Cookie Exchange Day

I wrote about cookies and a virtual cookie exchange last week in my local newspaper. Nevertheless, I am obliged as a food writer to return to the topic again this week. Today, December 22, is National Cookie Exchange Day.

I long suspected that this holiday had something to do with the cookie-industrial complex. That didn’t keep me from celebrating the day, but I tried to bake ironically.

Happily, I have since learned that National Cookie Exchange Day was the brainchild of a freelance writer and pet sitter (we writers have to cobble together a living!) named Jace Shoemaker-Galloway. Shoemaker-Galloway, who lives in Illinois, calls herself the Queen of Holidays.

Americans are more or less unique in the English-speaking world in using the term “cookie” for small, sweet snacks. The Food Timeline cites two reasons for our departure from the English word “biscuit”:

“(1) Our early Dutch heritage and (2) Our revolutionary tradition of separating ourselves from ‘all things British.’”

Dutch settlers to this country called their treats “koekjes,” small cakes. This term soon became “cookies” to Dutch and Anglo New Yorkers.

New York, our nation’s first capital and a center of Dutch-American life, soon convinced the rest of the United States to use the word “cookie.” It’s a comforting word, one that speaks of home and hearth.

Amelia Simmons of Connecticut, our country’s first cookbook author, used the spelling “cookey” in her landmark 1796 book American Cookery.

The Time-Life book Cookies & Crackers notes that cookies have an ancient history.

“Like cakes and pastries, cookies and crackers are the descendants of the earliest foods cooked by man—grain-water paste baked on hot stones more than 10,000 years ago,” write the authors.

According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, pre-20th-century American cookies “were baked as special treats because of the cost of sweetness and the amount of time and labor required for preparation.”

Luckily, most of us can now afford a bit of sweetness at this time of year. The time and labor may have been reduced, but they still hover over the cookie-making process. They make cookies more precious to those of us who give and receive them.

Cookie parties over the holidays have been popular throughout American history. According to the Christian Science Monitor,” George Washington adopted the Dutch habit of hosting a cookie party for the new year when he was president.

No one is sure exactly when the exchange of Christmas cookies became widespread, however.

According to the website “Cookie-Exchange.com,” the oldest documented cookie exchange was in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1936. The Syracuse Home Bureau’s Lincoln Unit advertised that it was holding a cookie exchange, along with “a lesson for remodeling hats given by Miss Maude Loftus.” I wish I could have attended!

I have a feeling—and so does the exchange website—that cookie swaps were around for quite a while before that. I have always enjoyed these occasions. They’re a simple way to entertain guests during the holidays: no elaborate menu is required, and the host or hostess doesn’t have to do all the food preparation.

Just about everyone has a go-to cookie to share during this festive season, and just about every cookie has a story behind it. Many of us feel cautious about large get-togethers right now. Nevertheless, small cookie exchanges can help us share the fun of the season.

We can swap cookies and recipes with our immediate friends and relatives. We can deliver assorted cookies to shut-ins. Each cookie reminds its receiver that someone has cared enough to bake.

Here is a recipe that comes from the recent Greenfield (Massachusetts) Public Library Zoom cookie exchange. The formula for Pecan Pie Bars was shared by Mary McDonough. Mary, who loves pecan pie, says that her bars are even tastier than the actual pie. My sister-in-law, a pecan fiend, concurs.

I have to admit that the bars were a little hard to slice. (You can probably tell this from my photograph!) Nevertheless, my family and my neighbors enjoyed the slightly messy cookies.

Merry Christmas. Happy baking.

Pecan Pie Bars

Ingredients:

for the base:

2-1/2 cups flour
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, cut into pieces
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt

for the filling:

4 eggs
1-1/2 cups light or dark corn syrup
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons butter, melted and then slightly cooled
1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups coarsely chopped pecans

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour, the butter, the powdered sugar, and the salt with an electric mixer until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. (I started with a pastry blender, then used the mixer, and then used my hands. The butter is a little resistant.)

Press the dough firmly and evenly into a greased 13-by-10- or 9-by-13- or 17-by12-inch pan. (I used a 9-by-13-inch pan.)

Bake this cookie base until it begins to turn golden brown (about 20 minutes). Leave the oven on when you remove the pan.

While the dough is baking, prepare the filling. Beat together the eggs, the corn syrup, the sugar, the butter, and the vanilla in a large bowl until they are well blended. Stir in the pecans. Pour this mixture over the hot base when it comes out of the oven.

Bake the cookies until the filling is firm around the edges and slightly firm in the center, about 25 minutes. Cool the bars completely on a wire rack before cutting and serving. You may use almonds or walnuts instead of the pecans. Makes about 4 dozen cookies, depending on how you cut them.

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One Response to “Cookie Exchange Day”

  1. Pamela Matthews says:

    Thanks, Tinky! I’ve copied the recipe. I made a “Nut Bar” cookie this year and used only pecans. It was good, also hard to cut, but will try this one and compare. Yours has more filling to it than mine, which could only make it better! Happy Holidays to you and your family!