What We’re Eating: Cookie Swap

Julia Usher’s background is an unusual one for the author of a cookie book. After receiving an undergraduate degree from Yale, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Berkeley, and an M.B.A. from Stanford, she worked as a mechanical engineer and management consultant for several years. But she always had a passion for the culinary arts, and in 1996 she switched gears and became a pastry chef. Soon after, she opened AzucArte, a boutique bakery in St. Louis, to great acclaim.

These days Usher has turned her talents to food writing and styling, and she has just released her first book, Cookie Swap: Creative Treats to Share Throughout the Year (Gibbs Smith, 2009). Her message is simple: the cookie swap, that great American Christmas tradition, shouldn’t be a once-a-year activity. It can take place anytime that’s worthy of a celebration. According to Usher, a cookie swap has the same characteristics that make a potluck so effortless to host—guests bring their favorite recipes and share in the cost of ingredients and divvy up the baking.

Usher’s book provides suggestions for cookie swaps with a variety of themes, from Valentine’s Day to graduation to weddings. Each party theme includes activity suggestions—on Halloween, for example, why not try “Bite the Bat,” by suspending gingerbread bat cookies and letting kids take a shot at them?—invitation ideas, and detailed cookie recipes, complete with templates, technique suggestions, and decorating instructions.

Cookie Swap includes more than 50 recipes ranging from simple bar and drop cookies, such as Raspberry-Truffle Brownie Bars, Chocolate-Fig Oatmeal Bar, and Under Her Thumb(print) Cookies to elaborately decorated cookies, which include miniature tiered wedding cake cookies and multi-colored 3-D butterflies, and gingerbread houses. There’s an Addams Family-type haunted gingerbread house, complete with falling-off shutters, ghosts, and a bevy of bats.

The book’s introduction includes useful information for planning a cookie swap. For example, try to personalize the party by working guests’ names or photos into the favors or take-home packaging. In the first chapter, Usher provides tips for making each cookie category in the book:

Bar cookies: “Never skip instructions for lining the pan.”
Drop cookies: “Chilled dough tends to spread less.”
Hand-shaped cookies: “Don’t over-handle the dough.”
Icebox cookies: “Pay close attention to chilling time.”
Piped cookies: “Pipe the mixture as soon as it’s ready.”
Rolled cookies: “Always clean dough from the cookie cutter before using it.”
Sandwich cookies: “Fill the cookies within a few hours of serving.”

The remaining chapters are divided by themes, including An Affair of the Heart (Valentine’s Day), Spring Fling, Cookies Cum Laude (graduation) and Cookie Monster (Halloween). The final chapter includes nine basic cookie and icing recipes, including all-time favorites of shortbread, classic gingerbread, and sugar cookie dough, that are used in the book and can be adapted in an infinite number of ways. Usher also offers up innovative ideas for presenting and packaging cookies, as well as answers to frequently asked questions.

There are more than 100 beautiful photographs in Cookie Swap, and Usher’s cookies are so artfully and impeccably decorated—she did all the food styling herself—that anyone with an appetite for baking or crafts is bound to be inspired, and, in addition to the highly detailed recipe and decorating instructions, that’s what makes this book so invaluable. Whether you’re a student or a pro, this book is an extremely useful guide to cookie baking and decorating and is a great addition to any culinary library.