Cookie Party 2025 report

I tried to give myself a nice long cookie season by scheduling the party on the late side, December 20th. But somehow life intervened and I still ended up with not enough time. I feel like I missed out on a bunch of stuff by staying home and baking. But that’s nothing new.

Right now, three days post party, the cookie fairy has made most of her rounds and the amounts of cookies left in the house are definitely manageable. Even though I baked the Lora Brody ruggelach today. I mean the recipe only makes 4 dozen, and a baker’s dozen has already been given away not to mention the ones that have been eaten. But that’s nothing new.

The cookie fairy’s rounds included two stops at senior living facilities – that’s something new.

And what was really new was the party itself. It was cookie party, the compressed edition. Like reduced Shakespeare. Everyone arrived right at 5:30 and it was just packed until about 7:30. There was no second wave, only one or two people came later than 8:00, and by 9:30 everyone was gone.

The app of the night was the hot kimchi & corn dip. I got heavy duty Fritos scoop style chips and the dip was just inhaled scooped up on those. The barbecued tofu and barbecued turkey similarly disappeared and the cheese was rapidly decimated. The last app to be fully devoured was the kosher dogs wrapped in bought puff pastry, half Chicago-style with sport peppers and half plain.

I probably shouldn’t have made the Brie and cranberry bites in my mini muffin tins. Only seven from the first tray of two dozen got eaten. I froze the second two dozen and popped them out of the mini-muffin tin in the morning and stuck them back in the freezer in a container. I think that will make them super easy to cook and clean up since they’re not in the tin anymore and I can grab out just a few and bake them.

I also shouldn’t have made the goat cheese, date, and bacon dip. Barely half of it got eaten, and it’s not as good as the same components made into stuffed dates.

I was much better organized this year. The cookie platters were all made by 2:00, so I wasn’t frantically making platters as people were arriving and I didn’t keep too many cookies back leading to disgruntled cookie box packers. I think people were happy with the selection for their boxes this year and we raised about $1,000 for the food pantry.

Here’s the full menu:

• Pickled beets & beet juice eggs
• Deviled eggs
• Barbecue tofu with focaccia and oil & vinegar coleslaw
• Barbecue turkey with focaccia and mayonnaise coleslaw
• Small piece of salmon with dill mayo – that disappeared in the wink of an eye 
• Kosher dogs wrapped in puff pastry, Chicago-style and plain
• Warm kimchi, corn, and cheese dip with Fritos scoops
• Cranberry Brie bites
• goat cheese, date, and bacon dip
•  Biscuits with ham (a little over done and also largely NOT eaten)
• Pull-apart tree stuffed with string cheese and pesto, with red sauce for dipping (underdone, disaster, I threw it out. I was trying to get it out of the oven before everyone went home)
• Veggies & peanut dip
• Cheese boards with WI cheeses, inlcuding goat cheese with leek confit and tomato jam
• Nuts & olives & clementines & Chex mix
• Hummus that was a little too stiff, but people liked it OK and ate at least 3/4 of it. I’m going to whip what’s left up with some warm water and take it to John & Megan’s on Christmas Eve

And of course tons of cookies.

I didn’t make the layered white and dark chocolate and crushed peppermint bark. I may yet do that this holiday season. And instead of marzipan dates I tried out the “viral” date bark, peanut butter, dates, and chocolate. Good but I think next year it’s back to marzipan, and maybe some chocolate dipped apricots, too. I also didn’t cut up the fruit cake and decorate it with rosettes of hard sauce. My most fruitcake loving friends were not abel to come, so I’ll save the fruitcake for the next time I see them.

Here’re the cookie pics I have not shared as yet. Which doesn’t exactly make up for the ones that I just didn’t photograph, but some of these are quite pretty.

I put out the leftovers for a cookie grab on Sunday and here’re the pictures I took while doing that.

I think that’s it for now – happy holidays, happy cookies!