Christmas time, for me, is filled with Christmas baking adventures. Over the years, we’ve established many traditions in our family, and there are many foods that we simply can’t not have at Christmas. So today, let me share with you all of my Christmas baked goods from this year – with recipes, if you fancy making them yourself! From the best gingerbread cookies to a spectacular Yule Log, there’s something for everyone. What a delicious and fun week it’s been!
Gingerbread cookies
Let’s start with the thing that keeps me busy for about a week prior to Christmas every year. My delicious gingerbread cookies, which I decorate with intricate designs using melted chocolate, royal icing, and sprinkles. These cookies are delicious even without any icing, and they’re simple to make. If you’d like to give them a go, check out this post for a recipe. They do grow a little during baking, but they still hold their shape quite well.
Gingerbread Christmas wreaths
I want to give an honorary mention to my favourite design of the season: Christmas wreaths, made with coloured royal icing and sprinkles (I believe these were from Waitrose, but I’ve seen similar holly-themed sprinkles in other shops too). To make these wreaths, I made two shades of green icing and piped them alternately in arrow shapes to create an illusion of twigs. Once the icing was still wet, I decorated the wreaths with sprinkles in the shapes of holly leaves and berries.
By the way – a few years ago I wrote a guide for making piping bags out of greaseproof paper. You can read it in this post! I still use this method for all cookie decorating, it’s never failed me. All you need is greaseproof paper and scissors!
Gingerbread Christmas trees
The final design I made with my gingerbread cookies are these cute 3D Christmas trees. A few years ago, I shared a recipe for gingerbread Christmas trees, along with many tips for assembling them so they don’t fall apart and create a big mess. You can read it in this post. Nowadays, to streamline my Christmas baking, I make the trees with gingerbread cookies from the recipe I shared earlier in this post, instead of baking a whole separate batch just for the trees. These edible Christmas trees are a great idea for a homemade gift too. Most of the trees I bake are gifted to family friends.
Christstollen
The next Christmas staple in our family is a Christstollen – traditional German Christmas cake with raisins, candied fruit, and marzipan. We originally discovered this type of cake when my dad bought it in a supermarket. He loved it, but it was still a supermarket cake, and I’ll always choose homemade over store-bought baked goods. So, I searched for a recipe, found a few, combined them, and then iterated on them for a few years to land on a recipe that I now use every year. You can find it here!
Yule log cake
Now, onto our most recent addition to our family’s Christmas baking. Yule log cakes aren’t popular in Poland, and I only discovered them when browsing British websites. I loved the decorative design of Yule log cakes, and I instantly knew that I needed to try to make it. As always, I opted to combine a handful of recipes found online, picking the parts that appealed to me most. And that’s how I ended with a scrumptious recipe for a hazelnut Yule log cake, which I now make every year on Christmas Eve morning. If you’d like to give it a go yourself, I wrote a post with the recipe for my Yule log cake!
Almond cookies
Finally, I want to mention two creations where I hold partial credit. My Mum is the primary chef making them, but I do my best to help, and I’m responsible for decorating them. Let’s start with the almond cookies, probably my favourite cookies ever. They’re delicate and melt in your mouth almost instantly. If you love almonds, you need to try these cookies! I shared a recipe for them in this post. I usually decorate them with melted dark chocolate, but honestly, they taste great on their own too. Definitely a must have for Christmas in our family!
Gingerbread loaf
Last – but by no means least – is the gingerbread loaf. My personal favourite cake, or baked good in general. Spicy, and perfectly moist. I usually decorate it with a generous layer of melted chocolate – mixed milk and dark chocolate in equal quantities. Perhaps it’s because we only ever make this cake for Christmas, but it’s my favourite cake by a mile. If I could only eat one cake for the rest of my life, it would definitely be this one. My Mum usually makes it in our family, but if you’d like to make it yourself, I shared my Mum’s recipe in this post.
Final thoughts
And that concludes my Christmas baking in 2025. What a fun time it’s been! From a good few days of icing dozens of gingerbread cookies with intricate designs, to a baking marathon on Christmas Eve when I made a Christstollen and a hazelnut Yule log. Now, we can sit back and enjoy all of the scrumptious creations. It’s Christmas Day, so Merry Christmas to all of you! And now, I’m already looking forward to my baking days at Christmas 2026…
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