"holiday baking" news and stories

Starting today, the countdown to Christmas really kicks off. There are gifts to buy, cards to mail and cookies to bake. When it comes to baking cookies as holiday gifts, there are two schools of thought. One says to stick with a tried-and-true recipe that you aren't likely to accidentally screw up. The other says that there is no better time to try some new recipes than when you are going to be doing a lot of baking anyway. Personally, I'm in favor of trying new recipes and there are plenty of places to find them this year. The Food Network has their 12 days of cookies newsletter, with recipes delivered via e-mail, and Cooking Light has a cookie countdown, where recipes are revealed on their site week-by-week. Allrecipes also has a special holiday baking section on their site and will post one recipe to it each day. Finally, both Bon Appetit and Gourmet have holiday cookie slideshows

And if you really feel uncomfortable giving away something you've never baked before, try making two batches so you'll have one to taste-test first!