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Were you and I separated at birth WhyNot? We almost always seem to share similar views, but you express yourself better and in fewer words. Perhaps I should start doing a bit of lineage research. 
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I’d be the last person IRL to offer unsolicited baking advice, especially at a cookie exchange. I (the impersonal “I”) might notice something’s amiss, but that’s true for almost anybody who cooks/bakes professionally.
Over-zealous oven? I’ve got those both at home and at work. The work oven’s calibrated at several points during the year. Unfortunately home ovens don’t get that luxury, so you have to adjust your times accordingly.
But yeah, try the cookie advice – I’d love to know how it works for you. And if you or anyone else has any questions, please feel free to ask 
I think my potluck issue is in part the money. Okay, you can’t cook. I understand that. That doesn’t mean you get to spend 59 cents for a can of bean dip and pat yourself on the back for having done your part, when the same half dozen people spend $15 in ingredients for their dishes. You don’t have the talent to wrap little weinies in bacon and dump them in a crockpot with some brown sugar? Then offer to pay for the ingredients for a cooking co-worker. Or buy some freakin’ chicken and bring it in. I used to have a cow-orker whose sole contribution over years of potlucks was iced tea. Every time, iced tea. For all I know, she took the tea bags from the breakroom. But she never stinted herself at the table, and often took home big containers of leftovers to feed her family.
StG
I used to do the cookie exchange at work. My husband told me to stop. He hated seeing 6 dozen delicious homemade cookies disappear, only to have me return with 1 dozen edible cookies and 5 dozen inedible cookies. It wasn’t that they were storebought or that my co-workers didn’t try…it’s just that they weren’t GOOD cookies.
I’m sorry, wait…WHAT??? Chow mein noodles? In Haystacks? Ew. No no no no no. That’s just disgusting. Coconut in Haystacks. But I still wouldn’t give 'em in a cookie exchange; they’re technically candy.
The thing is, those various no-bake cookies are pretty darn tasty, even if not elegant.
Like the peanut butter/cocoa/oatmeal ones mentioned above. Just seeing them mentioned made me want to run out and buy the ingredients.
I don’t know about Haystacks, but weren’t there ones called “Hopscotch”? Melted butterscotch bits, chowmein noodles…maybe little marshmallows?
We had a good mutual agreement at work for lunches and parties. We that could cook got money for groceries from those that couldn’t, and we brought in the agreed upon food. This has worked out the best in the long run. The expense of the food is why you limit what you bring in, not because of the amount you have to make. I would be different for hundreds of employees, but worked good for about forty.
I got interupted by a furnance problem friday, and have sugar cookie cutout dough and frosting still in the refrigerator. I may have to do easter stuff and freeze them. err.
This is my problem, too - I have eaten many a co-worker’s creations, and they just aren’t as good as mine (made from my mother’s handed-down family recipes that I’ve tweaked over the years). I used to think it was just that I was used to a certain taste, but I’m pretty sure now that a lot of people are eating crappy, baking-soda-tasting banana loaf and thinking it’s good. :eek:
Oh yeah, the OP - I can sympathize with putting so much effort in and getting so little back in return. I don’t agree with those implying that everyone probably put in as much effort proportionally - they obviously didn’t, if they were buying store-bought cookies and brownie mixes. Cookies are not that hard; there are millions of children in the world who make cookies. If you are so bad a baker that you can’t even handle turning out a nice cookie, you should not be participating in cookie exchanges.
(Any of you baking fiends, I can offer you a nice traditional Mennonite sour-cream cookie recipe if you’d like to add it to your repertoire.)
Ooh, yes!
My e-mail addy’s in my profile.
It will be funny if this mutates into the recipie thread I didn’t start this year.
Funny you should mention that. I was thinking of asking kittenblue for the lavender madelines, chai tea crescents and the Orange Spice Tea-scented biscotti recipes.
I don’t do this anymore, either. And thank god. I used to get back things like the pretzles dipped in white '“chocolate” or gorp etc.
Then again, a really good choc chip cookie is food from the gods. There are a lot of really BAD choc chip cookies out there.
I used to bake so much more for the holidays–coming into this thread has made me remember that I made mocha nut butterball dough on Tuesday and didn’t bake them today. Better make them tomorrow…
What the hey-here is the recipe. These are great because they SEEM fancy, but they’re easy-peasy.
Mocha Nut Butterballs:
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsps vanilla extract
2 tsps coffee powder (crush coffee with rolling pin to a fine powder)
1/4 cup cocoa
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts
confectioner’s sugar
Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until light. Add next 4 ingredients and mix well. Add nuts. May refrigerate to make dough easier to handle. Shape into 1" balls and bake on ungreased cookie sheet @ 325 for about 15 minutes. When cool, roll or sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar. I have no idea how many it makes-depends on the size of the balls…
Bring on the recipes!
Oops-just FYI: this recipe (above) does not use eggs.
Er. “Add next 4 ingredients”? coffee, cocoa, flour and ??? Not the nuts, I assume, since you mention them next.
Did you leave out an ingredient, or should that be ‘add next 3 ingredients’?
Also – by ‘coffee’ do you mean coffee beans? Or ground coffee? Or instant powder?
Sorry to ask so many questions, but it’s better to ask than assume when it comes to baking.
They do sound good though, and I need cookies for a pot luck tomorrow.
I just finished baking the cut outs and tomorow I decorate them. I need to get in another batch of toffee bars.
They may need baking powder, but some ball cookies don’t. I have to assume powder sugar is for after they are baked.
Sorry. I’ll just back out of this thread and go back to eating my marginally edible Toll-
house cookies because no matter how much time and money I spend (may include scrapping an entire batch and starting fresh) they will apparently never be good enough to justify anybody including me in an exchange.
FWIW, I can’t even make rice in a rice cooker (comes out crunchy in the center, mushy on the outside no matter whose directions I follow to the letter). Some of us just can’t cook. 
Sorry-add next 3 ingredients. NO baking soda or powder, NO eggs.
They are fast and simple. The “coffee” is just regular ole coffee-either instant or drip, but more finely crushed into a powder. PLEASE do not use whole beans!
Good luck. Watch the cooking time (and sometimes they flatten out a bit, no worries, doesn’t effect taste at all).
psychobunny, I’m pretty sure that even I can manage a half-assed decent product from a boxed mix, so… howzabout you and I exchange? If nothing else, we can do it virtually and pretend they are the baking equivalent of the hope diamond.
Yup, we’ll rock. And Tollhouse is delicious, don’t ever think otherwise. Us with unsophisticated palates gotta have something to eat besides what Wal*Mart has to offer.