When I was a child, I lived for the month of December, and in large part, it was because of the holiday baking and treat making that happened from day 1 to day 24. I didn’t think there was anything quite like frosting cookies, making giant messes with the sprinkles, “gluing” eyes and buttons onto goofy gingerbread men and making all other sorts of yummy, delicious, festive treats. Today you can find ideas for whipping up almost anything with your kids, but unfortunately, not many of them are geared for the little, little ones to help with. When Tanya so graciously agreed to allow me to write a piece for Mixin’ Kitchen, I knew I wanted to dedicate a post to holiday treat making that even her little ones could get involved in. If you’ve got your own children that you would love to share some holiday treat-making with, here are a few of my very favorite ideas!

Sugar Cone Trees!

This one is so fun and easy! All you need are sugar waffle cones, a batch of frosting (sample recipe listed below) and a variety of candy. Turn the cones upside down for the kids and give them bowls of frosting (green works best!) and let them have at it! You’ll have instant Christmas trees in no time. Adding on candy for ornaments will add just the right final touch. You can use these guys for décor or eat them as soon as they’re done!

Dipped Marshmallows

Even your three year olds can have fun with this one. All you need are large marshmallows, melting chocolate, wooden food sticks and a variety of fun toppings like sprinkles and candies. Warm the chocolate and place in dunking bowls for your children. Make sure the chocolate is not overly hot so that it’s safe enough if little fingers get dipped too. Kids can place their sticks in the marshmallows and then “dunk” them in the warm chocolate. Finish with a topping of their favorite sprinkles and mini candies. Put a Hershey kiss on top for a hat (attach with a frosting) and a face on the side for extra fun! Not eating the marshmallows when the chocolate is warm and dripping is the hardest part.

S’more Cookies

If your kids are in the mood for making “cookies” but you feel it might be a little advanced, go for “s’more” cookies. There’s still a little time in the oven, so it feels more like baking than the other treat ideas geared for young ones. Have your little ones place graham cracker squares on a cookie sheet and then top them with chocolate chips and holiday colored candies like M&Ms or even red and green Reese’s Pieces. Place the cookie sheets in the oven and allow to “bake” just until the chocolate starts to melt. Remove, and making sure that little hands don’t touch the hot cookie sheets (you can give them back their graham cracker squares on plates), let them top with a layer of mini-marshmallows. Put the crackers back on the cookie sheet and place back in the oven just until the marshmallows start to puff and turn golden brown. You’ll have festive s’more cookies in no time!

Graham Cracker Gingerbread Houses

This is one of my favorite ideas ever! I absolutely loved decorating gingerbread houses as a child (and still do, in fact!) but baking the walls and roofs is time consuming and not much fun. Without having to go buy pre-made packages, you can whip out a box of graham crackers, quickly throw together some royal icing (recipe below) and your little ones have all the ingredients for crafting mini graham cracker “gingerbread houses”! A supply of all your candy on hand will serve for the remaining décor.

Cut-Out “Cookies”

For the little ones anxious to get their hands on cookie cutters, the easiest thing I’ve found to do, rather than mixing up and baking batch after batch of sugar cookies that they won’t be able to help with, is to make Rice Krispies treats instead. While still warm, just after stirring in the marshmallows, place onto a large sheet of waxed paper and roll out thin. Then hand off the cookie cutters and let your little guys go to town (works better before they harden)! They can even frost and decorate just like sugar cookies.

Holiday Wreath Snacks

Instead of using Rice Krispies, you can switch out the Krispies for Corn Flakes. Add a drop or two of green food coloring into the butter/marshmallow mix and make like normal. Then spoon out large helpings of the mixture onto waxed paper and let your little ones shape into circles with holes in the middle (let cool slightly before they touch). Then they can decorate with red hot candies and thin red licorice strings (tied in bows) to make fun and festive holiday wreaths.

Basic Icing Recipe

• 4 cups powered sugar
• 4-5 Tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine sugar and milk, blend on low speed. Add vanilla, continue blending until completely mixed. Add more liquid or sugar to reach desired consistency.

