Cookie Swap

I attended my first official cookie swap this weekend – and let’s just say I left a happy girl.

Photo: Washington Times

If you aren’t familiar with a cookie swap here’s the drill: people come to the party with cookies in tow. The goal is to make your offering rather than buying them at the store because at most parties you bring copies of the recipe to share as well – although I forgot mine yesterday, d’oh!

Everyone tastes the cookies throughout the party but your host will supply bags too so that everyone can take home a couple of each cookie that was brought over.  The final result is a bag full of cookies and a bunch of great new recipes to try.

I brought Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls, also known as Buckeyes to you midwesterners.   These are a staple in my family around the holidays and I may even get in trouble for sharing this recipe publicly.

Basically all you do is mix together a cup of creamy peanut butter, 2 sticks of melted unsalted butter, a whole box of powdered sugar and 2 cups of graham cracker crumbs.  Make sure your graham crackers are truly crumbs, meaning nearly powder – it will make rolling this mixture into balls much easier.

Once those ingredients are really well mixed you roll it into lots of tiny little balls (about 60) and them dip them in a bag of melted semi-sweet chocolate chips with one ounce of paraffin wax melted in. Let them cool off in the fridge until you’re ready to serve.

The wax is the key ingredient in this recipe. I had trouble finding it in the store last year which caused my CPBB’s to fail in a big way.  The brand name is Gulf Wax and you usually will find it in a “canning” section of the store near the mason jars and trash bags – tasty right?

Since taste-o-vision hasn’t been invented yet – we’ll fill you in that they taste just like Reese’s cups. Oh yea, you’re in the canning section already aren’t you? Enjoy!

It is that time time of year, anyone else have a cookie swap story or recipe to share? Anyone else weirded out by paraffin wax – the box does say you can also use it to wax surf boards. Yum.