From bars, to drops to no bake, holiday cookies are as diverse as those who bake them.Looking for the perfect treat for your Christmas party? Planning to buy baked goods to give as gifts? You might want to plan ahead.
Local bakery proprietors suggest placing orders for holiday items, some of which are already in stores, in advance.
Helene Grzybowski, owner of Cupcake Kitchen on Highway 153 in Hixson, said that while walk-in requests can be accommodated, "we like as much time as possible."
Some of her holiday cupcake creations, including ones with eggnog, peppermint stick and gingerbread flavors, are already on the shelves, Grzybowski said.
At Koch's Bakery on Broad Street in Chattanooga, sooner is also better to place orders.
"We get backed up pretty quick," said Steve Nichols, the bakery's owner.
The bakery, which has been in business since 1948, will have out the "good ol' stuff," Nichols said.
The most popular holiday items in the past have been thumbprint cookies, cupcakes and petits fours decorated for the season. Customers also will be able to buy stollen, a German fruitcake that he said customers demand Koch's put out year after year, as well as cookies shaped like trees, bells and stars.
"Usually we stay to the traditional stuff," Nichols said.
Classic Christmas items also are specialties at the Bluff View Art District's bakery, said marketing director Michele Kephart.
In addition to its stollen, which Kephart called the "biggest seller by far," Bluff View also makes an Italian bread specialty called panettone. Bluff View, which is on East Second Street, started previewing the stollen in October, and the panettone became available Thanksgiving week.
The Bluff View pastry kitchen also is making items such as Yule logs, gingerbread and pumpkin loaves, sugar and spice cookies and cheese sables, thick wafers of butter and cheese with cayenne pepper.
Though goods are stocked daily, advance orders for Bluff View products are encouraged through Rembrandt's Coffee House, Kephart said. The stollen takes three days to make, and a cinnamon roll wreath is guaranteed only by advance order.
Kephart added that most crowd-pleasers have sugar without being overpoweringly sweet.
For gifts, she said, "I would just try to keep it simple."