These are just a few of the many ideas available for young children and holiday sugar-y fun! So go grab your kids, turn on the Christmas music, pour everyone a mug of hot cocoa (with marshmallows) and have some fun together making yummy, easy holiday treats!

Image source: onecharmingparty.com via Dawn on Pinterest

Image Source: karaspartyideas.blogspot.com via Sherry on Pinterest

Author Tara Alley is graham cracker addict, caramel roll baking connoisseur and full time writer for www.air-n-water.com. When not writing site content, she reaches out to write foodie articles every chance she gets.

I was inspired by this post to do something different when it comes to holiday baking.

Introducing my Wilton created melting snowmen fight cookies

Melting Snowmen Cookies & Snowball Fight

I used Wilton’s Giant Round Cookie Pan to create the large chocolate chip cookie. I took 3 balls of sugar cookie dough and made uneven piles for the snowmen, baked and once they were cooled, I used Wilton White Cookie Icing and pretty much just took the lid off the container and poured until I liked the way the melt looked.

Then, I took 3 large marshmallows, put in the microwave for just a couple of seconds (long enough to make them mushy), placed on top of the wet icing and pushed my thumb in to them to make them appear more ‘melted’.

I used mini chocolate chips for the buttons, Wilton candy sprinkles for the eyes, nose and bow ties, then I took some Wilton Ready to decorate Black Icing and created the mouths and arms. For the snowball fight, I used miniature marshmallows that I pulled out of a packet of hot chocolate mix.

Once my melting snowmen were created, I colored some regular icing that I had on hand with Wilton’s Christmas Red, put in a disposable bag with a tip and created the outside of the cookie. I did this because when I took it out of the pan, there were just a few cracks in the cookie itself. Plus, it made it pretty to look at.

I was at an event with Smucker’s this past week where we had a lot of hands on experience from learning about the differences in Coffee, food photography (info to come!), as well as learning how to make our own homemade pie crusts using Crisco.

I did have a lot of fun and I learned a lot about how to mix, create and bake that perfect pie crust, as well as how to make the most beautiful Pumpkin Pie. While I am not a pie baker, I am more of a decorator, I have decided that I will leave the pie baking to my fabulous mother in law. You don’t have to know how to make your own homemade pie crusts, but you can still get that homemade flavor from refrigerated pie crusts from Pillsbury, which is what I use a lot in my kitchen for baking as well as to create fresh new meal ideas for my family.

Eagle Brand Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

• 1 (15 oz.) can pumpkin (about 2 cups)
• 1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand® Sweetened Condensed Milk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 (9-inch) unbaked pie crust

Instructions

• HEAT oven to 425°F. Whisk pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, spices and salt in medium bowl until smooth. Pour into crust.
• BAKE 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F; bake an additional 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted 1-inch from crust comes out clean. Cool. Garnish as desired.

While I, personally, am not a fan of pumpkin pie, I loved learning all about the ingredients and all the tips on how to create that perfect pie crust which I can create for my favorite; Chocolate Pie. I don’t use pie crusts just for pie baking; I use pie crusts to make things like I am creating tonight…. a pastry filled with diced potatoes, cheese and seasonings, topped with homemade chili. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? I will post the recipe and directions once I make sure it is tasty.

You can find more about Pillsbury, Eagle Brand, and Crisco by visiting the links attached to each brand. Be on the look out for some tester recipes that I am working on this weekend and this upcoming week!

It’s just about that time of year where we are pulling out the fall clothes and where hot cocoa sounds oh so yummy! I looked in my cabinets only to find that hubby had drank all of our instant hot cocoa mix, so I decided to try something new.

Homemade Hot Cocoa

• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup Nestle Baking Cocoa
• 4 cups of milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

In a pan, whisk together the sugar, baking cocoa & cinnamon over medium heat. Gradually stir in the milk and vanilla. Stir constantly until hot, but do not boil. Feel free to add whipped cream on top! Sip and enjoy!

