The Great Twitter Cookie Swap – Take Two

I would like to re-start the “Great Twitter Cookie Swap”. We all love cookies. This experiment/project aims to have a bunch of friends and acquaintances participate in a cookie exchange, and associated discussion, primarily on Twitter.

The Idea
The idea is simple. Each person on the list will receive a package of homemade biscuits from the person before them on the list. Once you receive your first package, you prepare two batches of cookies (say a dozen per batch). You send one to the person before you on the list, and one to the person after you on the list. I will get the ball rolling by sending a batch of cookies to the first participant!

When you receive your cookies from the person before you on the list, please DM the person after you on the list to get their address. Please respect people’s privacy and keep their addresses confidential. For postage guides please check out NZ Post's website.

This is not a cookie pyramid scheme; it is a "give one back and pass one forward".

As there is no way to know exactly when it will be your turn to send on cookies, it may be possible that you will not be able to bake at that time. Don't let that stop you from signing up! While homemade baking is preferred, if you find yourself unable to bake, you could go to Eve's Pantry (if you're in Auckland) or your local baker to grab some cookies to send on.

For recipe ideas please check out this Christmas cookie site.

Food allergies
If you or your family have food allergies, please make sure to let the person ahead of you on the list know!!! Also, make sure to include a complete ingredient list/recipe with your cookie package.

Posting recipes and ideas
Participants who want to post their recipes here will be granted access to the blog; we can all gather an archive of true and tested NZ cookies. @cookieswap will post on Twitter when new recipes arrive!

How to enter
Send a tweet to @nessliddell or @cookieswap and use the hashtag #nzcookie, or comment on this post with your Twitter @username. I will add your name to the list in the order it is received. If we don't know each other, please let me know who referred you.

Caveat
As this hasn't been done before, to ensure success, unfortunately we have to restrict participants. This exchange is only open to:

• People living in New Zealand, and
• People using Twitter, and
• People that we know (@vavroom and @nessliddell) know, or people referred by people we know

The list (It's not limited to 10)

1. @nessliddell - Cookies given to @blimeychrissy (21/11/09) "choc-chip with a hint of coffee"

2. @blimeychrissy - Cookies given to @nessliddell (21/11/09) - Cookies received from @velofille (27/11/09)

3. @velofille - Cookies sent to both @blimeychrissy & @shessassy (26/11/09)

4. @shessassy - Cookies sent to both @velofille & @vavroom (07/12/09)

5. @vavroom - Cookies sent to both @shessassy & @classyadele (12/01/10)

6. @classyadele

7. @damnELECTRIC

8. @JessCann - Cookies given to @JessCann (04/12/09)

9. @rgoodchild - Cookies given to @gracebridges (04/12/09) and received from @rgoodchild

10. @gracebridges - Cookies sent to @nessliddell (06/12/09) and given to @rgoodchild (04/12/09)

1. @nessliddell - Cookies given to @dlishblog (21/12/09) and sent to @gracebridges (12/01/10)

2. @dlishblog - Brownie given to @dlishblog from @nessliddell (21/12/09) and cookies given to @nessliddell

3. @chandalier - Cookies given to and received from @dlishblog (21/12/09). Cookies sent to @jobsonb (22/12/09)

4. @jopsonb

5. @kimmiwyn

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Coffee Hazelnut Crescents

These were sent to @gracebridges and @uknzguy.

The biscuits, ready to eat.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cup plain flour


• 2 tablespoons caster sugar


• 125g (4oz) butter


• 60g (2oz) hazelnuts


• 1 egg yolk


• 3 teaspoon strong expresso


• 1/2 cup caster sugar, extra

Directions

1. Add sugar to flour


2. Rub in butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs


3. Grind hazlnuts finely in blender, sift, and add to mixture (sifting avoids bigger chunks that didn't get ground)


4. Add egg yolk and expresso


5. Refrigerate covered dough 30 minutes (not much longer, else the dough will be too stiff to work!)


6. Roll 2 teaspoons of dough into 5cm (2") lengths then shape into crescents


7. Place crescents on baking sheet lined with oven paper and bake for 12 minutes


8. Remove warm crescents and roll immediately in extra sugar (if the crescents have cooled down, the sugar won't stick)


9. Cool on wire rack

Recipe adapted from The Australian Women's Weekly The big book of beautiful biscuits.

