THE COOKIE SWAP

“Could you repeat that?” I giggled.  “I thought you said to bring twelve DOZEN cookies!  Silly me!”

“That’s right – homemade.  Just bag them up, twelve to a bag.  I’m inviting the twelve moms on the street.  Oh, and bring an extra dozen to serve at the party.  Also, write down the recipe to enclose in each bag.  See you there.”

Home baked?  I wondered if that could mean the store bought kind that claims to taste like home made.  But my conscience told me no.  Well, if other mortals could do it, then so could I.

I enlisted my Jenny and Elizabeth’s help.  We carefully cut stars, trees, holly leaves and Santa’s.  They painstakingly decorated them with sprinkles, jelly beans and frosting.  The yield?  Six cookies for the first batch.  The time:  one hour and twenty minutes.  Something had to give.  The next batch I decided not to decorate, still the clock was ticking and I had a dozen cookies made.

Now I was getting serious.  The party was tomorrow and I lacked 144 cookies.  I’d decided to use the first cookies to serve at the party since they were undoubtedly going to be the best looking.

Four hours later I was totally frustrated.  But since this was to be a yearly event in our neighborhood, I concocted the following time-saving recipe to share with those people who were not raised by Betty Crocker.  Use it to swap and enjoy everyone else’s cookies!

Buy twice as many cookies as you will need.  Get the cheapest but be sure there’s no design – just round ones.  Vanilla Wafers work great.  Dump them all in a plastic garbage bag and kick vigorously for 20 seconds.  This makes them look authentically home made (imperfect).  Next dump in two boxes of Confectioner’s Sugar.  Save ½ teaspoon to smear onto your outfit just before leaving to give them the impression of fresh baked goods.  Now heat your oven to 500 degrees and dump six cookies to cook till your smoke alarm goes off.  Break into bits to sprinkle at the bottom of each bag.  Drop 3 drops of vanilla flavoring into the tops for scent.  Dab a bit behind each ear.  Try to look exhausted.

If you want to give the impression of a world class chef, you can get some canned icing to smear on the tops and if you still need to be more impressive, throw on some chopped nuts.  Stack this on some fancy tray and photograph the things.  I don’t advise eating them but they’re terrific to swap.