My son came to me yesterday saying he needed something green to take to school for a snack…. today. Well, not realizing that today was St. Patrick’s Day, hubby already had some green grapes but I had to make some other treats for him to take to school, so I went to my Wilton Pantry (yes, I have an entire pantry with Wilton goods in it for those spur of the moment times like now) and I got out stuff to make cupcakes and coloring to make the batter green, as well as the icing. The only thing I didn’t have on hand were St. Patrick’s themed cupcake papers :scratch: or St. Patrick’s themed sprinkles, but with the sprinkles, I just used some green sugar sprinkles from Christmas.

I started out with a white cake mix, colored it green.

I filled the cupcake tin with the green batter.

Once they were baked, I put them on a cooling rack to cool before decorating.

For decorating, I used a few methods.

• Wilton Ready-to-Decorate Icing
• Wilton Sparke Gel (I used green and white – not pictured)
• Wilton Sprinkles (I had holiday sprinkles on hand, so I used the green leftover from Christmas)
• Wilton White Decorator Icing (not pictured)
• Wilton White Cookie Icing

I used one can of the Wilton White Decorator Icing. I separated it – half to be kept white and half to be colored green and filled two Disposable Decorating Bags – each with the individual colors.

With some of the cupcakes, I used Wilton’s green Wilton Ready-to-Decorate Icing, and drizzled them with Wilton White Cookie Icing & Wilton Sparke Gel in white, then sprinkled some green sprinkles on top of the wet icing so they would stick to the cupcakes. Why did I use white cookie icing? Well, I was out of plain white ready-to-decorate icing in white, so this worked perfectly!

With the white cupcakes, I used the Wilton White Decorator Icing, put in a disposable decorate bag and used tip # 21 to spread the icing on top of both colors, then drizzled Wilton Sparke Gel over the top and sprinkled with green sugar sprinkles.

You don’t have to make a special trip to the store to buy things that you need for on the spot snack requests. You can get creative with the things you have, even holiday sprinkles like I used, and you can create a fast and pretty snack for the kids’ holiday class parties. Hubby was glad I was making these because he, after I found out that my son had a party today, had told me ‘Oh, yeah, I am supposed to bring something too.’ Thank goodness I like to bake, so both my son and husband were able to take Wilton treats to their classes.

I woke up this morning in a creative mood, so I went with the flow. I made rice krispie treats and used Wilton’s Candy Melts to drizzle over the treats, as well as I made candy to go on top.

I made some hearts using candy melts and I used the Wilton Heart CandyPick Mold. I had another idea to make smaller candy pieces, so I used the Wilton Flowers Cookie Candy Mold. This is usually used to make candy covered cookies, like Oreo’s, but I only filled in the small flower part. I love how they turned out. SO EASY and so cute!

I didn’t want to make cupcakes since that’s the traditional class treat. I am really excited with how these turned out!

I cannot tell you how much I love my Crock-Pot and how often I use it. If you are looking for that ‘must have’ for a kitchen, it is a Crock-Pot. Love it! here are some fun and tasty recipes that you will love this Superbowl weekend, as well as for Valentine’s Day!

Candy in the Crock-Pot®? Go for it… along with a host of other sweet treats this Valentine’s Day.

Take the Crock-Pot® to a land far more tempting, forbidden and exciting than soups and stews. That’s good eating, but this time of year, it’s time to sweeten things up a bit and let the sweet scent of treats permeate the air, tempt the taste buds and satisfy the tummy. Courtesy of CrockPot.com, below are 5 sweet treat recipes love birds can create together, or for each other, this Valentine’s Day. All become decadent, heavenly morsels after a little slow simmer action in this enduring kitchen appliance that’s sporting a more designer look these days (and makes a great gift for your sweetie too!)…

Crock-Pot® Designer Series Slow Cookers (MSRP: $49.99-$69.99)

