Here you'll find the recipes for our favorite cookies. We have a family tradititon where we spend one day in early December baking as many cookies as we can. A good showing is 500 cookies, but it's possible to make it to 1000 with proper preparation, a double oven, a Kitchenaid stand mixer, and lots of friends to help!
Do ahead. Many of these recipes require chilling the dough. I prepare most of the doughs the night before. That way, we can concentrate on baking and decorating on the Big Cookie Day.
Invest in good equipment. On our first attempt at a cookie party in 1998, we literally burned out a hand mixer. The overheated plastic and wires smelled so bad that we had to set the appliance outside on the patio! Now, we use a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer to make mixing up double and triple recipes a breeze. I also highly recommend Calphalon cookie sheets. They allow the cookies to brown nicely without burning the bottoms. The nonstick surface also makes cleanup easier. Wire cooling racks help the cookies cool faster.
Get help. Baking huge amount of cookies would be impossible without the help of friends. There are many jobs on the cookie assembly line: mixing ingredients, putting dough on cookie sheets, timing, getting sheets in and out of oven, moving cookies to the cooling station, dipping, decorating, and packaging. Save some fun jobs such as dipping baked cookies into peppermint and chocolate for friends and children to help with.
last updated: March 11, 2002