Cookie exchanges good for variety, sharing and holiday de-stressing

[media-credit id=3 align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]What do coconut chews with lemon/orange frosting, Russian teacakes, farm house cookies, peanut butter bites with chocolate kisses on top and sugar cookies with red and green sprinkles have in common at Christmas time?

They can all be part of a cookie exchange, and that would be just a smidgeon of sugary treats offered.

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Cookie exchanges, for anyone who doesn’t know, have been around for decades. The oldest one on written record, according to a cookie exchange website (oh yeah, there really is such a site), dates back to the 1930s.

At least one writer described such an exchange as one way to de-stress during the holidays.

Many women find baking large varieties of cookies time consuming and expensive. Well, going to a cookie exchange would solve those problems. Guests would go home with lots of different kinds of cookies they don’t have to bake themselves!

Here’s how they work:

The hostess sets a time, date and place for the exchange, usually in a private home. Each guest is asked to bring a certain number of cookies, for example, four dozen.

Guests can bake their favorite recipes to share.

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The hostess usually decorates her home and plans a buffet menu, like she would for any holiday party.

As guests arrive, they place their cookie offerings on a table. The dining room table, if one is available, is a perfect location.

After guests socialize for awhile and eat, of course, they get down to serious cookie business.

At a party recently attended, guests received small-sized (but more than sufficient) tin foil pans. Then, one-by-one, guests circled the cookie table, placing one cookie in their pans. When they had completely circled the table, they went for round two and that scenario continued until all of the cookies were gone.

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Each guest got to take home a lot of cookies, of all different shapes, sizes, tastes and décor. What a fabulous way to get a variety of cookies without the expense and time of baking them all.

Once there’s a large quantity of cookies at home, they can be split up and arranged on small trays with plastic wrap and bows. These make delightful hostess gifts.

Be sure to save some for your own holiday guests, though, not to mention a couple for a midnight snack with milk.

If there are any left by Christmas Eve, put a few on a plate for the big, jovial guy in the red suit and white beard. He’ll love them!

Posted by Susan M. Wicker Guerrero on December 27, 2012. Filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry