The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, 2014
It’s that time of year again… time for The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!
Hosted by Julie from The Little Kitchen and Lindsay from Love & Olive Oil, the cookie swap benefits Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, a non-profit organization committed to funding new therapies used in the fight against pediatric cancer. Since 2008, Cookies for Kids’ Cancer has helped to fund four dozen childhood cancer research grants, leading to nine promising new treatments now in clinical trial that are available to children fighting cancer today.
This year is my third year participating in the cookie swap. After making a small donation to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer, each participant is sent the names and addresses of three other food bloggers to send cookies to. In return, three other food bloggers send us cookies! Very awesome, all around.
In 2012, I sent out Lemon Crinkles.
In 2013, I sent out three types of cookies – Cookie Butter Cookies, Gooey Stuffed S’mores Cookies, and Sweetened Condensed Milk Cookies.
This year, I was matched with Brett from Green Thumb White Apron, Sara from Sara Ran Away With The Spoon, and Sarah from Sarah Cooks The Books.
Lately I’ve been busy enough that I rarely bake anything during the year – so I decided to go all out, and bake four different types of cookies to send to my matches, since this is my only excuse all year to bake!
The first cookies I knew I had to make were these Date Nut Bars, which my late maternal grandmother used to make when I was a kid. I LOVED these as a kid, and still do as an adult!
Secondly, I’ll take any excuse to make these Gooey Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cookies from SugarHero! I made them a year ago, but never got around to posting about them, so I figured this was the perfect opportunity to make them again.
The third type of cookie I decided to make were these Vanilla Refrigerator Cookies topped with Chocolate Ganache – another family recipe from my grandmother. A family favorite.
And lastly, I wanted to make something that Son would enjoy, so I decided to try these Pistachio Cookies.
In return, I got these amazing Russian Tea Cakes from Julie of Sweet and Spicy Monkey…
… delicious Chocolate Coconut Icebox Cookies from Janelle of F-chem 101 (that Son has hogged all to himself!)…
… and Mexican Wedding Cookies from Kristi of Inspiration Kitchen.
In addition, since my friend Allison Boyer and I were both doing the cookie swap, we decided to send cookies to each other as well! She sent me these tasty Gingerbread Cookies that I have demolished. I love gingerbread!
If you missed this year’s Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, sign up to be notified about next year’s! It’s great fun, for a good cause… and who doesn’t like getting yummy cookies in the mail?
Julie@Sweet and Spicy Monkey 12/16/2014 at 12:04pm
Hi Allison! I’m so glad you liked my Christmas Russian Tea Cakes! I hope they didn’t get drenched with all the rain you’ve been having out there in Cali or melted with all that warm weather. Your cookies look delicious too! Happy Holidays!