It’s the most wonderful time of the year: cookie time! It’s the 5th year of The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, and the second that I’ve participated. This year, as every year, to enter, we each made a small donation to Cookies for Kids’ Cancer and raised $1,790.44. If you add that to our brand partners’ donations, we raised over $7,000! Yay!
The basic gist is, food bloggers (476 of us in 6 countries this year!) are assigned 3 other food bloggers at random, and we send each of those 3 a dozen cookies. In return, we also receive a dozen cookies from each of 3 people. It’s so much fun, and it’s always a blast to see the kinds of cookies people make.
The cookies I received were SUPER cute Black & White Sables from Ausra at vaikaivanile.com:
Coconut Thumbprint Cookies with Berry Jam and Lemon Curd from Lisa at Healthy Nibbles & Bits:
And Eggnog Sugar Cookies from Sue at Munchkin Munchies:
These cookies were all SO good, and Dennis and I have been going to town on them.
My contribution this year was some German spice cookies called Pfeffernusse, and I got them from a book called Best-Loved Cookies. They sounded pretty tasty, and I thought they would travel well. The people I got feedback from seemed to like them, and Dennis and I sampled some as well, so I can definitely recommend these.
I know it’s weird that I’m telling you to put pepper in them, but trust me. Just trust me. You’ll love them.
Pfeffernusse
From Best-Loved Cookies
Makes about 5 dozen cookies
Ingredients
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. ground cardamom
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark molasses
1 egg
Powdered sugar for sprinkling
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and all spices in a large bowl.
Beat sugar and butter together in the bowl of a mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in molasses and egg.
Gradually add the flour mixture, beating at low speed until dough forms.
Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, at least 30 minutes and up to 3 days.
Preheat your oven to 350°F and grease cookie sheets. Roll dough into roughly 1-inch balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.
Bake 12 to 14 minutes or until golden brown. Transfer cookies to wire racks, and dust with powdered sugar.
Make fun patterns on your cookie sheet.
Thank you so much to Julie at The Little Kitchen and Lindsay at Love and Olive Oil for hosting. This is always such fun, and I can’t wait until next year!
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Last year’s cookie swap post here!
