By Kayla DeKraker
The holiday season is one filled with many nostalgic family traditions, including making Christmas cookies! Award-winning baker Brother Andrew Corriente shared a special recipe that you can try at home to make your season merry and bright.
“Today I am making my version of a gingerbread cookie,” the winner of THE GREAT AMERICAN BAKING SHOW Season 5 began a video for Guideposts. “What’s interesting about this cookie is that it’s a mixture between two cookies: a gingerbread cookie and a snickerdoodle. I make traditional soft gingerbread cookie and roll that in cinnamon sugar, and it creates this beautiful, chewy but very cinnamon, very spicy flavor profile, and it’s just amazing.”
He then encouraged viewers that it is okay to make mistakes in the kitchen.
Related: A Christmas Lasagna: Trisha Yearwood’s Favorite Holiday Traditions
“I think Christmas should have warm, spicy, comforting vibes, and for me, that is always sticky buns and cinnamon rolls,” Corriente continued. “When you’re baking for Christmas, keep in mind two things. Plan ahead. Things always go wrong in the kitchen, so make sure to make your cookie dough well in advance. Put it in the freezer, and then bake it maybe the day before, just to make sure it works.”
He added, “Plan your things ahead. And also, don’t be so hard on yourself because you know, at the end of the day, a burnt cookie is still pretty good.”
Corriente also emphasized the importance of keeping the meaning of Christmas in our minds.
“Spiritually, I think that we should keep in mind, this notion of celebration, that good news is coming to us, that there’s to be peace, love and justice in this world, and so keeping in mind the spiritual aspect of Christmas,” he said.
He continued, “God comes to us in the stillness and the silence. So, for me, I try my best just to, in a sense, zone out and just let God take over. What I think people should focus on with their baking and Christmas is the act of giving. And that relates to Christmas because Jesus gave His life for us. And so, for me, whenever I give my baked goods to other people, I give my all. As Jesus would’ve given his all, too.”
John 3:16-17 reminds us of this gift that God has given to us. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”
Corriente is an aspiring priest in addition to being a baker.
The Washingtonian previously reported, “One day while meditating in the chapel, he just had a random urge to cook. ‘So I went into the kitchen and I started doing stuff and never stopped,’ he said. When someone later introduced him to THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF, he was hooked.”
Whether we’re baking, decorating the tree or spending time with family this Christmas, let’s remember that Jesus is the real reason for the season.
Read Next: ‘We’re Christians, Christ is Reigning’: Kirk Cameron on Christmas Traditions
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