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Holiday Baking

It 'tis the season to begin thinking about baking holiday cookies.  Although I do bake real cookies it seemed appropriate to check out knitted holiday cookies to see what might be out there.  I started the search by looking at free sources and found this guy.

Knitted gingerbread man
The pattern for this appropriately decorated cookie is available from Ravelry by Alan Dart from the UK.  If you'd like to make one Alan makes the pattern available for free, just check into patterns and then food.  (Ravelry is place for yarn artists of all types to track their stash, projects and pattern information as well as become inspired by others.  It's free to sign up as well.)

But then the pickings got slim.  I did find these:

Felted fortune cookies
Tanya Brooks from the US shares the pattern for these felted fortune cookies that are really cute but not directly Christmas related.  Tanya suggests you can use them for Xmas, Valentine Day's or any other special occasion by simply changing the message inside or the colour of yarn.  (Again the pattern is free from Ravelry in the patterns, food section.)  Great idea for something in the future, but not enough Xmas for me.

So I turned to my own pattern books and found a cookie with a creamy center (like an Oreo) in my trusty Susie Johns' Fast Food book.  I've made this cookie both in blonde and chocolate with white filling.   Although it is a cookie, I don't think of Oreos as holiday fare. 

Light-coloured Oreo cookies

I also found a cookie pattern on a holiday stocking I just finished, but it looks more like an any day cookie.


Perhaps red sprinkles would have helped

So I moved on to pattern books I don't own and was struck by the lack of knitted holiday cookies.  More everyday cookie patterns were found but nothing readily identifiable as Christmas.  As a reality check (perhaps I should do this more often) I made a list of those cookies I actually consider associated with Christmas

  • Cutout sugar cookies (knitted shapes can be challenging to make, but certainly not impossible)
  • Pfeffernusse (spherical, hard cookies my German grandmother made only at Xmas time)
  • Spritz cookies with colours of white, green and red (of course!)
. . . And then I ran out of ideas for quintessential holiday cookies.

In conclusion perhaps I have located a new knitting niche or maybe knitted holiday cookies aren't really that unique as might be supported by my short list.  After this search I've decided I'm left with either trying to design some holiday cookie patterns on my own or better yet through my searching found some new ideas for other items.  They may someday show up as finished projects OR not, even I don't know for sure.
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