129 christmas baking recipes

Christmas cinnamon ornaments made from applesauce, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger. No-bake scented ornaments air-dried into holiday decorations. Not for eating.

Polish baked apples in red wine, jablka na winie czerwonym, fills cored apples with jam and bakes them in spiced wine syrup. A classic Polish Christmas dessert served chilled.

No-bake marshmallow candy balls with ground candied cherries and blanched almonds rolled in shredded coconut. A vintage Christmas-tin confection that's chewy, sweet, and oven-free.

A lattice-topped mincemeat tart for Christmas: spiced fruit mincemeat baked in a crisp butter-and-lard shortcrust under a delicate woven lattice, dusted with icing sugar. One big tart instead of fiddly individual pies.

Greek Christmas bread (Christopsomo) with cardamom, golden raisins, walnuts, and whole wheat flour. A fragrant, round holiday loaf shaped by hand and baked golden.

Jansson's Temptation (Janssons Frestelse), a classic Swedish potato and anchovy gratin baked in cream with soft onions and breadcrumbs. A traditional Christmas side dish.

No-bake peanut butter snowballs with chopped dates and walnuts, dipped in icing and rolled in coconut. Christmas cookie tin classic. No oven, kids love them.

Tiny green sugar cookie balls arranged in rings with candied cherry "berries" to make festive Christmas wreath cookies. A fun, easy holiday baking project for kids.

Santa sandwich cookies are slice-and-bake oat shortbread rounds sandwiched with tinted vanilla frosting and rolled in holiday sprinkles. A festive Christmas icebox cookie, fun to decorate.

Buche de Marrons au Chocolat, a French chestnut and chocolate log (no-bake variation of buche de Noel) with Calvados, wrapped in whipped cream bark and garnished with candied violets. A show-stopping Christmas dessert.

Spiced Christmas ornaments mix cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and cloves with applesauce into a fragrant no-bake dough rolled and cut into holiday shapes. A homemade craft that scents the tree for years.

Chocolate peppermint pinwheel cookies swirl cocoa-rich chocolate dough with crushed peppermint candy dough into a spiral slice-and-bake Christmas cookie. A holiday tin classic with bracing mint and deep chocolate.

Yule log cake (buche de Noel) is the classic French rolled sponge cake for Christmas, made from a delicate whole-egg genoise baked thin, filled, rolled, and decorated to look like a wintry wooden log.

Cinnamon, clove and nutmeg ornaments are fragrant homemade holiday decorations, not edible: a no-bake dough of warm spices and applesauce, cut into shapes, air-dried, and hung to scent your home with Christmas spice.

Peanut butter cup cookies: soft peanut butter cookie dough baked in mini muffin tins, with a whole mini peanut butter cup pressed into each one straight out of the oven. A melt-in-the-middle Christmas favorite.

Cornish game hens stewed in fruit and sugar -- I originally got this recipe from the Sunday magazine of the local paper. I served it last year for Christmas dinner, and it's very good. What's more, this recipe is easy: you just put everything in a bowl, marinate overnight, then bake until done!