Cookie Crazy!

This Holiday Season at the Red Apron we decided to revive an age old tradition – the Christmas Cookie Exchange.  The concept is simple:  gather your friends and family, bake your favourite cookie recipe, and everyone takes home a sampling of each.

These events can sometimes be compared to sale day at Filenes Basement, with participants kicking, punching, and elbowing their way to the best goods.  But ours was quite civilized, although it did include mulled wine and spiked apple cider!

Who knows where this tradition started.  Many cultures share a history of community baking. The ruins of Pompeii show evidence of public ovens where people brought their bread to be baked and through the ages communities all over the world often shared public ovens which would be fired up daily, or weekly.  These ovens became a community gathering place, where stories were told, problems were solved, and women found companionship and support.   I like to think that this is the root of the Cookie Exchange.

Our staff work hard to put great food on the table for our clients and this time of year is especially busy.  It doesn’t always leave us a lot of time to do our own preparations for the holiday season. So last Saturday we closed our shop at 2pm and baked our tooshies off!

Many pounds of butter, chocolate and flour later – we went home to stuff our cupboards and freezers with a selection of tasty treats.  The favourites of the day were Justine’s Millionaire Shortbread cookies which took top prize for the most intricate and exciting cookie with layers of shortbread, chocolate and dulce la leche…mmmmm…  Jo-Ann’s Peanut Butter Chocolate Balls were the easiest no-bake kid friendly.   Jacqui’s Ginger Snaps took top honours for the spiciest cookie we have ever tried!  Christopher took home the ‘ how to impress your mother’ prize’. Our 18 year old dishwasher, cook in training, and in-house photographer took 12 dozen cookies home to share with his Mom.  We all enjoyed his Peanut Butter Oatmeal cookies too!

Season’s Greetings!

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Filed Under:  Recipes, Tips and Tricks, by Season