essential supplies and techniques that every holiday baker should have! Let’s discuss some holiday baking basics: tips, techniques, and supplies!
Sprinkles
Sprinkles come in so many colours and varieties, it’s such an easy addition to dessert to suit any holiday! There are also sprinkle medleys that have become popular these days (Sweetapolita is awesome for that!).
You can also get inspiration from Pinterest or other bakers and make your own medley with sprinkles you already own! It’s great to mix up colours and shapes of sprinkles. Just have fun with it!
Food Coloring
Every holiday has a typical colour scheme that most people and companies stick to. We have red and green for Christmas, pastel colours for Easter, red and pink for Mother’s Day, green for St. Patrick’s Day, and so on.
So what’s a better way to celebrate a holiday than incorporating the appropriate colours in your baking?! You can buy some gel food colouring (or liquid food colouring if you can’t find any gel), and you can add colour to cakes, cupcakes, cookies, buttercream, etc.
Don’t want to stick to the usual colours? Try researching a similar colour palette and have a more unique colour scheme that will still do the job!
Premade Cupcake Toppers
Crafting stores, like Michael’s or Hobby Lobby, are great for having supplies available for every holiday! It makes it so easy to get in the baking and decorating mood when any holiday comes around.
One great decoration is premade cupcake toppers! They may be edible and made with royal icing, or made of paper cardstock, or even plastic. All the work is done and all you need to do is decorate! Easy peasy!
There are also a lot of great ideas for simple hacks to make your own toppers with grocery items. Like making spiders with Oreos and pretzel sticks, or a snowman with marshmallows. The internet always wins!
Cookie Cutters
Along with the holiday toppers and sugar decorations, cookie cutters are also available for every season! Cookie cutter shapes in general are so abundant, anything can be a cookie cutter really – you just have to find it!
The best part: cookie cutters aren’t only for cookies! You can use them for cake and cupcake decorations, brownies, bars, and even pie crust! Cut out some shapes to create a design for a top pie crust, it’ll look so impressive!
Holiday Flavours and Treats
There are standard flavours and sweets that accompany each holiday. You have eggnog, ginger, and peppermint for Christmas, Cadbury mini eggs for Easter, pumpkin for Thanksgiving, etc etc.
Get creative by incorporating these flavours into not-so-typical desserts. Use mini eggs to decorate a cake, make pumpkin cupcakes instead of pie, or bake an eggnog pie! Try something new and you might discover a new favourite holiday treat!
We made a fall/thanksgiving treat box one year for our clients and it was filled with fall flavours – like pumpkin spice and cinnamon! You can try this idea for any holiday!
The only thing I suggest is to try not to buy too many holiday-specific ingredients! Some might not last as long and may go stale or rancid. I bought some white chocolate molding wafers but after a few months, they didn’t melt properly and seized up. Learn from my mistake! I had so much left over that went to waste! ugh!
Holiday Cake Pans
Like cookie cutters, cake pans come in different shapes as well. While there might not be as much variety, it’s still so much fun to make a cake that’s a cool shape! Even better that you don’t have to carve the cake and make the shape yourself!
You can find a star or a tree cake pan for Christmas, a bunny cake pan for Easter, or a heart cake pan for Valentine’s Day. You can maybe buy a silicone mold and make a smash box/pinata cake and fill it with holiday treats! Have fun with your holiday baking!
You can decorate a holiday cake with different colours of buttercream frosting, and fun sprinkles and sweets! Go wild!
PULL-APART CUPCAKE CAKES
If you don’t have a holiday-themed cake pan, you can always make a pull-apart cupcake cake! This type of cake is made of cupcakes (of course) but you arrange them to make any shape! Just like the wreath and spiderman cakes below!
Here are some tips for making a cupcake cake:
- Buy a big enough cake board to make your shape
- Lay out the baked cupcakes on the cake board to make your desired cake shape
- Using a pastry bag, pipe a little bit of buttercream frosting on the bottom of each cupcake (so they stick to the cake board)
- Pipe each cupcake in the desired designs and colours. You probably have to pipe the buttercream frosting wider than usual to create a seamless “cake look”
- If you want the top of the cake to be flat, smooth the piped buttercream with a warm offset spatula. You can make the spatula warm by running it under hot water
And that’s it! One of the easiest cakes to make, and it’s not even really a cake! 🙂
Holiday Baking Gifts
Once you decide which holiday desserts to make, it’s also great to use them as gifts! Make a treat box for friends, neighbours and coworkers and add some variety. They’ll appreciate that you made the effort and made them a sweet treat! Plus who doesn’t love a box full of goodies?!
Another fun gift idea is to make a jar filled with cookie mix! You don’t even have to do the baking with this one! Just layer cookie ingredients in a jar and attach some easy instructions, like add 2 eggs and 1 cup of milk and bake for 15 minutes at 350º. Keep it sweet and simple!
Sugar Spun Run has a great cookie jar mix recipe and a free downloadable gift tag!
DON’T BE AFRAID TO TRY NEW HOLIDAY BAKING RECIPES
Pinterest is so great for bringing you new ideas for anything; baking, cookie, DIY, decorating, EVERYTHING! There are so many ideas for holiday baking. Like Christmas chocolate bark or a Valentine’s Day pinata cake! In fact, we made a whole post about Valentine’s Day baking!
My best advice for holiday baking? Have fun with it! The more fun, the better! It’s all about being creative and whimsical, you can’t go wrong! Plus, it’s a great activity for the family 🙂
Happy holiday baking!
Mich
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