One of baker Kamilah Cannonier’s favourite childhood memories is watching her mother Candace make cassava pie around the holidays.To this day, the owner of Sweet SAAK Bakery in St George’s still waits up each Christmas Eve for the traditional treat to be made and anxiously awaits the day the coveted recipe is passed down to her.Ms Cannonier, 28, who opened her bakery in September, has created $35 gift boxes containing some of her favourite holiday baked goods.This year the baker is offering a variety of cookies snickerdoodle, ginger-molasses, chocolate mint and gingerbread as well as cakes made with sweet potato, eggnog and cherry-walnut to get customers in the festive mood.Her older brother Ankoma, whom she describes as a “natural baker”, is also making up fresh bread loaves, including onion, wheat, cheese braids and brioche.Ms Cannonier said the cinnamon swirl bread was the most popular at this time of year.While she also offers classic desserts like oatmeal raisin cookies and pound cake, she spoke to The Royal Gazette about some of her special winter delights.She said: “The sweet potato cake is one of my personal recipes that I made up. I had a bunch of sweet potato one day so I figured I would try to do something with it.“It turned out to be really tasty and really popular so I added it to the SAAK sampler gift box.“It’s a really moist cake and I topped it with a pecan crumble which is a good match in flavour and adds a crunchy extra on top.”She decided to make a cake with eggnog because it’s one of her favourite holiday flavours.The eggnog is not only used in the cake batter to make the dessert moist it’s also put into the eggnog icing, which is drizzled on top.“It’s sweet and tastes exactly like eggnog,” said Ms Cannonier. “I was so excited when they brought the eggnog out [in the stores] so I could start making it earlier this year.”The snickerdoodle, which is a type of sugar cookie made with butter, sugar, and flour and rolled in cinnamon sugar, is also a popular Christmas staple.Ms Cannonier said the cinnamon gives a different dimension to the taste and said such flavours “are usually more popular in the fall and winter months”.She said ginger was another warm flavour featured in desserts at this time of year. “I wanted to have things in the gift boxes that are appropriate for the season and ginger-molasses I do for the cooler months. They are quite traditional and based mostly on my family recipes from my mom.”The cherry-walnut cake is another family tradition in Ms Cannonier’s household.She said she wanted to offer people a really moist pound cake and knew the additional flavours of cherry and texture of walnut would work well together.In addition to the sweet foods, Ms Cannonier is also selling a hot cocoa box containing “everything you need on a chilly winter night”.It includes her own blend of cocoa mix, vanilla bean and peppermint marshmallows and snickerdoodle and oatmeal raisin cookies.A non-edible “reindeer food” mix is also on offer for $3. Comprised of cereal, glitter and other items, it’s a great way to get children excited about the holiday season by sprinkling it on the ground in anticipation of Santa’s four-legged friends.Ms Cannonier said food was not only an important part of the holidays, but a way for her family to bond year-round.“We just made a joke the other day we could knock down the rest of the house and leave the kitchen and no one would notice because we are always there.“My mom has always baked and made home-made items. It’s something I have instinctively taken up.”She credits her mother as one of her main inspirations and said she is always striving to live up to her mom’s baking skills.“I am a perfectionist. I definitely want the customer to experience the best I have to offer and not so much for me to get accolades for it, but just the fact that if they go out of their way to purchase something from me I want them to be satisfied from it.”The gift boxes, $35, include either six batches of cookies in your chosen flavours or four mini-loaves of cake or bread.To order telephone 535-2253.