A stylish take on the original and a multi-function party favorite… Just add ingredients and go. From creating sweet treats to simmering warm winter beverages to easy weeknight meal preparation, the Crock-Pot® Designer Series Slow Cookers are the ultimate combination of design and function, contemporizing the art of slow cooking. Sleek design elements complement the modern kitchen and serve as an eye-catching centerpiece to any gathering. Consisting of unique geometric shapes with distinctive stainless steel, polished and black finishes, these slow cookers have a 6-quart capacity, hideaway handles, and a digital timer in a choice of manual or programmable models. Visit www.crockpot.com

Or try this mini version Crock-Pot® for fantastic fondues & decadent dips…

Crock-Pot® Little Dipper® Warmer (MSRP: $19.99)

is made for warming fantastic fondues, decadent dips and then enjoying bite-size mini treats in the comfort of home. Forget running back and forth to the kitchen to reheat foods; focus on each other instead! Just add ingredients or pre-made dip to the 16-oz crock, plug in and enjoy. Attractive stainless steel finish looks great in any setting. Recipes included. Visit www.crockpot.com

*** RECIPES *** Courtesy of CrockPot.com

CHOCOLATE CLUSTERS ****

• 2 pounds white candy coating, in pieces
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 ounces sweet chocolate
• 1/3 cup walnuts, chopped

Combine ingredients except nuts in slow cooker. Cover; cook on High for 1 hour, or until melted. Stir in nuts. Drop spoonfuls on wax paper to make clusters. Let stand until hardened.

CHEERY CHOCOLATE CHERRY FONDUE *****

• 1/3 cup honey
• 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
• 1/3 cup light cream
• 3 tablespoons Kirsch
• Pieces of apple, banana, pineapple, pear, strawberries, and assorted cookies, for dipping

Place first four ingredients in the stoneware. Once the chocolate begins to melt, stir to combine ingredients. Serve with cookies or fruit on skewers for dipping.

CARAMEL RUM FONDUE ***

• 14 ounces caramels
• 1/2 cup miniature marshmallows
• 1 tablespoon rum, or 1/2 teaspoon rum extract
• 2/3 cup cream

Combine caramels and cream in stoneware. Cover and cook until melted, 2 to 3 hours. Stir in marshmallows and rum/rum extract. Continue cooking ½ to 1 hour. Serve with apple wedges, pound cake, doughnuts, or marshmallows.

CRÈME BRULEE *****

For Custard

• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup
• 3 large eggs, separated
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups whipping cream

For Meringue

• 3 egg whites
• pinch cream of tartar
• 3/4 cup sugar

Custard Directions

Place ramekin dishes into Crock-Pot® stoneware; add boiling water to come half way up the sides of the dishes. (Use 6- 6-oz (3/4 cup/175 ml) oven-proof custard dishes or ramekins, makes approximately 4 cups custard.)

In medium bowl, combine maple syrup, 3 egg yolks and 1 egg. In small saucepan over medium-high heat, bring cream to a gentle boil, remove from heat: very slowly whisk cream into egg mixture taking care to not add too quickly or it will cook the egg. Divide custard mixture evenly between ramekins dishes leaving 1-inch from the top; close lid and cook for 1 hour or until set. Remove carefully using tongs or oven mitts and let cool at room temperature for 1 hour. Place dishes onto baking sheet, refrigerate 2 hours or completely chill up to 24 hours in advance.

Meringue Directions

Just before serving or up to 1 hour in advance, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Add sugar 1/4 cup at a time and beat until glossy and stiff peaks form. Preheat broiler to HIGH; pat each custard dry with paper towel to remove any moisture; top each with approximately 1/2 cup meringue. Broil until meringue is golden brown, about 2 minutes. Refrigerate until ready to serve or up to 2 hours.

SUGARED & SPICED PECANS ***

• 1 pound pecan halves
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
• 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

Lightly coat the stoneware with cooking spray. Place the pecans in the Crock-Pot® slow cooker and add the butter and sugar, stirring until the pecans are well-coated. Cover; cook on High for 10 minutes. Reduce to Low and cook for 2 hours, or until the pecans are well-glazed. Just before serving, toss the pecans with the seasonings. Serve while warm.

