Holiday Treats for the Classroom

The winter months are a time for festive gatherings, especially in the classroom.

And if you’re looking for classroom treats for Christmas and holiday snacks to eat and gift, we have all your fun and festive holiday baking bases covered in this article!

From easy tips for decorating, to kid-friendly suggestions, to a whole bunch of red and green goodies, our list of kid-approved holiday treats is sure to please teachers, students and parents alike.

Pour a mug of hot cocoa (with peppermint whipped cream) and let’s get baking!

5 Easy Tips for Decorating with Kids

As you embark on making your holidays treats, here are 5 tips that will make decorating with kids easier and more festive.

Colored Icing

Divide a big batch of icing into separate bowls (red, green and white) so that each of the kids can have their own selection of frosting to get creative with. This is especially fun if you’re utilizing stencils for sugar cookies or jazzing up a simple cupcake recipe.

Piping Bags

Piping bags can make even the simplest of cookies look fancy (and give the kids a reason to be extra proud of their treats). If you don’t have regular pastry piping bags, a plastic bag with a piping tip will do the trick. Though they’re commonly associated with professional baking, even the youngest bakers can master the art of piping.

Make Stencils

On parchment paper, draw out stencil shapes like Christmas trees and snowflakes. Cut your shapes out and set aside. Place the parchment piece over your cookie, brush with frosting, and fill in your shapes with colored sprinkles. If you really want your sprinkles to shine, consider white frosting and red and green sprinkles or red frosting with white sprinkles.

Easy Drizzling

Drizzling is fun and easy for both kids and adults, and the best part is, all you need is powdered sugar and water! Create your glaze by adding water to your powdered sugar until the consistency is smooth and runny. Once you have it ready, line your treats up on baking sheets or parchment paper and use a spoon to drizzle and decorate.

Cookie Cutters

It’s the simplest trick in the Christmas treat world, but it’s a good one. Cookies are more fun to make (and more fun to eat) when there are a selection of cookie cutters to create a variety of shapes. Look for common shapes like stars and as well as Christmas trees, snowflakes and snowmen.

Kid-Friendly Christmas Treat Recipes

Now that you have some inspiration for decorating, here are some of our favorite Bob’s Red Mill recipes. From cookies, to gluten-free options and breads, there’s a treat here for everyone!

Christmas Sugar Cookies

There’s nothing like a classic sugar cookie. This recipe for Christmas Sugar Cookies is the best of both worlds, yielding cookies that are a little soft and a little crunchy. The cookies are made with salted butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour and baking powder. The icing includes the usual ingredients like powdered sugar and milk, but jazzes things up a bit with the addition of bright lemon extract. Kids will have fun helping to add the food coloring to the icing and using a paint brush to decorate the cookies. You might want to make a double batch (or a triple), especially if bringing these tasty treats into the classroom.

Snowy Gingerbread Christmas Trees

These soft and chewy Snowy Gingerbread Christmas Trees make for the perfect holiday gift. The recipe comes to Bob’s Red Mill from Jen Sobjack of Baked By An Introvert, and gives a traditional Christmas cookie a magical twist. The cookies are made with Organic Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour, packed dark brown sugar, salt, baking soda, unsalted butter, milk and—of course—molasses. Ground cinnamon, ginger and cloves add a bit of seasonal spice. Kids will love helping to ice this whimsical snow-kissed cookies (but they’ll love helping to eat them even more). As the headnote says, keep in mind that you don’t have to use star shapes for the trees. You can use circles, too, or any other round shape with fluted edges.

Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes

These cozy Peppermint Mocha Cupcakes combine chocolate cake batter and peppermint extract for a classic holiday flavor combo. Made with our Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour, these are the perfect treats for a classroom with gluten free kids. To make them kid-friendly, forgo the coffee and focus on the chocolate instead. Top these goodies with peppermint whipped cream and pair them with your favorite seasonal hot chocolate. The best part, of course, is the mini candy cane on top (an ideal treat for tiny hands).

