Holiday Cookie Swap!

Posted by Lauren

On Sunday I hosted a Holiday Cookie Swap at my house. Before the hoopla got underway, I made sure to go on my long run!

I ran by tech companies and the bay marshes, both scenic in their own ways. My Garmin died somewhere between mile 0.5 and mile 1.0; I always forget to charge it! After a quick shower and last minute changes to my fantasy football lineup, I got to work on another batch of cookies, recipe below!

Red Velvet Cake Crumb Cookies
A great way to use up leftover cake or cupcakes! Just don’t include the frosting when blending the cake into crumbs!

3 1/2 cups red velvet cake crumbs
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup butter, room temp
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks
1/4 cup cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Prepare two baking sheets.
2. Place leftover cake crumbs in a food processer and pulse until you get fine crumbs. Pulse the flour and baking powder until fully combined. Set aside.
3. In a mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until fully combined.
4. Mix in the egg yolks one at a time and then add the cold water and vanilla.
5. Add the cake crumb flour mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture. Beat well.
6. Drop by the spoonful onto a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350* for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

They may not be the prettiest cookies, but they tasted great! I loved re-purposing the leftover red velvet cake into cookies.

Laura was the first girl to arrive. She brought fabulous wafer cookie sandwiches. Imagine this: two wafer cookies, marshmallow and peanut butter in the middle, chocolate coating. Ummmmm, amazing!

Laura actually arrived 4 hours before the party started. Her sister flew in a couple days early from London, so Laura decided to drop off her cookies and then drive to her family’s house for a big welcome home dinner. I’m so glad she stopped by (especially with such yummy cookies in tow!)

Here’s my set up: wine from Healdsburg, Napa, and Paso Robles (I keep it Californian), a festive gingerbread house, chalkboard classes with red + green chalk for labeling, and tea just in case.

Krizia and Sarah got very festive with their glasses… I wish I would have taken a photo :(

The cookie table!!!!!!

And another table with way less sugar… veggies, hummus, tortilla chips, crackers, and cheese. Like the gourds? Borrowed them from my mom!

Below, you’ll see Megan’s white chocolate and cranberry oat cookies, which were crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle (the best way to be IMO).

In the background of the above photo, you can see Krizia’s chocolate chip walnut cookies – very good!

Megan also brought rugelach. We popped a few in the microwave for ~20 seconds to soften the outsides and make the chocolate and walnuts inside warm. Perfecto. You can just barely see the red velvet cake crumb cookies that I made on the left and the peanut butter blossoms that Luci brought over. I really went to town on those – peanut butter is my weakness. Thanks, Luci :)

Sarah brought iced raspberry shortbread bars. She followed a secret recipe from her boyfriend Mike’s family cookbook. The recipe was labeled “not-so-secret,” so I think we’re okay :) We’ve got to respect data privacy laws! I need to get that recipe from her and share it on the world wide web because they were reallllyyyyyyy good and quite festive!

There are those wafer sandwich cookies again…. drooling! On the left you can see a few of my Better-Than-Brownies cookies. They were so so so so chocolaty.

Kelley (left) stopped by after working (on Sunday!!) with some tasty lemon cookies and PB/chocolate cookies. I made sure to try one of each – no cookie left behind.

After a few hours of chit chat and catching up, the girls assembled to-go boxes and plates. Despite all the cookies they took home, I still have an enormous cookie stash! I brought three plates to work and have one ready for Kyle and one for my mom. (And a secret container for me MUAHAHA.) It was so fun to have everyone over! Why can’t cookie swaps happen once a month??

Happy Monday! Just a week until Christmas Eve!

-Lauren