Happy February! There are only 13 days until Valentine’s Day, can you believe it? One of my favorite things to do for Valentine’s Day is to make goodies for Tucker’s class, as well as for our home treats & for hubby to take to work. We are snowed in this week, so when I woke up this morning, I thought it was the best time to do some fun baking with some of Wilton’s new Valentine’s Day products.

One thing that I received, and I am madly in love with the Valentine Candy Making Kit!

Valentine Candy Making Kit

Lots of fun shapes and colorful Candy Melts make this kit just what you need to create the cutest candies for everyone you love. Kit includes: Lovely Flowers Large Lollipop Mold (2 designs, 3 cavities), Hearts Lollipop Mold (3 designs, 6 cavities), Love Bugs Candy Mold (3 designs, 8 cavities); 16 oz. Candy Melts brand confectionery coating (4 oz. each light cocoa, white, red and pink); 20 lollipop sticks (6 in.); 4 disposable decorating bags; decorating brush and 20 party bags/ties. Certified Kosher Dairy
Price: $9.99

Here is my experience with the Valentine Candy Making Kit:

I will be honest and say that I have tried candy making in the past, but it was a huge flop, so I never tried it again. I was doing it in the old fashioned way where you melt the candies in the pan and it was a huge mess, and pain! Wilton makes it so easy and fun with their kits, as well as their website has tons of helpful tips to help your baking be more fun.

I started by filling the enclosed decorating bags with some Wilton candy melts, I put all 4 in a bowl in the microwave, then melted the candies to the perfect consistency.

I cut the tips off the bags, then started to fill the candy molds.

Once I filled in the hearts with red & pink (or whatever colors you choose), I filled the rest in with the white candy melt.

This is what it looked like from the bottom. Very pretty!

On one mold, I put some Valentine sprinkles in just before I filled with the melted candy.

Once you get your candy molds filled up, put them in the fridge to chill, then you can pop them out very easily!

View from the bottom:

I lifted the sprinkle candy up too soon, so it had lines in it, but overall, they all turned out very pretty! You can trim the edges for a cleaner look.

We also made cupcakes; strawberry! For the icing, we used Wilton’s Pink/White Striped Icing and used the Pink Damask Valentine Combo Pack (cupcake papers with cute heat picks for the top), and gifted them in Valentine Treat Boxes.

Pink/White Striped Icing

Double the color, double the decorating excitement! Create fun 2-tone decorations in colors perfect for the Christmas season. Tubes can be used with our Tip and Nail Set or Coupler Ring Set and any standard size Wilton metal tip. Colors match Wilton Icing Colors.
Price: $2.49

Pink Damask Valentine Combo Pack

Colorful baking cups and picks are the ideal couple for your Valentine cupcakes! Cups are microwave-safe paper, 2 in. diameter; picks are 3 in. high.
Price: $2.29 – Ct/ 24

For the teacher, making a treat box is a fun idea that you can give. Wilton has everything from pans, decorating needs, icing, and even decorative boxes to gift your goodies in.

Valentine Treat Boxes

Give your sweetheart a Valentine’s Day treat with colorful window boxes that hold candies, cookies or treats.
Price: $3.29 – Ct/ 3

We also received a Heart Pops Cookie Kit.

Heart Pops Cookie Kit

Build and decorate 10 heart cookie pops to share and enjoy!
Price: $12.99

I love that Wilton has kits available for so many projects! The Heart Pops Cookie Kit is perfect for the kids to do a project on their own. The kit comes with everything that you need!

Kit Contains:

• 10 Pre-baked Hearts artificially vanilla-flavored cookies (approximately 1 1/2 in. high x 1 3/4 in. wide)
• 10 Pre-baked Hearts chocolate-flavored cookies (approximately 1 1/2 in. high x 1 3/4 in. wide)
• Creamy white icing mix
• Creamy pink icing mix
• Heart-shaped sprinkles
• 2 Decorating bags
• 1 Round tip
• 1 Star tip
• 10 Treat bags
• 10 Self-sealing gift stickers
• 10 Lollipop sticks
• Complete assembly and decorating instructions

These are so much fun! My mind has completely changed around on candy making. I am in love! It is so easy and so much fun!

