Sweet Treats for the Season

The sweet scents of the season - spicy gingersnaps, fudgy brownies, citrus-flavored sugar cookies, yeasty coffee cakes and breads - conjure up wonderful memories of Christmases past. We asked some of our Penzeys vanilla customers to share their favorite holiday baking recipes with us. Enjoy!

Susie Castleberry

"We're the Castleberry family, there are ten of us, and we live on a farm in northern Wisconsin near Poplar," writes Susie Castleberry. "We make all of our own baked goods, including our breads. And when it comes to the holidays, the girls (daughters Jeannie, Katie and Betsy) and I do a lot of extra baking. The house smells so good when we all bake, but the most fun of all is the decorating…and the messiest part, too.

"Everyone sits around the table and helps decorate the cookies, so there is icing dripping out of plastic bags and crumbs everywhere, but it's the happy memories that will last and be most important. One of our favorite family Christmas traditions is going caroling to the homes of widows and elderly people who live near us. We bake huge batches of gingerbread men and make dozens of sugar cookies and gingersnaps to give away to these older friends.

"For many years, another large homeschooled family lived next door to us, with kids about the same ages as ours. It became a tradition for them to gather at one of the two homes each year to decorate the gingerbread men together. It always made a sticky mess on the table and floor, but it also made lovely memories of happy laughter," says Susie, who shares the recipes for her Sugar Cookies, Gingersnaps and Gingerbread Men here.

"Another fun tradition is choosing a Christmas tree from the woods on our property. My husband Steve and some of the kids drag the tree across the snowy field to the house, while others inside are busy finding the ornaments, baking cookies, and making a hot fruit punch - what a wonderful fragrance that is, mixing with the scent of fresh-cut balsam or spruce!"

Susie also cherishes moments when the family celebrates St. Lucia's Day, a Scandinavian holiday that is observed as a feast day for St. Lucy.

"Our St. Lucia's Day breakfast consists of homemade venison sausage, scrambled eggs, applesauce, granola, Swedish Kringle and hot chocolate," says Susie. "We aren't Lutheran, but my oldest daughter Jeannie read about this tradition years ago, and the girls have been treating us to the celebration every December for nearly ten years now. Our three girls dress in white dresses with red sashes, and braid their hair with red ribbons. The night before St. Lucia's Day, they decorate the table with spruce and balsam branches, lovely china, crystal, and silverware, and place red candles on the table. The morning of St. Lucia's Day, the girls come into our bedrooms singing a Swedish hymn and carrying candles to wake us up. It's a lovely way to start the day."

Menu:
Susie Castleberry
Gingerbread Men
Gingersnaps
Sugar Cookies