Holiday Baking Pans

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If you have read my blog before, you know that I love to bake, and never more so than at Christmas time. As I have said before, baking and my brain are really simpatico. Unlike cooking, where you can be more feral with your ingredients, baking is an exact science. If the recipe calls for one cup of something, that is exactly what you put in. My brain is very structure oriented so baking just fits me like a glove. I love making special creations during the holidays, so I want to show you my collection of holiday baking pans.

To say I have a lot might be an understatement. 🙂 Last year my daughter and one of her friends went Christmas shopping for me at Williams-Sonoma and were looking at the baking pans. Her friend kept holding different ones up as suggested gifts. My daughter kept saying, “She has that one already.” “Already got it.” “Got it.” “Nope. Already has that one.” So, yeah. I may have a few. 🙂

Here are some of my favorites:

You can’t miss with a Santa’s Sleigh Loaf Pan.

And who can resist happy little gingerbread men?

I love this Christmas village. Bake up little chocolate houses and dust with powdered sugar for a snow-covered hamlet.

I use this Christmas tree bundt pan often during the holidays. Again, bake a chocolate cake and dust with powdered sugar. I take this one to many holiday parties. See the little train running around the bottom of the forest? Love that. 🙂

If I need to make a bunch of gingerbread men, I use this

Gingerbread Cookie Pan.

 

This mini bundt pan probably gets more use than any other baking pan I have. It isn’t specifically Christmas, but we have used it over and again for Christmas gifts. I can bake six at a time and they are perfect little teacher gifts. If my daughter wanted last minute gifts when she was in school, this was the go-to pan. We would bake little chocolate cakes and dust them with powdered sugar, then wrap them in lovely cellophane bags with a festive Christmas ribbon. It doesn’t get any easier than that. And who would turn down their own personal size chocolate cake? 🙂 I love this pan because the little cakes are so architectural and you can’t even really appreciate that until you dust them with the powdered sugar. They are really beautiful. If you can’t find this metal pan, you can purchase a
silicone version.

 

This one isn’t necessarily Christmas either, but I have used this sandwich cookie cake pan set many times to take to parties. Chocolate cake baked in each half of the pan, with a delicious vanilla frosting in between the layers. It looks like a giant handmade Oreo! Again, who could walk away from that? No one that I’d be associated with. 🙂

 

This pan makes an absolutely lovely and elegant dessert. It is fluted so you could bake up a cake in the flavor of your choice, spread a layer of whipped cream and top with strawberries or raspberries for a festive holiday cake. The sides of the cake look like ladyfingers.

 

This Baker’s Edge pan can be used all year long and is for all of us “edge lovers” out there. If you ask my dad if he wants a piece of cake he always answers, “I’ll take a corner.” Even if the cake is round. 🙂 So this pan is the answer for all of us that love a crispy edge. I use it to make brownies all the time. Everyone gets an edge with this ingenious pan. It works great for cakes too.

 

Don’t be intimidated by holiday baking. If you can read and follow instructions, you can bake. 🙂 A great place to start with cakes you can make with these pans is with one of my favorite cookbook series, The Cake Mix Doctor. She starts with cake mixes and then adds just a few ingredients to show you how to make cakes that taste like they are made from scratch. I have had people beg me for the recipe for some of the cakes I’ve made using her books. Of course, I have a reputation to protect, so I have to politely tell them that it is a family secret. (I have caved a couple of times and given the recipe to a few people who were moving out of state. I figure my secret is safe across state lines.)  🙂 But now the cat’s out of the bag.

There is The Cake Mix Doctor, which is a compilation of many different flavored cake recipes.

Then there is Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor, which is full of chocolate cake recipes. This one gets a LOT of use in our house, as we consider chocolate to be the food of the gods.

There’s even a gluten-free version with The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free.

So there’s nothing stopping you from making some fabulous Christmas creations with these cookbooks and your own holiday baking pans. Get crackin! 🙂

Let me know in the comment section if you have whipped up some goodies for the holidays!

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