The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap: Chewy Pumpkin, Caramel & Chocolate Cookies

I participated in The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap again this year! It was just what I needed to break up the craziness at work and a packed social calendar. It provided a relaxing Sunday where I forced myself to bake cookies and devour the 3 dozen that were sent to me...just kidding, I shared! And when the cookies were all gone, I just went back to the eggnog...

I made Chewy Pumpkin, Caramel & Chocolate cookies, they were a loose version of these Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies and a fairly messy, but tasty experiment. Caramel is sticky. I've upated the recipe so it's easier to execute next time. When I made these I mixed the rolos into the batter, but my recommendation

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Funfetti Cookie Cake

Two desserts in a row for you guys, this time I decided to mix it up from my usual Chocolate & Peanut Butter Chip Cookie Cake and attempted a Funfetti Cookie Cake. Good news, it was a success. Cookie Cakes are perfect, everyone always seems to love them and they are ridiculously easy to make.

The occasion was that our good friends from New Jersey, Amanda & Pat, were visiting and it was right around Amanda's birthday. The perfect excuse to make a cookie cake. Happy Birthday Amanda!

This Funfetti Cookie Cake was delicious and I'll definitely be adding it into my cookie cake rotation. Thanks to Julia over at Fat Girl Trapped in a Skinny Body, I used her Funfetti Cookie recipe to make this giant cookie.

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A Valentine's Day Treat: Frosted Sugar Cookies

I'm going to be honest, Valentine's Day is totally not my thing. But cookies are, especially my mom's frosted sugar cookies. I don't even want to know the number of cookies my mom has made and frosted in her lifetime, but it's A LOT and they have been in all sorts of shapes. They also mail well, my mom has thoroughly tested that out. We're actually only moving to Seattle so we're a part of the holiday goody package mailing circuit.  

I'm warning you now, these guys are addicting. The recipe is below and comes from my mom's old Betty Crocker cookbook.

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The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap: Salty Sweet Cookies

In the past few weeks over 22,000 cookies were sent around the world as part of the inaugural Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap, and I had a wonderful time being a part of this gigantic cookie exchange! It gave me the opportunity to try out a new cookie recipe (and taste test of course), receive 3 dozen cookies in the mail (I shared), get introduced to some great food blogs and bloggers and have my jeans fit a bit tighter. 

I made Salty Sweet Cookies with cashews, butterscotch chips and dark chocolate chips, topped with sea salt. I was pretty happy with the outcome and glad I had commited to signing up to mail out these cookies, it would not have been pretty if I had all 50+ cookies the recipe made to myself. I sent a dozen to each of my recipients, Munching in the Mitten, Girly Obsessions and Ma Vie en Rose and they all seemed to enjoy the cookies as well!

In exchange I received a dozen cookies from 3 different bloggers, and lucky me I recieved 3 delicious batches! I had to force myself to share them with my neighbors. Tina from My Life As A Mrs sent me some decadent frosted sugar cookies, Amber from Caleigh's Kitchen sent red velvet cookies with white chocolate chips - have I mentioned I'm a sucker for red velvet? And Alan from Cooke'd With Luv sent me some amazing Chocolate Chip cookies! You should go checkout their blogs.

A huge thank you to Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil and Julie from The Litle Kitchen for organizing the cookie swap and I can't wait for next year!

Keep reading for the recipe that was adapted from a Better Homes & Gardens magazine.

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Melt In Your Mouth Pumpkin Cookies

Are you sick of pie? Then try these cookies, they really do melt in your mouth! My mom made these for the Thanksgiving weekend. They were perfect because they are make ahead, delicious and there were a lot. We had an endless supply for our tea parties, which we needed, because we had A LOT of tea parties! Kudos to my mom for frosting all of those cookies. 

You also don't have to keep them in a tupperware container for them to stay fresh, she left them out on wax paper, covered them with some paper towels (although I'm convinced this was only needed to hide them from my Dad and Grandpa before company arrived) and they stayed fresh and melted in our mouths all weekend long. The recipe comes from a Better Homes and Garden magazine she had picked up.

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