Sifting fresh ground hazelnut to keep only fine bits. I measured the 60g *after* sifting.

Flour/sugar and butter mixed together.

Adding ground hazelnut. The smell of freshly ground hazelnut is intoxicating!

Flour, sugar, butter & hazelnut mixed up.

Adding egg yolk and coffee (note, I made a double recipe, which is why there are 2 yolks in the photo!)

One wee roll of dough.

Starting to line up the crescents on the baking sheet!

Shortbread

Submitted by @wendywings, prepared with the assistance of Miss 7 :)

Ingredients

• 250g butter, softened


• 3/4 cup Chelsea Icing Sugar


• 1/2 cup cornflour


• 1 1/2 cups standard grade flour

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150°C.


2. Beat butter & icing sugar until creamy.


3. Mix in cornflour and flour.


4. On a floured surface, roll out dough to 1 cm thick and cut into fingers.


5. Carefully place on a greased oven tray.


6. Prick with a fork.


7. Bake for 25 – 30 minutes, until shortbread is pale but crisp.


8. Cool on a wire rack and store in an airtight container.

Makes: 20 – 24 pieces

From the classic Edmund's cookbook

White Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies were shipped by @uknzguy

Photo by @vavroom

Ingredients

• 225g of butter


• 3/4 cup white sugar


• 3/4 cup brown sugar


• 2 eggs


• 2 teaspoons vanilla


• 2 1/4 cups plain white flour


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 2 cups chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease an oven tray.


2. Cream the butter , white and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs into the mix one at a time, and then stir in vanilla. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt, then stir into creamed mixture.


3. Fold in the chocolate chips. Place rounded spoonfuls onto the prepared baking tray.


4. Bake until light brown, approximately 8 to 10 minutes. Let sit for 5 minutes and then transfer to rack to cool.

Dutch Ginger and Almond Slice

Submitted by @amiemccarron

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups (255g) flour


• 1 cup (220g) caster sugar


• 2/3 cup (150g) coarsely chopped glace ginger


• 1/2 cup (80g) blanched almonds, chopped coarsely


• 1 egg


• 185g melted butter

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180c. Line 20cm x 30cm lamington pan with baking paper.


2. Combine flour, sugar, giner, nuts and egg in medium bowl; stir in melted butter.


3. Press mixture into pan; bake about 35 mins. Stand slice in pan 10 mins before lifting onto wire rack to cool.


4. Eat till it’s all gone nom nom nom.

Chef is ready and willing

Chopping up the ginger while trying to avoid fingers.

Chopping up almonds ready to be mixed with everything else.

Hmmmm smell that!

Snickerdoodles

These cookies were prepared for the exchange, going to @wendywings and @amiemccarron.

The recipe was found on Christmas-cookies.com. I won't reproduce the recipe here, but check it out on the original site.

Here are some photos of making them though :)

All ingredients gathered.

Starting to mix the butter and sugar together. I softened the butter in the microwave before mixing.

The sugar and butter mixed up.

Added beaten eggs to the sugar/butter mix.

Butter, sugar and eggs, thoroughly mixed.

After having added the flour and mixed well.

Making dough balls. I used vinyl gloves on my hand, mostly because it gives a better result than using my bare hands.

I put all the dough balls on one tray, really close together. I chilled them on that tray. If you chill the cookie mix, your snickerdoodles will be puffier and have more texture. If you cook them while the dough is warm, they will be flatter. I did, however, learn that I should have rolled the balls in sugar/cinnamon mix BEFORE chilling them, as the sugar did not absorb well to the cold balls.

Balls after being rolled in sugar, nicely spaced out, on a cookie tray lined with a baking paper, ready to go in the oven. Snickerdoodles expand significantly when you cook them.

Close up of the wee beasties :)

Finished product, looks good, tastes better

Flyin' Cookies - The Exchange Begins

Well, there you go, the first cookies for the exchange have been baked! Cooling down now on racks, will be put in boxes and shipped tomorrow (Wednesday am).

The first two recipients are @wendywings and @amiemccarron. Ladies, heat up your ovens, your turn soon!

I'll be posting photos and recipes of what I'm sending later on today, or perhaps tomorrow.

I hope everyone participates this way as well, taking a few photos of their biscuits, the recipe, notes about the recipes, things to know, what they were thinking about, etc. In the future, it'll make a cool "album".