It’s that time of year again. The trees have been decorated. There’s a chill in the air. The egg nog lattes and peppermint mochas are selling like hotcakes. It’s the BEST time of the year.  During the holidays, I am without a doubt baking more, and spending more time with family and friends. Cookies are a wonderful way to show someone you care and a staple on most Christmas to-do lists. I find myself using just about every excuse possible to whip up a batch or two of my favorite cookies. I’m even known as the “cookie lady” around my husband’s office.

I’ll bet that most of you have been invited to a cookie exchange or two this holiday season. I’m invited to one tomorrow. Every year when I participate, I carefully work to make my cookies and look forward to seeing just what I’ll bring home with me. While I love getting together with friends, typically my family is disappointed with the haul, and usually wishes I’d just kept the cookies I made. We all have our own tastes and preferences, and like different things. Some of us believe that unless a cookie is an Oreo, it should not crunch. Others make their cookies crispy intentionally. Some people love nuts, chunks, and a variety of fillings. Others like a simpler cookie. When you go to a cookie exchange, you roll the dice…You never know just what you’ll end up with. You want to participate, and you keep your fingers crossed that you’ll come home with a winner or two (and there are always those few kinds that get snatched up right away!)

 

Well, I have devised a solution that allows all of us to find those few cookies that become our new favorites without having to sacrifice giving up our tasty home-baked cookies for some less than tasty offerings from our baking-challenged friends. I am hosting my first annual Online Cookie Exchange!!! The wonderful part is you don’t have to spend hours in the kitchen baking, and you don’t have to carefully package up little bags of your cookies….You get all the benefits without the work! The more readers that participate, the bigger our new collection of cookie recipes will be! I need you to make this work!!! (And I KNOW I have readers out there who make awesome cookies…I KNOW you are out there with just the right recipe to share!)

How It Works

1. Think of your favorite cookie recipe. Try to think up a recipe that is unique to you or your family, or a recipe that everyone might not have in their wheelhouse. (Ie- EVERYONE and their mother has a recipe for chocolate chip cookies, so that might not be the best one to submit.)

2. Find an image of the type of cookie and save it as a jpg. (Take a photo or use Google Images to find a representation of your cookie!) I don’t know about you, but I have a very hard time trying a new recipe if I can’t see a picture first! Since we can’t all get together to share the cookies in a physical way, we’ll need to show each other what our cookies look like through a picture.

3. Submit your picture and recipe to me! Be sure to include both the ingredients and the preparation and baking instructions! Send in your recipes by December 19th!!

4. CLICK HERE TO SEND ME YOUR COOKIE RECIPE AND PICTURE!!!! (I can’t wait!!) Flood my inbox ladies!! (Please don’t leave your recipe in the comments section or on my facebook page! I want to wait and post all of the recipes together!)

 

I can’t wait to see what you all come up with! I hope MANY of you choose to participate! This type of post doesn’t work without your participation! Take a minute or two and send in your best! Hopefully we’ll all walk away with dozens of new ideas! Happy “baking!”