Bake and Take Recipes for a Cookie Exchange!
If you get an invitation to a cookie exchange, don’t turn it down if you’ve never baked up a bunch o’ holiday dough to share! Look at these recipes from celebrity and home bakers and chefs and you’ll be armed to the teeth with some of the best cookies ever! Although unless we’re mistaken, some sound so good, they may never make it to the exchange!
Cookie Exchange Fan Favorites
My Food and Family, the Kraft Heinz blog, doesn’t stop with classic Christmas cookies, but goes all out with a ton of edible homemade gifts to give, keep, exchange and eat. From bars and squares, to fudge and treats, you’ll find 35 recipes for cookies alone. A quick survey of the votes entered on the first page of recipes leads us to believe there are three reader favorites: the Mexican Wedding Cookies, the Kris Kringle Cookies, and the Stained-Glass Sugar Cookies – in that order.
The Mexican Wedding Cookies take 35 minutes – 20 to prep and 15 to cook and are little round balls of butter, powdered sugar, flour and chopped pecans – oh, plus a teaspoon of vanilla extract. What could be easier? The recipe makes 48 cookies – plenty to divvy up with friends.
For even more sugary cookies, these Italian Christmas Cookies from Cakes Cottage are little strips of dough twirled to a look a little bit like the Mexican Wedding Cookies, but these are dipped in drizzly icing and dotted with sprinkles. One batch makes 24 so you might want to double the recipe!
Easy AND Festive Holiday Cookies for an Exchange
Blogger Kristyn at Lil Luna took one cookie recipe and created four different cookie variations that are perfectly-themed for the holidays. Using her family’s favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, she fills one with red and green M&Ms; dips another in white chocolate, teensy red balls and green leaf sprinkles, dots a third with bits of crushed candy canes and nonpareils and finishes one with candy cane Kisses from Hershey’s. 
Laura at Family Spice says you can’t celebrate a winter holiday without a Gingerbread Cookie! She makes hers with extra virgin olive oil and her first tip is to taste your oil first to make sure it’s not past its prime or peppery-flavored – as both will ruin your cookies! Adding in holiday spices like cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon – plus the ginger, are familiar reminders of the seasonal alternative to sugar cookies. Laura “pipes” hers with an icing outline and uses a bamboo skewer to poke holes in the neck for her gingerbread men’s red and white baker’s twine tie.
Best of the Batch
Inspired by Charm is truly an inspired blog, when it comes to cookie-making. The recipes from baker/blogger Michael, and photos of his cookies, are so scrummy-looking we bookmarked his site for future reference. From his three-ingredient fudge and Frosted Eggnog Cookies, to Salted Caramel Thumbprints and Milk and Cookie Shots (!) there’s not a single recipe on Inspired by Charm we wouldn’t want to receive in an exchange!
For 50 more festive and classic Christmas cookies to scroll through, check out Sally’s Baking Addiction’s Cookie-Palooza! From Rugelach and Snickerdoodles to Peanut Butter Blossoms and Red Velvet Whoopie Pies, Sally even includes cookies for chocolate-lovers, the allergy-prone recipes and a few slice-and-bake varieties.
Cookie Lovers in Colliers Hill
There are plenty of cookie and cake lovers in the master-planned community of Colliers Hill, and you can bet their favorite room of the house is the kitchen! They found their way home to this fast-growing North Denver community with amazing amenities and high-achieving schools. Tour the model homes offered by Meritage Homes, Richmond American Homes, and Century Communities with ranch and two-story floor plans — priced from the high $300s.
