Monday, December 13, 2010

DC Area Blogger Cookie Swap: Unload Cookies, Come Home With More

Yesterday, I had the chance to unload some cookies from my freezer, as Lisa of The Splattered Apron bravely volunteered her Alexandria townhouse for a DC-area blogger cookie swap.
There were a lot of amazing folks there, and a lot of incredible cookies. A lot. Many of them chocolate.
I teamed up with Marsea to whip up treats for the gathering. We made a bunch of brownie roll-out cookies with various buttercream frosting fillings - check back tomorrow for the details on these.
There were, of course, some lime thumbprints with coconut milk chocolate filling in the mix.
We also contributed some cocoa-cinnamon roll cookies; you'll see the very buttery recipe for these on Wednesday.
And it was only right to bring some of the newly-developed Occoquan Shortbread.
And for our vegan and gluten sensitive friends, vegan gingerbread spice truffles.
Marsea and I had our cookies wrapped up and tagged with information about our blogs, since this makes for easier recipe searching.
And to make it easier to identify what was being offered, the tags were labeled with what was inside each bag.
Our total contribution - it looked intimidating all together. But it was for two people, so it was totally reasonable.

I was so excited to clear so much out of my freezer. Forgetting that I would, of course, come back with, well, more cookies. Drats. But a delicious drats.

On the top left are chocolate clouds – please let me know if these were from you. I need, yes need, the recipe. SUPER IMPORTANT UPDATE: These were from Erin, a fellow engineer, and her recipe is based on Paula Deen's chocolate gooey butter cookies. Engineers obviously make good bakers. Next to that delightful creation is one of Emily’s peanut butter shortbread cookies, and at the bottom of the plate is one of Sarah’s peanut butter-white chocolate-cranberry cookies, which were the perfect combination of salty and sweet. Of course I had OTHER favorites.

Beth’s plain old chocolate chip cookies up on the left were incredible. Perfectly soft. Yum. Host Lisa had some chocolate chip cookies with fruit that were also soft and delightful, and somebody else was genius enough to make salty chocolate thumbprints, one of which lasted long enough for me to photograph it down at the bottom of the plate there.

I also met many other amazing bloggers, including Lauren, Chase, Amanda, Erin, and Sarah. What a fun time we had, thanks to Lisa’s mad organizational skills.

Are you doing any cookie swaps this season? What do you plan to bring?

20 comments:

  1. I'm not doing any cookie swaps....but all of those cookies look soooo yummy!!!!!!!

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  2. I just ate my cocoa cinnamon roll cookie for "breakfast dessert". Delicious!!

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  3. Whoa! How did I miss the cocoa-cinnamon roll cookies? I don't remember seeing them!! They look delicious :)

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  4. So nice meeting you last night! Those cloud cookies are mine, via Paula Deen. She calls them chocolate gooey butter cookies, and the so simple you could cry recipe is on The Food Network site.

    Looking forward to checking out your blog for chocolate fixes in the future :)

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  5. @fitchocoholic It's not too late to organize one! And yes, so many delicious cookies, many of them vegan and/or gluten-free. These women can work miracles.

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  6. @Chase Chase, that's totally logical - cinnamon roll=breakfast food. Also, those are relatively low in sugar. I promise. Now butter, on the other hand...

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  7. @llshots There weren't TOO many of the cinnamon roll cookies, so they might have gotten buried under all the brownie roll out cookies. They are super-super buttery, and not all that hard to make.

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  8. @Erin Wow, Erin, I should have figured that the engineers would have the best chocolate cookies :). I updated the post to give you credit for that deliciousness. I think I might use those as a base for an over-the-top cookie recipe I'm trying to make up. So great to meet you!

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  9. It was great meeting you in person!

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  10. I keep hearing about cookie swaps, but I have no idea how they work. Is it just a bunch of friendly bloggers who live in the same area getting together for good food and good times?

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  11. @Liz Likewise - and best of luck with your training!

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  12. @Mary at n00bcakes Mary, what we did was gather all the bloggers, and everybody brought 36 cookies (or more...) and everybody takes 36 cookies. It can be any amount, though. Just bring N cookies and leave with N cookies. Everybody RSVPd to the host through twitter/blog comment/etc and she emailed out details to attendees. TONS of fun!

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  13. oooh a cookie swap sounds like a wonderful idea!!!

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  14. Oh, so much fun! I'm so envious of not ever having done something like that in my life!

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  15. @Lisa (bakebikeblog) It's definitely a lot of fun, Lisa - and you still have time to put one together, though I suppose ours was a little far away :).

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  16. @Hannah It is definitely fun, Hannah! I want to organize a DC blogger chocolate swap ;).

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  17. Oh, I am jealous! What a fun sounding event. I've never met any other food bloggers, but there must be some around here (definitely in Austin at least). Those cookies all look delicious!

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  18. @Jessica @ bake me away! I bet you could round some food bloggers up - or just bloggers in general, no need for them to be food focused. We had people who blogged on photography, weddings, DC-area-tips, travel, education...

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  19. @Suzanne @ continuing my education Yay Engineers! I'm a nuclear engineer (for reals). What flavor of engineering do you do, Suzanne?

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