The Baking Pure & Simple Holiday Cookie Baking Marathon

Let the Marathon begin! Every year, right after Thanksgiving, while everyone else is out struggling for parking spaces at the mall or fighting over limited quantity bargain gifts, I begin my Holiday Cookie Marathon in the relative safety of my kitchen.

I spend each weekend making 3 or 4 batches of cookies, storing them in air tight plastic freezer bags in the freezer and logging my progress into a spreadsheet. Yes, I am a nerd. After 4 weekends or a few evenings a week baking a few batches of cookies I have close to 70 dozen carefully stored and frozen holiday cookies, enough for 30 or so assorted tins of 2 dozen each to give away and also plenty for several bountiful platters of cookies to share at holiday gatherings.

Now, I am sharing my method of organizing the baking over the course of a month and all the recipes I include on a regular basis in my holiday tins, as well as how I go about preparing the tins for distribution. If you love to bake and you love to share your homemade goodies with your friends and family during the holidays, then you will enjoy this guide to mastering your own holiday cookie baking marathon.

I include the Gluten-Free baking mix which can be substituted for flour in most of the recipes. Several of the recipes are naturally gluten-free and are marked as such. The Holiday Cookie Baking Marathon was originally part of my book Baking Pure & Simple, but now you can purchase this expanded version which includes shopping lists and a revised baking schedule on its own as an eBook. I hope you will enjoy getting crazy in your kitchen with the cookies!