Making Christmas cookies – quality home baking recipes

It takes baking know-how and quality bakeware to be the best host at Christmas. Show off your home baking skills this Christmas with these easy-to-follow cookie tips.

When most people bake Christmas cookies, the biggest mistake they make is creating different sized ones on the same bakeware tray.

This means they are ready at different times. People also leave them on the bakeware tray too long and they over bake.

The most effective way to ensure they are equal sizes is to use a cookie or ice cream scoop. However, no oven gives off even heat front to back.

Therefore, reversing your bakeware might be advisable part way through your cookie home baking.

Your oven temperature depends on the sort of cookie you are making. If you are making a thick cookie, you need to bake it at a high temperature, but too high can mean the outside will burn on your bakeware before the inside is cooked.

A low temperature is required if you have honey inside your cookie. Remember that unbleached flour burns faster than bleached.

Bleached flour is tender and works best for most cookies because it destroys some of the protein.

With butter cookies, however, a higher temperature will help them keep shape.

Butter is perfect for home baking at Christmas because it carries the flavour of other ingredients.

Using waxed paper tends to crinkle, which is why the best option is to use high-quality non-stick bakeware and baking supplies.

Flat trays keep cookies, crisp and even and it is advisable to invest in good baking equipment for that reason.

If you do not own non-stick bakeware using a lot of butter in your cookies will stop them sticking.

A great fact about cookie dough is that you can freeze it. Cookie dough is quite forgiving.

Ambitious home baking

If you are ambitious with your home baking and bakeware set, you can use vanilla extract, to make your cookies more flavoursome.

But it all depends on which type of vanilla you use. Too much vanilla will make for a bitter taste. Vanilla beans have a more intense flavour.

In small amounts you wouldn't notice the bitterness with vanilla extract, but if you start increasing it, you run into trouble.

It is a good idea to have your butter cool because you will likely get a much more flaky consistency – like a piecrust.

Cold butter doesn’t mix very well and won't blend easily using any baking equipment. If you melt your butter, you will get a better crunchier topping.

A fantastic Christmas cookie for home baking is the rugelach. They are rolled like little croissants.

They are not too hard to make if you add more flour and use good baking equipment.

They have walnuts, cinnamon and raisins in any texture you want. They taste fantastic owing to the creative combination of raisins and cream cheese.

To keep your cookies from breaking, use high quality packing material and baking supplies.

If you are planning to distribute your cookies, make them with a long shelf life – such as using dried fruit or ginger.

This is because ginger is a natural preservative. Unrefrigerated butter and eggs will shorten the shelf life dramatically.

If you are attempting to make your cookies more aesthetically pleasing, use egg yolk and food colouring when you bake it - it gets brighter and glossy.

Remember that eating raw cookie dough can be dangerous when you are making it with your baking equipment. Therefore, it is important to use pasteurised eggs.

For more home baking tips, or for information on bakeware, baking equipment or baking supplies, visit http://www.george-wilkinson.com.