How to Host a Cookie Exchange and Ten Cookie Recipes

The Run Down

Santa better get out his stretchy pants.

In the spirit of the holidays, I demanded suggested we have a Christmas Cookie Exchange at my office.

You get to taste a large variety of cookies, take home a plateful for later and pick up a new recipe or two along the way. Some people aren’t experienced or frequent bakers, so I encouraged participation over baking from scratch because I would rather more people join the fun.

Having never organized a cookie exchange before, here are tips I learned:

Cookie Exchange Tips

• Bring a minimum of two dozen cookies to exchange with fellow participants.
• If possible, be creative and bake from scratch. If not, then take them out of the packaging and don’t tell us.
• Bring copies of the recipe to share.
• Label the cookies or place the recipe by them.
• To begin, have everyone take two cookies of each kind, then repeat as necessary.
• Transport your cookies in a container that you can refill with new cookies to take home. Otherwise the host can provide plastic bags or take away containers.
• Consider having a savory snack or vegetable tray to counter the sugar overload.
• It’s extra nice if you have beverages available such as coffee, water or maybe even milk.

My friends were kind enough to humor me, like they often do, and we had a fabulous cookie showcase to behold. Below are listed and pictured the ten cookies, including the recipe used unless otherwise noted.

Ten Recipes From Our Cookie Exchange

1. Amygdalota (Greek Almond Cookies): Elly Says Opa

2. Sweet and Salties
I couldn’t find an exact recipe, but Saltine Cracker Toffee from The Girl Who Ate Everything blog is a close relative.

3. Cranberry Cookies: Cooks.com

4. Sugar Cookies (no recipe given)
This Easy Sugar Cookie recipe from AllRecipes.com has over 2,000 reviews, it’s a safe bet that these are good.

5. Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (no recipe given)
Instead of dried cherries, you could substitute raisins in my Chocolate Cherry Heart Smart Cookies.

6. Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookies: RecipeLand.com

7. Rolo Pretzel Turtles: Steamy Kitchen

8. Otis Spunkmeyer’s Chocolate Chip Cookies: Food.com

9. Mini Chocolate Whoopie Pies: Eat Drink Pretty
These were my contribution and not only were they adorable, but also very easy to make. Unlike the three day hoopla it took for Cake Balls, these were quite simple and fun. Did I also mention adorable?

10. Chocolate Squares
This recipe was written on an index card (love that), but this Gooey Butter Cake recipe from AllRecipes.com is similar if you use a chocolate cake mix. They arrived after the above photo was taken but are pictured below.

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