Holiday Cookie Swaptacular

In the hierarchy of my favorite foods, cookies are second only to pizza. Naturally, when Rory asked for a volunteer to host this year's second annual Holiday Cookie Swap, the Award Winning Eater stepped up to the plate (with considerable assistance in the holiday decorating department from Joslyn). 

Memories of October's Award Winning Eater-sponsored, gluttony-inducing Dessert Pot Luck Party were still fresh in the minds of many cookie swappers.  Nonetheless we managed once again to push the per capita dessert density at our home way off the charts. As the photo above shows, there were no fewer than 13 types of cookies--at least a dozen of each type--with only ten adults and three small children to consume them.

I wish I had a solid close-up of each cookie type, but they were all so good and I hesitate to post a picture that fails to give even a hint of the deliciousness each cookie possessed. I'm still working with a camera that isn't really great for food photography (advertising revenues haven't exactly been pouring in despite the blog's official sponsorship of the wildly successful aforementioned Dessert Pot Luck Party and my shameless promotion of WeightWatchers in the last few posts).  Hopefully these shots will give you some idea of the cookie-lovers' dream that this gathering was.

 Dawn made a strong showing with this tray of treats. In the back, mint chocolate crinkle cookies. In the middle we have the consistent crowd pleasers: a rolo melted on a pretzel topped with a pecan.  The recipe (which we've also made before) couldn't be simpler.

Line a cookie sheet with pretzels, top each with a rolo, and place the tray in a warm oven preheated to 225 degrees.  

• When the rolos are soft to the touch, but still holding their shapes (i.e., not melting over the sides yet) take the tray from the oven and press a nut )e.g., pecan) or shelled candy (e.g. peanut m&m) of your choice onto the rolo, pressing down just hard enough so the heat-softened rolo smushes into the gaps in the pretzel.  

• Let cool to room temperature and enjoy

Because Rory, as organizer, laid down the rule that no chocolate chip cookies were allowed at this "holiday cookie" swap, Dawn disguised her rendition, packed with two types of chocolate chips, pistachios, and dried fruit under a hood of chocolate and vanilla glaze.

For the second year in a row, Karen's stuffed cookies were real crowd pleasers. Molasses and lemon were never so good together as they were in this cookie combo.

Karen also gets points for being the only one at the swap to circulate her recipe beforehand.  Thus, I can share it with you:

Soft Molasses Cookies with lemon filling

Ingredients

     4 cups all-purpose flour

     2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

     1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

     2 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

     1 teaspoon table salt

     1 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

     8 tablespoons butter softened

     ½ cup shortening

     1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

     1/2 cup unsulphured molasses

     2 large eggs, lightly beaten

fIlling

     4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

     4 tablespoon lemon juice

     2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar

Instructions

     1. Whisk flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and cloves together in medium bowl. In separate bowl, cream granulated sugar and butter together until combined. Beat in molasses and eggs. Add dry mixture to butter mixture in three batches, stirring after each addition. Cover bowl with plastic and refrigerate until dough is firm, about 1 hour.

     2. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

     3. Place 1/2 cup granulated sugar in small bowl. Shape dough into 3/4-inch balls. Roll balls in granulated sugar, then transfer to prepared baking sheets, spacing balls 2 inches apart. Bake until tops are just beginning to crack, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating rack position and direction of baking sheets halfway through baking time. Cool cookies on baking sheets for 3 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely. Use remaining dough to make second batch of cookies.

     4. Whisk softened butter, lemon juice, and pinch of salt together in medium bowl. Whisk in confectioners’ sugar until smooth. Turn half of cooled cookies over (bottom side up) and spread each with 1 teaspoon lemon filling. Sandwich with another cookie. 

Clancy and Elizabeth brought these beautiful biscotti, sporting seasonal colors with green pistachios and red dried cranberries and cherries.

No holiday cookies swap is complete without gingerbread people.  Rachel rendered both gingerbread genders with skill as you can see above. More impressive, however, was the moist texture these cookies held on to days after the swap.

This tray of leftovers was assembled just for the photo. In actuality, I walked away with many more cookies than what you see. Fortunately, I was able to donate most my haul to a Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium holiday open house that depends on board members like me to do the baking for children of all ages who stop in.

In addition to the cookies I already described, you can see Joslyn's chocolate-dipped pistachio shortbread on the viewer's far right (pistachio was the "in" nut for 2011 baking apparently).  Rory's artistic cinnamon swirl is just to the left of the shortbread.  My weight-watcher's approved no-bake cocoa, peanut, oatmeal cookies (3 points each) are hiding between the biscotti and Karen's molasses cookies. On the left, just below the ginger people, you can see one of Jess's salty-swet peanut and pretzel blondie bars. And next to hers on the far left Josh's chocolate-covered macaroons (so tasty were they that Joslyn stole all of them back from the portion I set aside to donate to the museum open house---cookie swap can get cutthroat).

At first we all tried to control ourselves.  Joslyn and I were even splitting cookies in the early rounds.  But 45-minutes into it, the binge was on. After this year's swap, there were a few of us who would have fit snugly into a Santa suit. Ho, ho, sugar-high!