Meet Christmas Cookie Master Dan Pelosi as he reveals his best baking tips

New York Times bestselling author and food personality Dan Pelosi, perhaps best known as @grossypelosi on Instagram, he’s the king of all things Christmas cookies and shares his expert tips for baking your own delicious treats this season.

She’s no stranger to her holiday cookies, and her Instagram grid is filled with fun recipes and photos of her treats, like sweet marshmallow-filled Grandma Millie’s Church Windows, colorful Italian Rainbow Sprinkle cookies, and fig-filled Cuccidati.

Of course, Pelosi is also a fan of the classics, like Peanut Butter Blossom and Pignoli Cookies, recipes she also knows.

Cookies have always been a big part of his life, he said, explaining that as an Italian-American, there were always tons of cookies during the month of December in his house and beyond.

She also grew up participating in and organizing cookie swaps, an old-school tradition that has since been revived, in part thanks to social media and Pelosi’s influence.

“You go to each person’s house and there’s a tray of cookies on the table, and that tray changes every day as someone else walks by and you add their cookie to it, so I love the life that cookies have over time. month of December,” Pelosi told DailyMail.com exclusively.

So when the let’s eat The author moved to New York City from San Francisco 12 years ago, he knew what he had to do: host a cookie party from his West Village apartment just a month after arriving in November to work for the Loft brand Lou & Grey.

Her friend Caroline lived upstairs and the two decided to split the chores, where he would make the sweets and she would create the savory dishes.

“Each cookie had a different story, and although I didn’t ask other people to bring them at the time, it was an amazing way to talk about all the things I loved about food and then also get involved.” people and meeting people and reconnecting with people I haven’t seen in a long time,” Pelosi explained.

‘From then on, I made it my own tradition and invited other people to the table. And truly, the magic of the day and the holiday is just the cookies themselves, the people who bake them, and the stories behind them,” she continued.

Her cookie parties are now so popular that some people even message her asking for an invite, especially since she rose to fame in 2020 after sharing her homemade recipes and cooking adventures on her Instagram page.

Last year, she was able to bring her cookie parties to the public, creating a special edition cookie tin for customers to take their treats home while partnering with Crate & Barrel to celebrate their new flagship store in New York City .

This year he did the same thing, but took it to three cities in three different Crate & Barrel stores: Chicago, Washington, DC, and New York.

DailyMail.com was lucky enough to attend the sold-out event in midtown Manhattan.

Ticket holders were able to fill your cookie tinswhich were designed by Pelosi and a portion of the proceeds will go to SAGE, the country’s largest and oldest organization supporting the LGBTQ+ senior community, with all kinds of homemade cookies made by the cookie king himself and served by the staff at Flatiron.

There were tons of tables filled with their colorful, signature cookies, and not only were they pretty, they were delicious.

However, for those who were unable to attend the event and are looking to get into the holiday spirit or even host their own cookie party, Pelosi has shared some of her best holiday baking tips with FEMAIL.

1. You don’t have to wait until December to start baking Christmas cookies.

One of the biggest secrets Pelosi shared was the fact that you don’t have to wait until the winter months to start baking cookies.

In fact, he revealed that you can start preparing them in August if you want to get ahead of the game.

“Almost all dough will work frozen,” Pelosi explained to DailyMail.com.

“Just freeze the dumpling, or freeze dumplings, and then when it’s holiday time, just bake them, right?” –he offered.

Food52 host Secret Sauce joked that his grandmother always has cookie dough, as well as a good marinara sauce, ready to go in her freezer.

‘Everyone always says, how do you know how to bake so well?’ And I say: it’s all about the freezer.’

2. Placing a piece of bread in a cookie tin can help preserve the freshness of baked goods.

If you recently attended a cookie party and want to try all the goodies in your can but don’t have time without them going stale, there’s a solution for that, Pelosi divulged.

“I have my cookie tins that I sell, but cookie tins are kind of like that,” he prefaced.

“I mean, my family has billions of them: Take a piece of sandwich bread, put it in your cookie tin, and the moisture from that bread will keep your cookies soft, and they’ll also absorb that little bit of air. That’s there instead of cookies, so your cookies will last longer if you put a piece of bread in the cookie tin with the cookies,” Pelosi revealed.

And, when that piece of bread has gone stale, all you have to do is replace it with a new slice.

“This is how you can make your cookies last a couple of weeks, if not longer,” he said.

3. Get a good thermometer that lives inside your oven

Pelosi emphasized that one of the most important things to have when baking cookies is a good thermometer inside the oven.

The Instagram creator explained that ovens often have discrepancies, making it difficult to know what temperature they actually heat to.

“The number on the outside of your oven, which tells you the temperature of your oven, is probably incorrect,” Pelosi said.

“Ovens, bless them, can be inaccurate and very different,” he continued. “Know your oven, get a new thermometer.”

In the case of your own oven, if you try to bake something at 350, you actually have to set it to 365, which brings it to 350 with the internal thermometer.

“Now, things are baked just like a recipe is written,” Pelosi added.

4. The biggest mistake you can make is thinking you made a mistake.

At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that this is all supposed to be fun and you shouldn’t worry too much about the final product.

Pelosi said the biggest mistake people can make while baking is thinking they’ve ruined something.

“If you’re eating the cookie, you did it,” Pelosi explained.

“It doesn’t have to be pretty, it doesn’t have to look like the Internet, people are very happy.” Look how popular sugar cookies are, they’re just plain cookies, like no one cares, they’re just delicious, right? shared.

Remember: the only real rule here is don’t buy anything in the store!