Tips for a cookie exchange?

[sweetpea]

Hi everyone! I'm hosting a cookie exchange early in December, for 9 ladies. I've sent out the invitations and now I'm trying to organize everything so I know ahead of time what I need to do. I've invited most of the ladies to bring their kids (some single moms in the group) so I could have 15 kids of all ages here too...with very little room downstairs for them. Any ideas on how to keep them occupied? Also, can anyone offer up some tried-and-true cookie recipes that will be easy, can be made (at least somewhat) ahead of time, and look great?!

Also, I plan on serving some appetizers, so any good recipes would be most welcome, especially if they can be done ahead of time and don't need a lot of last minute work.

I've been to a cookie swap but have never hosted one before, so all of you with experience, share your tips please!!

Thanks!
Kim

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[Alexxxx]

Originally Posted by sweetpea

Hi everyone! I'm hosting a cookie exchange early in December, for 9 ladies. I've sent out the invitations and now I'm trying to organize everything so I know ahead of time what I need to do. I've invited most of the ladies to bring their kids (some single moms in the group) so I could have 15 kids of all ages here too...with very little room downstairs for them. Any ideas on how to keep them occupied? Also, can anyone offer up some tried-and-true cookie recipes that will be easy, can be made (at least somewhat) ahead of time, and look great?!

Also, I plan on serving some appetizers, so any good recipes would be most welcome, especially if they can be done ahead of time and don't need a lot of last minute work.

I've been to a cookie swap but have never hosted one before, so all of you with experience, share your tips please!!

Thanks!
Kim

As far as keeping the kids busy -- since you're doing this in December, you could have them all decorate gingerbread houses. Just set up an area with all the ingredients -- graham crackers, candy bits, frosting for snow, etc. and let them go to town. Make sure everything is edible, of course. The older kids could help the younger kids. That should keep them busy for an hour or so.

[coltnlasma]

Oh, that is a good idea for the kids. You could also add sugar cones which, turned upside-down, can be iced and decorated like trees.

Just wondering - with swaps, are the cookies usually holiday-themed or just nicer than your average cookie?

[Trista]

From my experience, they can be either. Holiday-themed cookies are good, but it's also a good idea to maybe do some non-holiday themed nicer cookies. You can never go wrong with chocolate chip or the other basics, either. One good one to do would be a chocolate chip cookie, but with mint-flavoured chips and then topped with sprinkles. Also do little twists-it would be a sugar cookie recipe, but have half the batch done with red food colouring and the other half with green. You then do little twists, and then you can form it into rounds so that they look like wreaths or something.

For the kids, gingerbread houses can be fun, as could a movie like The Grinch.

Appetizers? If you have a Trader Joe's near you, I'd suggest getting some of their flatbreads and then cutting them into little squares. Also the garlic and tandoori naan is good, and you can cut them into wedges and serve with hummus. They have these new cheese souffles that are actually in nugget form, and you can fill one of those tiny muffin tins with the nuggets and have little cheese souffles in 20 minutes.

[Ellen]

Good god, 15 kids??!!! I strongly suggest wine for the grown-up ladies, and an in-need-of-pocket-money teenager to babysit the kids while they're frosting the gingerbread or torturing the dog or whatever they do these days for fun.

[GuardianAngel]

Baking cookies is one of my favourite things to do. I'll be starting my baking this weekend. I bake hundreds of cookies, and make xmas trays and boxed gifts. I'll be going through my recipe's and making my list. I'll post some here by the weekend.

Also, here is an amazing site, you can click on any link and it will give you the recipe.

Visit with Santa Claus at northpole.com

[Ellen]

The Food Network's Web site usually has good Xmas cookie recipes. For the last couple of years, I've subscribed to their "12 Days of Cookies" e-mail. I'm sure the recipes are archived somewhere on the site. There's always a good mix of healthy and decadent, easy and work-intensive, etc.

[Gutmutter]

You asked about recipes that you can start ahead... are you planning on making the cookies during the exchange? Every exchange I've been to, the cookies are made by each participant at home and then each person at the exchange gets their share of each batch so you end up with an array of already baked cookies. That shouldn't take too long, so the rest is just visiting. I'm not sure with the H1N1 climate, that I'd want to participate in one this year.

[myrosiedog]

I hosted one for 10 years. We never did appetizers as we let the ladies sample cookies. I provided punch, coffee, paper goods and the boxes to take the cookies home in. Never specified what type of cookies to bring, just that you had to bring 5 dozen on a nice tray and they had to be homemade. We got everything from tried and true to fancy. Always had a great mix and never had more than one set of chocolate chip. I usually had about 20-25 guests though. The first hour was for socializing and tasting cookies and then everyone got a cookie box and would go around and get 4 1/2 dozen cookies at first (we had been sampling after all) and then what was left after that was divided up amongst the guests. They could bring more than 5 dozen and get back more than 5 dozen, but the minimum was 5 dozen (with 25 people, you need at least that many of each kind)
Was probably the easiest, cheapest, most fun parties I've ever given.
And like Ellen, the Food Networks 12 days of cookies was a great resource. Many cookies like choc. chip, snickerdoodles, etc., can be made ahead of time and frozen.
Oh and we also didn't limit it to cookies as we had some friends that liked to make candy.
I got the cookie boxes from the local grocery store bakery. I had to pay for them, but they were only about 20 cents each. I really miss having it. I haven't done one in 2 years. But they are lots of fun. We never had kids at ours, so don't know what to tell you to do for that. We also always had it about 6-7 days before Christmas so everyone had goodies for the actual holiday. If they lasted that long.
The entire party usually lasted about 2 hours which was perfect. We used to have people beg us to get invitations. It became famous. Then I moved which is why I haven't had anymore.
But you will have fun.

[MiaT2]

I have done this a couple times and it was really fun! (never with kids though so can't help you there) We did the baking during the party but my groups were smaller ( only about 5 of us) so it wasn't as difficult. I just asked the attendees to bring their dough and we'd gossip and drink wine whilst baking. It did get hot in my kitchen and I think it ended up affecting the last few batches of cookies made (or perhaps that was the wine ) I bought cookie tins from the dollar store for my guests to take home their treats. If I were to host another such party, I would definitely request the cookies be made ahead of time so I could enjoy the "party" part of the party more.