The sweetest part of the holiday season is, of course, the cookies. Whether it’s a treasured family recipe, or a newly-invented tradition, just one bite can bring back so many memories.
So, ahead of the holidays, our anchors and co-hosts — Savannah Guthrie, Hoda Kotb, Craig Melvin, Al Roker and Carson Daly — gathered to do an old-fashioned cookie swap.
While sipping on Martha Stewart’s very boozy eggnog, they each brought their favorite family recipe to the table for an afternoon spent reminiscing about cookies — and Christmases — past.
And, because it’s Hoda’s last Christmas with TODAY, she said she plans to “savor” it and “take it slow.”
To kick things off, Savannah brought her stained glass sugar cookies.
“We cut out a hole, and then you put a Life Saver in the middle of it when you bake it,” she explained, to get this colorful window effect.
Here’s how to do it: You break up hard fruit candy (she uses Lifesavers, but Jolly Ranchers also work) by putting it in a zip-top bag and breaking it up with a mallet. Then you cut a smaller shape in any sugar cookie recipe (or store-bought) and fill the smaller cutout with the candy pieces. You then bake at 325 F for 12 to 14 minutes.
Carson’s late mother Pattie “was Christmas,” he said — and she would always make snowball cookies.
“It’s basically butter and flour and confectioners’ sugar,” he explained. She would take a brown paper bag, put the powdered sugar in there and shake ‘em up.
“That is the sound, the smell and the sight of Christmas to me,” said Carson.
Hoda’s Oreo reindeer truffles are a “little bit of a new Christmas tradition for my girls,” she said.
“You take an Oreo, mush it up with some cream cheese, make it into a ball, dunk it into some chocolate,” she explained — a process her kids love to take part in — and it’s a “no-bake situation.”
Al’s family used to make sugar cookies from scratch: They’d put out the frosting and the children would decorate. But now that the kids are all out of the house, they just do the “slice and bake” cookies, he said.
“I have to say when we do them in my house with my kids, it looks like a crime scene,” said Savannah, which is “the way they’re supposed to look,” according to Al.
When Craig was growing up, his family made classic sugar cookies, too. But when he married his wife Lindsay Czarniak, they started making these Christmas wreath cookies, using cereal to imitate the texture of the greenery.
“You know, every holiday’s a major celebration in the Melvin house,” he said.
Now that Hoda has moved to the suburbs, where everyone goes all out on the holiday decorations, she said she’s been more into “community,” so she is going to “deck it out a little bit more.”
“The highlight in our house,” said Craig, “Lindsay has a wreath that her grandfather used to put up … (and it’s) at least 80 years old.”
But for Carson, through “all the tumultuous things” that happened to him when he was young, including losing his dad, “the one sort of consistent thing are these snowballs,” he said.
