6th Day of Christmas - Time for an Exchange!

I bake a lot in December. And by a lot, I really mean like, daily. So you know I love a good Cookie Exchange.

The idea of a Cookie Exchange is to make a certain number of cookies (say, 6 dozen of the same variety) and go home from the exchange with 6 dozen different kinds of cookies; 1 dozen of 6 different recipes. This is great to do right before having family in town or if you're throwing a Christmas party. It's easier to triple the recipe for one kind of cookie and make sheet after sheet after sheet of them. But it's much more fun to serve a variety of treats to your guests.

A warning about Cookie Exchanges: beware of inviting your non-baking friends! I attended one party where I baked dozens of amazing cookies and received back a bag of 12 tiny pieces of peanut brittle from one friend and 12 - count 'em only twelve - pretzel hugs from another. I gave her 12 cookies, she gave me 12 mini-pretzels. I can pop 12 chocolate-covered pretzels in my mouth before you're done reading this post! Come on, people!!! Then there was the year one of the participants baked 12 scones. Not 12 per person, just 12, so each of the 6 of us got TWO. The math doesn't always add up (I baked 72 cookies and got back 60 cookies and 2 scones...she baked 12 scones and left with 72 cookies???) - just know that things like that will likely happen, unless all of your friends are Martha Stewart wanna-be's.

Okay, now that I've gotten my Cookie Exchange trauma stories off my chest, I'll stop complaining.

Back to the challenge: consider planning a Cookie Exchange with some friends or neighbors this year. Pick a date, call some ladies and enjoy coffee, Christmas music and conversation for a couple of hours some Sunday afternoon.

Now that I've scared you OUT of doing an exchange (*sorry!*) - I am excited to give you an amazing secret recipe. *prepare yourself* One of my baking-crazed friends, Sari, searched high and low for THE BEST sugar cookie recipe on the planet. Her ideal cookie wasn't the crispy, thin cookies that snap when you bite them. Oh no...we're talking the thick, Lofthouse-type cookies that are sold in the bakery section of most grocery stores. My friends, she baked many, many sugar cookie recipes to find this gem that I'm about to share with you. They are...divine. And the best part is that you don't have to refrigerate the dough for 2 hours before making them! Grab a pen...this is a keeper...

THE BEST fluffy, soft, thick Sugar Cookies
1 ½ c. sugar
1 c. butter
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1 c. milk
4 ½ c. flour
1 ¼ t. baking soda
4 t. baking powder
(yes, that's right...FOUR teaspoons!)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream sugar, butter and egg. Mix dry ingredients, then add them to the wet mixture. Add milk and vanilla. Roll out the dough pretty thick - about half an inch. The key is to roll out the dough with lots of flour (at the beginning, I usually even have to flour my rolling pin between each roll…the dough can get pretty gooey - expect for your hands to be coated with flour), cut with your shapes using cookie cutters, lay the cookies about an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet (they grow and rise in the oven) and bake 8-10 minutes. Store in a tightly sealed container.

These freeze well!

Frosting

(double the following recipe for a thicker frosting layer on the cookies)
2 c. powdered sugar
1/3 c. butter, softened
½ t. vanilla
1-2 T. milk

Do you have a favorite cookie recipe? Come on. Please share...your grandmother will never know. You can leave a comment or participate in an online recipe exchange at Jon and Tom's Place: here.