Christmas Sugar Cookies

Don't waste your money on kitchen tools you'll rarely use. Former Chowhound Senior Food Editor Jill Santopietro shows you how to improvise if you don't own a rolling pin. Armed with this knowledge, see the best pie recipes for Thanksgiving, and how to make your sugar cookies taste better.

Welcome to Open Kitchen, a series journeying inside the kitchens of renowned chefs and food personalities. In our inaugural episode, we visit legendary cookbook author Dorie Greenspan. Dorie welcomes us into her Connecticut home for a tour of her kitchen. During our visit, she shows us the process through which she creates bestselling cookbooks like "Everyday Dorie" and "Dorie's Cookies." Dorie also walks us through a selection of her favorite kitchen tools, including her adorable silicone spatulas and baking sheets. And after all that, she still has the time to make her delicious French vanilla sablé cookies.

These colorful little sandwich cookies turn us all into kids in a candy store. They’re so perfect that the idea of making them is intimidating — but fear not! To learn how to make them, Guillermo met with master pâtissier Jayce Baudry, the executive pastry chef for Daniel Boulud's Épiceries. The chef taught us tricks and techniques to make the process manageable, even for an amateur baker at home.

Peeps are probably the most iconic Easter candy, and even if you don’t actually like eating them, they’re undeniably adorable in their brightly colored marshmallow chick and bunny guises. To learn how to make these little creatures from scratch, Guillermo visited chef and author, Michelle Doll at NY Cake, where sugar magic happens every day. Marshmallows are a really fun type of edible craft, and Michelle is an expert at creating beautiful treats. Beyond Easter (or any other holiday for that matter), when you're making edible marshmallow art, shapes and colors go as far as your creativity will take you.

Right around the corner from Christmas you'll find candy canes in all shapes, colors, sizes, and flavors. The Chowhound team took a stab at some new interesting iterations, here are our thoughts.

It's the season of presents, ornaments, bright reds and golds. Watch Chef Jayce Baudry channel all that inspiration into his latest creation, the Christmas Present Cake. This is the ultimate holiday table center piece.