Chocolate-Dipped Christmas Cookies

These Chocolate-Dipped Christmas Cookies are dipped in melted chocolate and sprinkled with cashews. They’re made with unsalted butter, granulated sugar, milk, vanilla extract, Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour, salt, semisweet chocolate chips and roasted cashews. Because they’re a bit on the fancier side, these are a great gift for teachers (especially when wrapped in festive packaging), though kids and parents will enjoy them, too.

Loaded Christmas Cowboy Cookies

Loaded Christmas Cowboy Cookies are oatmeal cookies packed with white, dark, red and green chocolate chips, dried cranberries, coconut and pecans. These cookies are well-loved by people of all ages and are a great treat to throw together when time is running short. They also incorporate nutritious ingredients like coconut flakes, chopped pecans, regular rolled oats and our Organic Unbleached White All-Purpose Flour. They’re tasty—so you might want to make a double batch (one for school and one for home).

Viennese Christmas Bread

If you’re looking to switch up the standard cookie and cupcake routine, opt for a festive bread like this Viennese Christmas Bread, instead. It’s a whole wheat sweet bread with flavors of orange, vanilla and cranberry. To make it a kid-friendly version, skip the rum and add chopped white chocolate and red and green sprinkles on top instead of pecans.

Eggnog Muffins

If your classroom gathering is in the morning, go with a classic Eggnog Muffin for a treat. These muffins are gluten free, fluffy and flavored with eggnog and nutmeg. For the kid-friendly version, make sure to skip the bourbon. The snowy streusel is simple, made with our Gluten Free 1-to-1 Baking Flour, sugar, ground nutmeg and melted butter. Enlist the assistance of your littlest kitchen helpers, turn on the Christmas tunes and get to baking.

Gingerbread Cake

This Gingerbread Cake is packed with a bunch of kid-friendly favorites, like Whole Wheat Pastry Flour, applesauce and cinnamon. The ground ginger, cloves and allspice add an extra bit of holiday flair, and the icing of powdered sugar makes for a perfectly sweet topping. To give your icing a nice flavor, consider using cream or milk in place of the water.

Chocolate Peppermint Sandwich Cookies

These Chocolate Peppermint Sandwich Cookies are fun to make on a cool winter morning when you have a little extra time. Pour yourself a cup of coffee, make the kids a hot cocoa and get creative with this decadent cookie dough and creamy peppermint filling. This is also a good recipe if you’re wanting to make your cookies ahead of time and freeze the dough for later use. Place the unbaked cookies on a sheet and freeze, then store in an airtight container once frozen. When you’re ready to bake, simply take them out of the freezer and pop them in the oven.

Gluten Free Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprint Cookies are an all-time favorite for kids when it comes to cookie making. Many of us have memories of growing up and making cookies similar to these Gluten Free Thumbprint Cookies with our parents and grandparents. These cookies can be altered for any holiday, but during the Christmas season it’s fun to make them with different hues of red jam. Think strawberry, raspberry and cherry. As an added bonus, these thumbprints are made with almond flour and just four other ingredients: softened butter, powdered sugar, salt and vanilla extract.

Gifts in a Jar

These Gifts in a Jar are more of a “takeaway” treat than a treat that can be served in class. But if you have a bunch of extra Mason jars and are looking for a cute gift that kids can either give to their parents or make at home, this one is festive and thoughtful. This recipe in particular calls for Holiday Cookies in a Jar, though jar gifts can also be used for brownies or biscuits. Make sure to attach the recipe before you gift away!

Whether you’re looking for sweet holiday snacks or easy Christmas treats for the classroom, we hope these recipes have offered some fun and festive ways to enjoy the season.

Have any favorite Christmas desserts you like to take into your kids’ classrooms during the holidays? Feel free to share them with us in the comments below!