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It's the one from my press book. I would love to share, but at the moment I am in Wales and won't be back home to the Midwest until December 18th. I'm sorry!
Never done the exchange, but every Christmas I bake 8 to 10 different kinds of cookies, about 4 dozens each and give them away as gifts to neighbors, family, friends and teachers. I usually spend a couple of days just making doughs so I can have all the ingredients out and make mess and label them and stick them in the fridge, then I bake them for the next couple of days. I have done this for over 10 years and everyone just expect my cookies every year. I just love baking cookies!
A cookie party like that sounds amazing! I wish I could get friends together like that...but I am one of the only ones my age (20) who is adept and patient enough for baking! Which is quite sad, really... Please post the recipe is you make grape nuts cookies! Those sound really good!
The Grape Nuts-Instead-Of-Pecans recipe is here: //www.city-data.com/forum/6367003-post16656.html. Look at the end of the post for the substitution info. We tried making a dozen nut-free and the rest in the usual way, and I was pretty pleased with the result. The nut-free version was a little sweeter, and as I mentioned in the other post, my daughter suggested either using less vanilla or adding more salt to offset it, but even so, it was a reasonably good facsimile of the taste, texture and mouth-feel of the original.
Does anyone have a cookie exchange? We used to have one at work, but I wanted to have one at my house and really don't really know the best way to set it up.
Do you have games and food? Would a gift exchange of maybe a white elephant be a good idea?
How many cookies do you have people bring? At work we set an amount like 4 dozen and then we divided the number of participants to determine the number of each person's cookie. (for example 48 cookies/4 doz divided by 10 participants = 4 cookies off each person's cookie plate with 8 remaining, which we put in a container to eat. We had each person bring their cookies on a large platter to keep them separate and then went down the line.
At work we also had some rules.....no store bought like oreos, chips ahoy, etc. and they must be homemade and baked (no bake not desired). And no slice and bake either. At work the rules were if they weren't willing to make homemade ones, they shouldn't get in a cookie exchange. Is this too harsh?
I need to get this going if I'm going to have one. We usually had this on a Monday at work so people could bake.
Until this year, I was in a small club that did a cookie exchange as part of their December meeting/Christmas party. We all brought 3 dozen cookies, and divided by the number of participants. Everyone was instructed to bring their own container to put the cookies in, but invariably someone would forget. I don't recall any rules pertaining to homemade, but except for one time, everyone always did bring homemade. No rules pertaining to no bake cookies. We also asked that everyone bring enough copies of their cookie recipes to share with everyone.
We usually did a white elephant gift exchange as well.
Does anyone else do these? If so what do you make?
This year my in-laws have 10 different people in it. So that means pretty soon I'm gonna have to start making 20 dozen cookies (2 dozen each)
I make chocolate mint cookies (I think I make the best ones lol)
For years when our kids were little and I belonged to a gourmet group we did this, it was so much fun, but we just did a dozen per person, plus an extra dozen for sampling. Of course we included the recipes, a few I still use and I am talking almost 50 years ago. Today, we couldn't possibly use that many cookies, but in the days of lots of Christmas parties and raising kids, they all got eaten by the end of the Christmas season, Jan 6th. No, I don't mean the kids got eaten, but the cookies did.
My co-workers and I do this every year (we work at a jr./sr. high school cafeteria). There were about 12 of us who participated last year, so I ended up with 12 dozen delicious assorted cookies. Last year I made "Lemon Balls", a lemon flavored cake-like drop cookie that I tinted with yellow food coloring, topped with yellow icing and sprinkled with green holiday sugar. We print out our recipes. One of the girls brought "Buck Eyes" (a mouth watering chocolate covered peanut butter concoction) which my youngest daughter has begged me to add to our baking list this year (probably because she ate almost the whole dozen herself). Buck Eyes are popular in Western PA and Ohio.
For years when our kids were little and I belonged to a gourmet group we did this, it was so much fun, but we just did a dozen per person, plus an extra dozen for sampling. Of course we included the recipes, a few I still use and I am talking almost 50 years ago. Today, we couldn't possibly use that many cookies, but in the days of lots of Christmas parties and raising kids, they all got eaten by the end of the Christmas season, Jan 6th. No, I don't mean the kids got eaten, but the cookies did.
At our house, there's never "too many cookies", especially now with our oldest daughter's extended family (she now has MANY in-laws). Years ago, I started a "cookie baking marathon" on the first or second weekend before Christmas. It ended up being the week after Thanksgiving, when the law firm I worked for begged me to bake cookies for their holiday open house (since they laid me off 3 years ago, I've heard their offerings are store bought crap). I pick up the ingredients, then get up in the wee hours of Saturday morning and start making the dough, and bake, and make more dough, and bake. All day. Repeat through Sunday. All the while drinking hot chocolate, egg nog, etc., watching Christmas movies on the kitchen TV or listening to Christmas music. We now do all this at amy oldest daughter's house - she's got a great room adjoining the kitchen, with a fireplace!
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I'm sorry!
- Thanks, I'll dig one up.
I wish I could get friends together like that...but I am one of the only ones my age (20) who is adept and patient enough for baking! 
Which is quite sad, really... Please post the recipe is you make grape nuts cookies! Those sound really good!
Cookie Exhanges
