The holiday season brings a festive spirit and with it comes the desire to do it all! Shop, decorate, be merry, and make the holiday season perfect for our families. Oh, and don’t forget to bake dozens of holiday cookies for family and friends! Sometimes the Christmas to-do list is enough to make you say “Bah humbug!” As fun as holiday baking can be, many parents just don’t get around to cookie-making amid the holiday hustle-bustle.

What if you had a few strategies to make it easier to bake holiday cookies with your kids? To get some pro-tips, we asked Claire Guarino, owner and chef at HomeCooked, a wholesome, prepared food shop in Paoli. Here are her recommendations to make baking cookies with your kids easy and fun — for you, too!

Know Your Holiday Cookie Recipe Start to Finish

Be sure to read your recipe completely, ideally before holiday cookie baking day! Many cookie recipes require making a dough and then letting it chill in the fridge before baking. While that’s a universally good idea when it comes to cookie baking, some recipes absolutely require it. Dough can stay in the fridge for up to a week or in the freezer for up to 2 months before baking.

Gather Your Ingredients

Pull out ALL your ingredients for your holiday cookie recipe before you start. You don’t want to get half way in and realize that you’re out of eggs, baking soda, or another essential ingredient!

Prep Like the Pros

If you’re baking holiday cookies with young kids (under age 7), pre-measure all the ingredients in small bowls, like they do on cooking show demonstrations! That way they can help add each ingredient to the mixing bowl and you know the amounts are correct.

Better Butter Technique

Let your butter sit out on the counter and come to room temperature for at least an hour before you start baking cookies. If it’s really cold you can soften in the microwave for 15 second intervals at 30% power, but you do not want it to melt or you’ll have flat cookies! Next, cut your butter into smaller hunks when adding it to the mixing bowl, rather than adding the whole stick at once. This way, the butter will incorporate more easily.

Spoon and Level Your Flour

When measuring your flour, use a large spoon to fill the measuring cups, then level them off with a butter knife so you don’t add too much flour. Extra flour results in cookies that may be dry and they don’t spread nicely when baking.

Parchment Paper Please

Bake your cookies on parchment paper. The cookies will bake more evenly, there’s less clean up and virtually no chance of the cookies sticking. It’s really worth the $5. Target or any grocery store will carry it. However, do not confuse parchment paper with wax paper — that’s different and not to be used in the oven.

Keep A Watchful Eye

Monitor your cookies while they bake. Ovens sometimes have hot spots, which are warmer areas where the cookies will bake faster than in other spots. If that’s the case, rotate your pans 180 degrees half way through baking time. Additionally, some ovens bake faster or the oven’s temperature isn’t exact, so your cookies may bake faster or slower than the recipe says.

Go Straight to the Dough?

Need a shortcut for your holiday cookie baking? Don’t feel guilty about using cookie mixes, store bought doughs, or pre-scooped cookie dough from HomeCooked or elsewhere. Embrace them and the ease they provide! If your kids really want to make a certain cookie from scratch, go with that one and then supplement your assortment with other quicker cookie-making options. After all, there’s only so much time and so much to do at this time of year!

Comfort and Joy — and Cookies!

With a little pre-planning and preparation — and perhaps the help of a shortcut like pre-made dough — you can carve out the right amount of time for holiday cookie baking with your kids. So cue up the Christmas carols and get ready for a yummy and festive family experience!

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Lead photograph courtesy of Nathan J. Hilton via Pexels.