Christmas Baking Recipes With My Mom Linda Moe

My mom’s Christmas baking has been epic. Ever since I can remember, she has shared dozens of delicious goodies at our family’s Christmas gatherings.

Today on my podcast, we’re talking about most of them, like vintage treats from her mom like mashed potato candy, cherry bing bars, and fruit salad with a cooked pineapple dressing.

Equally important, she shares the newer recipes she’s added over the years like Ritz cracker cookies, Corn Pops clusters, puppy chow, taco dip, veggie pizza, caramel corn chips, Chex mix, and orange chewins cookies with orange slice candies. 

Listen to Funeral Potatoes & Wool Mittens Season 2 Episode 11 on all major podcast platforms or in the Spotify link below.

Of course, we love our bars in the Midwest so we’re reminiscing about the ones with our take on candy bars like Mounds and Babe Ruth, 9×13 pans that start with a box of cereal like s’mores, caramel rice krispies and peanut butter krispies treats, and our Christmas classics like 7-layer and mud hen bars.

We each share a funny memory from Christmases past, like what happened to my mom’s forgotten kisses, and why my sisters and I brought large totes with us to Christmas at mom’s one year and headed straight to her spare bedroom.

Christmas Baking Recipes

We shared a bunch of our family Christmas baking recipes in the podcast episode so here they are. First up are the recipes that I’ve written about here on Random Sweets.

My sister Heidi’s favorite Orange Chewins Cookies with orange slice candies. Forgotten Kisses that my mom has forgotten in her oven. Chocolate Corn Pops Clusters.

Tangled Caramel Corn Chips, also known as Caramel Fritos. It’s the snack that got me hooked on sweet and salty combination treats. Chocolate and Peanut Butter Ritz Cracker Cookies.

Grab a box of Golden Grahams cereal to make our family’s favorite S’mores Bars. Use HERSHEY’s chocolate for authentic, summer-by-the-campfire s’mores flavor.

More cereal for this one. My mom’s original recipe calls for Kellogg’s Crispix Cereal but use whatever cereals you want to make Puppy Chow for your people.

Recipe Cards

Puppy Chow

Babe Ruth Bars

Krispie Bars—peanut butter with chocolate on top. Some people might call these scotcharoos. We don’t.

Rice Krispie Caramel Bars—see the recipe below.

I tried to make the caramel Rice Krispies treats once but I had to eat them with a fork because I used too many caramels. Read about it here. See the photo below.

Mashed Potato Candy

Babe Ruth Bars

Magic Cookie Bars—also similar to 7-layer bars.

I like to add chocolate toffee bits to mine.

Cherry Bing Bars—just like the Midwest candy bar, the Twin Bing from Palmer Candy.

Mound Bars Candy

Savory Dip and Snacks

Despite our family’s appetite for sweets, we have plenty of savory must-haves too.

Firstly, there’s Taco Dip. Although my sister Kalli has a slightly different iteration with queso and sausage, this is our original recipe.

Is it even Christmas without Chex Mix? You’ll use lots of Worcestershire sauce if you use my recipe. Make it like you mean it.

In contrast to all the sugar, we actually like crunchy vegetables. This is my mom’s veggie pizza recipe.

Mom’s Christmas Baking Recipe Cards

I haven’t made everything on mom’s Christmas baking list so I’m sharing photos of the recipes that I haven’t written on my blog yet.

Mud Hen Bars—I can’t wait to make these!

Fudgy Brownies

Fruit salad with pineapple dressing. This was Grandma Janet’s go-to salad.

A Few More Things

A few more things my mom and I talked about. Heidi’s Christmas tree charcuterie board from a few years ago. (It was adorable and I wish you could have seen it in person.)

My mom mentioned my almond torte, which is a requested item from a couple of people in my family. It freezes well so I kind of like if there are leftovers.

Chocolate cake with vintage snow frosting.

Lastly, we forgot to talk about chocolate pretzel snacks and maple nut bars. Mom is the person who started putting mint M&M’s candies on her HERSHEY’s KISSES pretzel snacks. Now I prefer them this way over the plain ones.

And I don’t recall for sure, but I feel like my mom was the one who introduced me to Maple Nut Bars. If not, they are a popular Christmas baking treat anyway. Just like a Pearson’s Maple Bun candy bar.

The Top Three On My List

My three prioritized recipes that I have to make for Christmas no matter what else I get done are: Grandma Janet’s white cookies.

Frosted cream cheese cutout cookies.

Marshmallow crème crunch brownies.

If I have more baking time, I also want to make 3-chocolate fudge, almond torte, uber doober peanut butter brownies.

And my all-time favorite—marshmallow chocolate cream cheese bars.

I hope you have time to listen to this podcast episode with my mom and me, maybe while you’re traveling for Christmas or buzzing around your kitchen baking your family’s holiday recipes.

What are some of your baking traditions? Are you the keeper of family recipes?

Sweet wishes, God bless your family, and Merry Christmas,