For more information, you can visit Wilton at www.wilton.com, as well as check out their blog for even more ideas! http://www.wilton.com/blog/

You can also check Wilton out on Facebook: www.facebook.com/wilton.cake.decorating and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WiltonCakes

Mommy Goggles gives this product:
[rating:5]
Why this rating? This is a star rating (1-5) that is based off our opinion on the product itself, use, wear & tear, price and how it fits in to our family’s lives (at home or on the go).

All opinions in this posting are 100% my own.

On Sunday, October 10, 2010, I had the chance again to go to Chicago to visit with the amazing people from Wilton. I have known about Wilton my entire life, grew up with Wilton products and baking with my family, and in June, I even learned a few things about cake decorating and I even managed to surprise myself. This summer, I met and I learned about Wilton as a company, I was taught a few things about Wilton’s products and learned quite a bit about the art of decorating. It isn’t just about the cake itself, but it’s about those memories that one creates while making that sweet creation. I will be blunt with you all and tell you that I am not the best cake decorator, nor will I ever claim to be the best. My creations are fun, but most of all, create memories that will stick with my family.

Last weekend, I was able to get hands on look at cookies, fun treats and how to do so many different things with a nice variety of products for any occasion.

I do believe that I found my calling. . . . . Cookie decorating.

Two words that make my heart go pitter patter: Color Flow.

I have always wanted to decorate cookies, but most of all; I have simply wanted to have presentable treats. Wilton has a product that is called “Cookie Flow” icing. This product had me at hello! I still cannot stop thinking about this product. I cannot stop dreaming about the endless possibilities that this product entails for not only my family, but for yours as well.

I am horrible at decorating. I have painted ceramics and t-shirts with my mother as a kid, but I was never able to ice a cookie to save my life. Literally.

Color Flow Mix

Create dimensional flow-in designs for your cake. Just add water and confectioners’ sugar. Certified Kosher. 4 oz. can makes ten 1 1/2 cup batches.

• Color Flow Mix: $7.49

There is a great recipe idea here.

Want to see how easy and amazing this product is? Here are some pictures and videos to show you my VERY FIRST experience with Color Flow.

Looks easy, doesn’t it? Guess what? It IS!

Pictures can only show so much, so here’s a video of my first try with Color Flow Icing:

Here are some tips from what I learned:

• Roll out your dough on sheet using lollipop sticks as your thickness guide under the rolling pin so that the dough is the sane thickness all around for level cookies.
• Use a cookie cutter to cut out shape, but leave cutter on dough and use to sprinkle sprinkles in to, so you don’t waste sprinkles, take cutter off, and you have your sprinkled cookie – bake for about 7-8 minutes.
• The Cookie Press is perfect for spritz cookies! Simply fill the cookie press with dough, (do not refrigerate dough otherwise dough will end up too hard to use in spritzer). Tip: Make the dough just before you are ready to make spritz cookies, do not refrigerate so that the dough is the perfect temperature and consistency to work with.

Want to make cookies, such as a perfect gingerbread cookie? For Iced sugar cookies, like I show above, use Color Flow, full consistency for the outlining and use thin to fill, in zig-zag motions and use a toothpick to draw from center of cookie towards outline.

What if you have an event that you would love to take some treats to, but are scared about your icing getting messed up? Once you finish your cookie creation, the icing will set dry and hard within a few minutes, but you will need to wait at least overnight for it to completely set dry so that you will be able to package the cookies up for presentation, gifting or just to travel with.

Looking to add a bit more to your cookies? Use piping gel as ‘glue’ to drizzle on the cookie, and dip cookie in sprinkles to hold on to the treat.

Looks yummy and pretty, doesn’t it?? I was amazed how easy it was to create so many different things. The Chocolate Pro Electric Chocolate Melter sure made for easy cookie decorating! It’s not just for candy making or even dipping strawberries in, cookies are a great addition to use for this.

