Don't get stuck baking
Treat your friends to a taste of your baking skills this holiday season with a recipe that yields delicious cookies and lasting friendships.
Host a cookie exchange party. These festive swaps offer a time-saving way to share an assortment of baked-from-scratch treats.
Just invite eight to 12 friends and ask them to bring six dozen of their favorite holiday cookies. At the swap, exchange cookies to end up with a variety of six dozen new cookies.
Robin Olson, a cookie exchange hostess and pioneer of the modern cookie swap, said, "Lining my pans with parchment paper ensures my cookies bake evenly and slide off the cookie sheet.""I also use parchment paper to roll dough and stencil decorations. It's my tool to keep cookie baking fuss-free," she said.For more how-to's on hosting a successful cookie exchange party, consider these tips from Olson:• Timing is everything. Choose a convenient date and time, perhaps a weekend morning. Limit the party to two to three hours.• The more the merrier. Eight to 12 guests provide a nice assortment of cookies.• Bake six dozen. Instead of asking each guest to bring a dozen cookies for each attendee, pick a quantity that won't change with each RSVP. I usually ask each guest to bring six dozen cookies.• Variety rules. To ensure guests don't all show up with gingerbread men, ask what type of cookie they will be bringing when they RSVP. If a guest wants to bring a cookie that's already on the RSVP list, help them think of an alternate.• Make your favorite at home. Ask guests to e-mail their cookie recipes to you in advance. This way, you can print off copies to hand out at the exchange so partygoers can make more at home.
When it comes to baking cookies for the exchange, Olson offers this time-saving advice:• Roll dough with ease. Roll cookie dough between two lightly floured sheets of parchment paper to prevent sticking and to keep work surfaces clean.• Speed up cookie baking. Arrange cookie dough on sheets of parchment paper and slide parchment onto the cookie sheet when it's time to bake. When a batch comes out of the oven, simply swap out the sheets of parchment so there's no waiting between batches.• Line pans for brownies or bar cookies. Turn the pan upside down and press a sheet of parchment paper over the inverted pan. Remove the parchment paper, flip the pan over and drop the parchment paper liner inside, pressing folds in corners to fit liner inside pan.Spread batter in a parchment-lined pan and bake as directed. When the brownies or bar cookies are cool, lift them by the parchment paper from the pan onto a cutting board. Fold back the edges of the parchment paper and cut into bars.• Stack cookies with ease. To take cookies to and from the party, place a piece of parchment paper between layers of cookies. This protects decorations and prevents cookies from sticking to each other.
