The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap

This year, I joined The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap and was given the names of three fellow food bloggers to send cookies to. In return, I would receive one dozen cookies from three other food bloggers.

There was a minimal donation to join, but I received my wonderful OXO spatula in exchange for my participation. Shortly after I joined, I was given the names of my cookie swappers. I sent cookies to Christy at My Invisible Crown, Jessica at Urban Sacred Garden, and Ruthie at My Tasty tRuth. 

I struggled for a bit as to finding just the right recipe to send. I attempted the Rudolph peanut butter cookies, but they were too delicate to ship. But then I remembered the "Grinch Cookie" (i.e. mint chocolate chip) recipe I found on Pinterest and tweaked it to add my own spin on the recipe. 

My mom and I have been baking cookies together since I can remember, and she did the same with her mom. I adapted a recipe found in the 1976 Betty Crocker's Cooky Book for Chocolate Chip Cookies. However, this recipe is found in the back of the book under the 1935-1940 Best of Cooky Chocolate Chip Cookies. Although the book is old and falling apart, I can't wait until the day it is truly mine. The recipes in this book bring back so many fond memories - spilt flour, good results (not so good results) and bonding time amongst my family. 

OXO spatula and my ingredients!

Grinch Cookies

2/3 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar (packed)

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tsp. creme de menthe liqueur

8 drops green food coloring

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips

3 oz. mint chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Mix shortening, sugars, egg, vanilla and creme de menthe thoroughly. Mix flour, soda and salt together in a separate bowl and then add to the mixture. Mix until well blended.

Add food coloring and mix thoroughly. Mix in chips by hand. This was a bit of a workout, so I had to pause to take a sip or two from my beer :)

Color Time

Baking cookies and enjoying a beer!

Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of dough about 2" apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. 

Bake 8 - 10 minutes or until just lightly browned. Let rest for 2 minutes on pan and then transfer to cooling racks. Makes 4 - 5 doz. cookies.

I almost didn't have enough to send to the bloggers as my parents kept sneaking them while they were cooling. They are pretty good if I do say so myself. And my family loves the mint chocolate combination, so I'll be making these a few more times this holiday season. 

 

I received my first package of cookies from Veronique at Food and Whine Chickie in this adorable moose jar. My first bite took me back to childhood as the flavor resembled Polish Krustiki's(?) - deep fried love knot cookies my grandma made every Christmas. After reading the recipe, the ingredients are similar, minus the sesame seeds. You can read about the cookies here.

My next cookies came from Sara at My Imperfect Kitchen. She even sent some cute snowflakes that I hung in my office cube to make work more merry! They are peppermint pink and white cookies with just the right hint of mint. A few broke in shipping, but I don't mind because I don't feel as bad grabbing a few pieces out of the cookie jar then to eat. (They are rather large rings - ok I'm just trying to justify the fact I LOVE cookies). These are almost gone too -- thanks to my parents picking up on the treats entering the house and raiding the cookie jar! You can get the recipe here.

My last cookies came from Lacy at NYCityEats.com. I was a little hesitant at first from the description - brown butter eggnog snickerdoodles stuffed with salted coffee caramels and sprinkled with chocolate. I'm not a huge coffee fan and I don't believe I have ever had eggnog (don't shoot me, but the name isn't appealing at all to me). They were still cold from sitting on the porch, so I nuked the cookie for 8 seconds before eating. You can get the recipe here.

It gently snapped in half and I saw the nice caramel in the middle. After my first bite, I knew I was in trouble. These were amazing. All those flavors went together so well. I was very surprised and want to hide these from the parents (seeing as they have eaten my other treats) but it's the holidays so I'll share. 

I can't wait to see these recipes from each person and hopefully attempt them myself. But I'm sure you can 

all attest that if someone else makes them, they are just that much yummier. Sure I will be satisfied with my results, but I'm not the world's best baker, but you aren't a success until you have failed a few times right???

I am so happy I joined the Cookie Swap this year and I can't wait until next year. If you want to join, follow my blog and also sign up to receive notifications from Cookie Swap and I'll provide updates. I'm already saving ideas on Pinterest to one-up myself for next year!

#MKEFoodies Bake Sale - Cookies For Kids' Cancer

Grab bag table at 2011 Bake Sale

I'm very excited to announce that again this year, I am participating in the #mkefoodies Bake Sale to raise money for Cookies for Kids' Cancer - an amazing charity for childhood cancer research. It was started by two former OXO employees whose son had cancer. Click here for the story.

