Many Good Things

I am still working on that list of favorites for the Repertoire, so don't worry, any of you who were hanging in suspense from the last post-- it will come soon! For today though, I have something very special to report.

Cookie-Mas has arrived!

In the form of the First Annual Food Bloggers' Cookie Swap- yay!

The Cookie Swap combined many good things that I like: boxes in the mail, surprises, pen pals, new food blogs to explore, and of course, COOKIES!

For my end of the bargain, I made a double batch of a favorite recipe from iPoL, and tweaked it just a smidge:

1 3/4 c. flour

2 c. old fashioned oats
1 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1 ts. baking soda
pinch salt
3 tsp. instant espresso powder
2 cubes (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 egg and 1 egg yolk
1 ts. vanilla
1/2 bag semisweet chocolate chips (Can add more if you want)
1 c. coarsely chopped dried apricots anything you can get your hands on, in this case, prunes, apricots, and raisins

Preheat oven to 350. In medium bowl, combine flour, oatmeal,sugars, salt,baking soda, and espresso powder. Add egg, egg yolk, melted butter, and vanilla, stir once or twice, then add chocolate chips and dried apricots. REFRIGERATE DOUGH for at least 30 minutes to firm it up. Place balls of cookie dough on cookie sheets lined with parchment paper, and bake for 9-10 minutes. Take them out while they still the tiniest bit underdone. Once they sit for 15 minutes, they’ll be just right.

I packed up the pretty, plump ones and shipped them out the day after I made them. I ate the evidence that there were any that were not uniformly plump. (Again, here's a butter-spreading-related question- what did I do wrong in the first photo? Both batches were refrigerated for the same time, and rolled out approximately the same size.)

The double bacth yielded enough for the 3 dozen I sent out to Madeline of Munching in the Mitten, Karen of SoupAddict, and Leah of So, How's It Taste?, plus plenty to satisfy my sweet tooth (more on that later) while I awaited the other end of the bargain- 3 different dozens coming to ME!... The first box I received was from My Life as a Mrs, which were delicious: Soft Frosted Cookies, recipe here. Soft, moist, cakey, and vanilla-sweet. Kept very well, and such cute presentation!

My next mystery box was from Kiss My Whisk: Salty Sweet Cookies, which came with a cute recipe card (which is how I did mine too!) and wrapped like a present-- recipe here. It was hard to keep to my self-imposed rule of 'eat two, and pass on the rest' here, but I did, and my coworkers raved about these.

My last box was the most elaborate, presentation-wise (glass jar! I know how heavy-therefore-expensive those are to ship! Thanks, Girly Obsessions!), and the cause of my abandoning my self-imposed rule. But really, it was for practical reasons, since despite the wax paper, the glass jar, and the bubble wrap, a good third of the cookies crumbled when I tried to take them out of the bag. At which point someone may have started scooping up these Dark Chocolate Wafers with Almonds and Sea Salt with her bare hands and popping them into her mouth. When I- mean The Someone- regained consciousness, there were 6 mostly whole cookies left, and some crumbs, which I used the next day as a dessert topping. So I couldn't have brought in six cookies to offer my twelve coworkers, could I? That would have been just mean.

In conclusion, this was a great idea. Many good recipes, many good people. Thank you to the Amazing Organizers, and if you want to participate next year, sign up here for notifications! Happy Cookie-Mas, everyone.