I’m sure that people this weekend wanted to tell me to put a sock in my mouth to shut me up about how much I loved Color Flow Icing & even the Chocolate Pro Electric Chocolate (or candy!) Melter products, but seriously – I am in love! I am so eager, so happy, so excited to try this out with my kids and family. With this holidays, I’ve always wanted to make holiday treats to take to the family’s’ house, but have been scared to. I know that treats aren’t necessarily about appearance, but for one – just once – id love to woo people with something out of the ordinary.

Gingerbread men? Oh, it’s ON this year! My mind is flowing, the thought images are pouring and pretty soon, my family will be telling me to put a sock in it because i cannot seem to stop the ideas from finding me.

Are you excited about the holidays now? I am!!! I have so many ideas and thoughts running through my head about what I can make this year!

For more information and to go to a Wilton Decorating Class near you, please log on to www.wilton.com to find a location near you that offers classes. You will learn so much, have so much fun and trust me – these classes and products will make you as eager as I am to learn more and get to decorating for the holidays!

Who loves to do some holiday baking? *raises hand* I was so excited this year because I was actually prepared! Wilton helped with that with the new upcoming release of UltraGold Bakeware.

Coming up in January, Wilton is releasing UltraGold Bakeware, a new line of premium quality bakeware — without the premium price.

Wilton knows that bakeware may not seem all that interesting, but using good quality pans is critical to achieving baking success. Wilton has found that many beginning bakers aren’t sure what to look for in a cake pan or baking sheet and, as a result, they can end up with disappointing results or find that the bakeware doesn’t wear as well as expected.

UltraGold was developed with a unique set of features including:

• Premium Aluminum Material
• Even Heating
• Scratch Resistant Surface
• Oversized Handles
• Signature Golden Finish
• Lifetime warranty

About UltraGold Bakeware:

UltraGold is a new line of bakeware that takes the art of baking to a higher level and is the culmination of Wilton’s 80 years of baking and dessert decorating experience. Every Wilton UltraGold pan was designed with features that provide the perfect baking results decorators demand:

Premium Aluminum

• Every Wilton Ultra Gold pan is hand-crafted to ensure a perfect shape and better baking results for you.
• Even Heating – Won’t WarpUltraGold heats more evenly and holds its shape like no other brand. Our premium aluminum distributes heat evenly for a light, golden brown cake surface that is ideal for decorating.

Durable Anodized Surface

• Anodizing creates a more consistent surface finish. This means that UltraGold’s signature golden finish will look great and bake beautifully for years to come.

Oversized Handles for Easy Lifting

• Convenient extended handles help you lift the UltraGold pan safely and easily. Pan dimensions are stamped on the handles.

I was able to try out all of the below sizes for our holiday baking, and I have to say that these are the prettiest, easy to use and amazingly easy to clean up with!

• UltraGold 10 in. Round Pan: $14.99
  
• UltraGold 10 in. Square Pan: $17.99
  
• UltraGold 11×15 in. Sheet Pan: $24.99
  
• UltraGold 11×17 in. Jelly Roll Pan: $22.99
  
• UltraGold 12 in. Round Pan: $17.99
  
• UltraGold 12×18 in. Sheet Pan: $29.99
  
• UltraGold 8 in. Round Pan: $14.99
  
• UltraGold 8 in. Square Pan: $14.99
  
• UltraGold 9×13 in. Sheet Pan: $19.99
  

I baked. And I baked. And I baked! I am so impressed that I was able to make treats such as these below without them being stuck to the pan. I was ready to whip out the non-stick spray or butter the pans down, but the UltraGold Bakeware truly impressed me! Now, I don’t have to dread baking because I know that whatever I make, will be cooked thoroughly and will come off the pan easy!

For more information, please visit www.wilton.com and to check out the UltraGold Bakeware collection, go to http://search.wilton.com/?q=ultragold

All opinions in this posting are 100% my own.