2011 Bake Sale Ingredients

I will be baking some great cookies and maybe some other treats, package them up in holiday wrappings and then prep them for sale. (I, along with the other bakers, will do all the work for you!!) Customers can come and buy their favorite treats to share/gift to family and friends. There will be plenty to choose from because Milwaukee has some very talented bakers that will donate wonderfully tasting and beautifully decorated treats to this great event.

The event even has treats for those with special dietary requests. Last year, I made peanut-free and gluten-free varieties and they were all gone by the end of the day.

If you aren't a sweets fan, feel free to stop by and make a donation. The Pabst Brewery is a really neat building, so enjoy some beer, wander the gift shop, or take the tour. If you can't stop by, you can donate here.

I don't know yet what I'm making for the sale, but with the awesome and ever time-consuming website, Pinterest, I know I will not come up short for ideas. I'm definitely considering some mint chocolate chip cookies. 


And lastly, this past Friday, I received a package in the mail and inside was a spatula. But not just any spatula, an OXO "Good Cookie" Spatula. 50% of the proceeds from the sale of these spatulas will go to pediatric cancer research. I can't wait to use mine for this bake sale and The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap (more details to come on this one!)

Here are the details for the #MKEFoodies Cookies for Kids' Cancer Bake Sale
What: #MKEFoodies Bake Sale for Cookies for Kids' Cancer
Where: Best Place at the Pabst Brewery 
(901 W Juneau Ave, Milwaukee)
When: Saturday, Dec. 8
Time: noon - 4 pm
Why: No child should have to deal with cancer (nor should anyone), so come help support a great cause and get some great treats, and leave the baking to us!


So come on out to the bake sale and donate to this great cause!

Bake Sale Recap

Last week Saturday was the #mkefoodies Holiday Bake Sale for Cookies4Kids. It was held at The Best Place at the Pabst Brewery. So many donations were brought in including some amazing vegan cupcakes from Compassionate Cake. I can't believe the skill that was put into decorating and I got the joy of trying a gingerbread cupcake and the flavor was spot on and amazing.

I snapped a few pictures at the event and I have to say that the fill-a-bag table was a huge hit. Volunteers had packages up their cookies in groups of 3-4 per bag and we had "donators" fill a lunch bag full with as many of those little bags as they could for $10 - a very fair deal. I couldn't believe how fast the cookies were going off the tables. We were constantly condensing and learned for the future to package more cookies that way.

Right before the event began - tables full of cookies!!!

From the balcony at The Best Place looking down on the event.

Cookie lovers buying and donating to Cookies4Kids

In all the event raised $1200 for Cookies4Kids and very few treats remained at the end. All of the volunteers were able to take home a treat for working and nothing went to waste. I think that next year the event will be even larger and we can raise even more. I'm very excited for that.

So here is what I made for the day. I had a few recipes in mind that I wanted to try but I knew that I wanted to try some more and went hog-wild at the store buying baking ingredients.

I knew that a lot of children have food allergies to either nuts or gluten so I decided to make two cookies to hit those marks. The first cookie that I made was a gluten free peanut butter kiss cookie that I found on RecipeGirl.com. They were extremely easy to make and I think they may become a staple cookie for me. You would never know that they didn't have flour in them when you taste them. It is a richer cookie as you truly taste all the peanut-buttery goodness, but what's wrong with that. I even decorated mine with a little red and green colored sugar on the outside. I use the chocolate stars instead of kisses to fancy them up a little more but this is one good cookie.

Another cookie that I made was from Gluten Free Essentials called a Cocoa Mudslide Cookie. I bought the mix from A Gluten Free Frenzy in Brookfield and it was a really easy mix. The only thing that I learned on this batch is with the chocolate and marshmallows in the mix, these can quickly turn into a mess in your oven and stick to the pan -- parchment paper is a must for the future! I of course had to try a few to see how they turned out. It was a very light cookie that resembled cake more than a cookie but the crunch on the outside with the soft middle was something that I dream for my cookies most of the time. I definitely got mudslide out of them and they sold pretty quickly at the Bake Sale as well.

I also made basic snickdoodles for the sale that I got from AllRecipes.com, but unfortunately I can't remember which one I used as they are all very similar. They turned out very well and sold great too.

I also attempted regular chocolate chip cookies, a cinnamon roll cookie and chocolate/butterscotch cookies and none of those turned out. I'm not sure what I did wrong but I was 3 for 6 this time around. Not the best odds, but I'm just happy I had somethings to donate that were delicious. And I gained a new cookie or two for my recipe box. Until my next blog, Happy Eating!