How cookies became the focus of my holiday treats I’m not quite sure. We were never really the cookie family growing up. We had plenty of delicious, traditional sweets, but they were mostly in the form of cakes and pies. My grandma may have made a few varieties of cookies, and my mom would make divinity and fudge, but that about summed it up in my family.
During grade school my friend’s mother used to go all out. She’d start weeks ahead of time. She’d freeze dough, cookies and candies in anticipation of the holiday season. My mom’s best friend would always send over a plate overflowing with holiday cookies she’d spent hours baking and neighbors would drop by with their cookie-tray offerings.
Perhaps this is how I became so infatuated with the holiday cookie and the holiday cookie gift tray. All I know is that when it comes to Christmas and food, cookies are the first thing that comes to mind for me.
A few weeks ago, Adrienne from Gastroanthropology and I thought we should get our food blogging friends involved in a cookie recipe exchange, the International Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange to be exact.
As part of this recipe exchange you’ll be doing two things. Sending a recipe to another blogger, and making and posting about the recipe another blogger has sent to you.
We’d love to get as many people involved as possible and the exchange is simple. Leave a comment here or on Adrienne’s blog, Gastroanthropology, by November 5th to let us know you are interested in participating. Be sure to leave a valid email address when you sign in to comment.
Each participant will create an original or an adapted, attributed-to holiday cookie recipe and send it to the blogger we’ve randomly selected for you via email by November 15th.
Once you receive a recipe we ask that you post on the recipe by December 15th. Adrienne and I will do a roundup of all the recipes so you know where all the cookies were baked and how all the cookies turned out.
We are aware that a few of you have dietary restrictions or allergies. When you receive a recipe you may alter it to fit your dietary needs, but please post the original as well. If you have any trouble altering a recipe feel free to contact me at lori AT fakefoodfree dot com or Adrienne at gastroanthropology AT yahoo dot com for advice or suggestions.
The only guideline is that the recipe should be something you’d find on a holiday cookie plate, so anything from rugelach to alfajores to fudge squares to gingerbread men!
Important Dates:
Let us know you want to participate by November 5th.
Send your recipe to the blogger randomly selected for you by November 15th.
Post about the recipe you received from a fellow blogger by December 15th.
What do you say? Let’s start collecting and creating those recipes and get some baking going on around the world, all in honor of the beloved holiday cookie plate!
This sounds like so much fun! Cookies were never really big in my family around holiday time, but I do love eating em.
I already left a comment over at Adrienne’s place but I thought I’d leave one here too. I’m in, in other words 🙂
I’d love to participate! katbaro at yahoo dot com
I’m in! This will force me to at least get one holiday cookie made this year. de5181 (at) aol.com
I’m in! mindysmouthful (at) gmail (dot) com.
Love this idea!! I’m in!
emily@anutritionisteats.com
Hello,
We bumped into your blog and we really liked it – great recipes YUM YUM.
We would like to add it to the Petitchef.com.
We would be delighted if you could add your blog to Petitchef so that our users can, as us,
enjoy your recipes.
Petitchef is a french based Cooking recipes Portal. Several hundred Blogs are already members
and benefit from their exposure on Petitchef.com.
To add your site to the Petitchef family you can use http://en.petitchef.com/?obj=front&action=site_ajout_form or just go to Petitchef.com and click on “Add your site”
Best regards,
Vincent
petitchef.com
Great! Thanks for the responses thus far. I have you down and you’ll be hearing from myself or Adrienne soon!
Hmmm….I like cookies. I’m in!
I’m so in. I love holiday cookies and look forward to adding some new recipes to my arsenal.
Sounds great–but can the recipe we send to the other blogger be one that has already appeared on our blog?
Ricki – Yes, it can be a recipe you’ve already posted, no problem.
Hi Lori!
I’d love to join in on the “exchange”. Would you want to make this go live between the two of us in LEX? Maybe we can get Danielle to join in too!
I absolutely love eating cookies and luckily enjoy them all year ’round. Can’t wait to read everyone’s holiday cookie posts.
I’m in. jasonphelps@yahoo.com
Jason
Gah! I’d love to participate but I am not in my own kitchen and don’t know if I can come up with a cookie recipe to exchange. I have about a week before the deadline to sign up so hopefully an idea will come to me!
At the very least, I will eagerly await the results of everyone else’s cookie creativity. 😎
You and Adrienne rock – what a great idea. I’ll sit this one out because I have so much going on right now, but if you do it again next year, I am definitely in. Can’t wait to read all the amazing recipes and ideas.
Lori, I’d love to participate, but I’m afraid that with my crazy dietary restrictions, there would be no cookie I could replicate! What do you think? (GF, no sugar, no eggs, no dairy). It would definitely be a challenge. . . !