How to Organize Your Holiday Cookie Baking Tradition

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To bake this massive amount of cookies on the same day takes a lot of planning. So, this post is about how we can bake cookies more efficiently without spending extra money on overbuying ingredients and how we can reduce our time making them. I hope these holiday cookie-baking tips help first-time cookie-bakers and anyone who wants to bake lots of cookies all at once. Let's begin.

Jump to:

Our story
What ingredients do you need to track?
Decide what cookies you want to make.
Decide on the number of recipes to make
Go through each recipe and add all the ingredients and how much is needed.
Now, go shopping for ingredients.
Schedule the Cookie Baking Tradition
Organize the ingredients and measure out what you need.
Decide on the recipes to do first, second, and third
Start baking one recipe at a time.

Our story

Last weekend, we spent almost the entire weekend baking...cookies. Yes, cookies. We like to give them out as holiday gifts to family and friends. Our kids' friends and teachers love them, too. We usually do about six to eight different types of cookies each year. These many different types of cookies are just right for us to place a variety in every container and platter (Affiliate Link) we set up for this busy holiday season. We have been making cookies each year since my husband and I got married almost 25 years ago. Wow, it has been a long time. Feel free to visit our Cookie Recipes; you can make them for your future cookie swap events.

What ingredients do you need to track?

Many ingredients are similar in cookie recipes. Below are the ones I found I could easily track on my cooking ingredient master grocery list.

Dried Ingredients

Below is the list of dry ingredients, which are usually mixed together separately from the wet ingredients. If the recipe recommends a smoother cookie, they may also be sifted.

Flour - Gluten Free, All purpose
Sugar - White
Brown Sugar (Affiliate Link)
Confectioner Sugar
Salt - Iodized or Kosher
Baking Soda
Cream of Tartar
Cocoa
Ground Cinnamon (Affiliate Link)
Ground Cloves
Ground Ginger
Whole Nutmeg
Instant Espresso powder

Wet Ingredients

Below is a list of the wet ingredients that are usually mixed and beaten first before adding the dry ingredients.

Eggs
Butter
Margaine
Shortening
Milk
Vanilla
Almond Extract
Heavy Cream
Cream Cheese
Molasses

Add-on Ingredients

Everything else your recipe calls for is the add-on ingredients. Below is a list of the possible options.

Chocolate morsels
Nuts - pecans, hazelnuts, peanuts, almonds
Peanut butter morsels
Caramel
Butterscotch
Currents
Peppermint Candy (Affiliate Link)
Fruit Jam

Now that you know the list of ingredients that could be in your recipes, I will walk you through the steps we took.

Decide what cookies you want to make.

A week before, I pulled out the recipes we reuse each year and the new ones we found. We usually make a few new types of cookies each year to change them up a bit.

Tip: Have a holiday binder with all your reused holiday cookies and entertaining recipes for safekeeping. I use binder pockets to help keep them organized, similar to the ones I found below.

Binder Pocket, 10 Pack Super Heavyweight Poly Binder Pocket with Hook and Loop Fasteners Closure, Binder Folders Side Loading,

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Binder: Red 1 Inch Binders 3 Ring Glitter Binders Fashion View Binder

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(Affiliate Link)

Decide on the number of recipes to make

We usually made the basics and then had one or two new recipes for that year. This will determine how long the cookie-baking tradition will take.

Go through each recipe and add all the ingredients and how much is needed.

Then, I gather the recipes together. I write the recipe name at the top and then go down the column to include the quantities I need for that recipe. I continue to do this until I am finished all the recipes. The "Master Holiday Cookies Shopping List" checklist (Affiliate Link) helps me a lot. I created it after realizing it was so overwhelming to gather the quantities I needed together on a piece of paper. I then add the totals in the Total Needed column for each ingredient.

Note: I have included all the essential ingredients for cookies on the checklist (Affiliate Link) and added extra rows so you can customize this list to your needs.

Master Holiday Cookie Shopping List 2023

Get a free copy of this printable and all our ebooks to help you get organized!

Now, go shopping for ingredients.

But wait! Before I go shopping, I go through my coupons and see if there are any coupons that I can use. This year, I found lots of coupons to use, so I saved big. I usually shop a few days before the baking cookie frenzy. If you really like to plan ahead, grocery stores like to put baking items on sale at the end of October. So, shopping early for chocolate chips, flour, sugar, etc... will be even more affordable.

Making a schedule on which weekend works for baking is key (Affiliate Link) to a successful cookie-baking holiday tradition. I like to schedule it before any family activities but after Thanksgiving. Usually, it would take a full weekend to make as many cookies as we make. In other years, we only made four cookie recipes, which we could do in one day.

I usually ask everyone who wants to participate what day works for them by giving them a few weekend date options.

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Organize the ingredients and measure out what you need.

On the day of the cookie baking tradition, I put all the purchased ingredients in one place on the counter, usually near my baking zone, which holds my flour, sugar, and other essential parts for baking. I also pulled out the baking tools I use as well and got the organizing.

The baking sheets (Affiliate Link) and cooking racks were near the range for easy access.

The blender was in another area with all the wet, dry, and add-on ingredients. Usually, it was in the far corner of my kitchen, so it wasn't near the range. It is too congested near my range.

Decide on the recipes to do first, second, and third

Now, it is time to plan out the order of recipes. I usually like to review the instructions for each recipe by determining which recipe is most straightforward to begin, what recipe needs refrigeration before finishing, and what recipe can be done quickly. As I go through the recipes, an order usually emerges to make the process more efficient.

If you have kids or teens involved, you can also assign what kid is doing what cookie now. We make Pizzelles every year. This recipe uses an electric iron, so one of my kids can stay near the Pizzelle iron and work with this batch of cookies in another area, so it doesn't interfere with my other cookie-baking activities in the kitchen.

Start baking one recipe at a time.

As the baking day arrived, I started with the refrigerator cookies we made so they could get cold. Then, I moved on to the homemade Pizzelles my son worked on for hours. After getting him started, I worked through each recipe individually.

Tip: When you do marathon cooking, know you will not want to cook dinner after you are done. I like to order a pizza or go out to eat during marathon cooking.

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That's it! Here is a photo of one of our holiday cookie-baking traditions.

Please visit our kitchen organization or pantry organization posts for more inspiration.

If you want to know the names of the recipes or the ingredients, please leave a message below. Above all else, have an enjoyable experience baking cookies and spending time with family. I know we sure did.