255/365 Cookies everywhere

For the second year in a row, a friend of mine invited me to her annual cookie exchange party. It's a fun concept: Each invitee brought a half dozen cookies packaged for each person at the party, plus a dozen cookies on a platter for taste testing. We each also brought copies of the recipe that we made.

The idea is that you go away with some of your holiday baking complete, with a variety of new cookies to give, and a handful of delicious new recipes.

This year 13 of us attended, meaning we each had to make 7 1/2 dozen cookies for the party. That's a lot of cookies, let me tell you.

I planned to do my baking in Mom's oven, because mine is smaller than average (only 17" wide inside). That means I can't use ordinary, large cookie sheets, and it multiplies the time it takes to make something in "batches."

But Chase came down with the flu the day before I was to go bake, so plans changed, and I stayed home. My little kitchen was covered in cookies.

Two and a half hours later, I had eight dozen Cocoa Fudge cookies cooling on the table. Yum!

Camera: Canon 40D with 430EX Speedlite, 1/125s, f/3.5 at ISO 500