How does a cookie/dessert exchange work?

kirknsarah

My church is trying to do a dessert exchange party for our Sunday School Christmas party. None of us have any experience with this type of party, but I am in charge of sending the Evite and listing the instructions. It is going to be a party, so we will need to have desserts there for us to enjoy, but isn't the point that people take some home too? help!!

 TIA!!

clynn58

here are the rules

 

The Rules of the Cookie Exchange

1.      All cookies should be homemade, baked and main ingredient must be flour.
2.      No plain chocolate chip cookies, cookie mixes, no-bakes, meringues or bars.
3.      Please bring 6 dozen total cookies.
4.      The theme is "Christmas Cookies" (You can make any theme you like.)
5.      Arrange cookies in a basket or platter and be creative! 
         Bring a large container to carry away your cookie, 
         or the hostess can provide a take away container.
6.      Email a copy of your recipe before the party (or bring recipe to the party)
7.      Christmas attire is encouraged!
8.      RSVP as soon as you can and let me know what type of cookies you are planning on baking
         -- no duplicate recipes are allowed.
9.      There's a prize for the best Christmas outfit. (Give prizes!)
10.     If you don't have time to bake, or have burnt your cookies, 
          but still want to attend, you must go to a real bakery and buy 6 dozen yummy cookies. 

Copyrights notice:
If you use the Rules of the CE offline for your personal use, no acknowledgments needed. If you make an online webpage using
The Rules of the Cookie Exchange and have use in whole or part of my rules, please place a link on the bottom of the page where 
rules are that says:  "Some content courtesy of Cookie-Exchange.com."
Thank you,
Robin Olson

naclh2otaffy

Say there are six people in the exchange.  Everyone brings six servings (1/2 doz. cookies or whatever amount you want, for example) and then you swap.  So you'd get one of your servings back, plus five others to take home.  If you want some to share there, you could have everyone sacrifice up their serving of their own product, or require at least one more serving for the group to share at the event.  It helps if everything is pre-packaged, just to speed things along.

 

ETA: I did do one last year where we each brought a dish and just swapped the recipes (brought enough copies of the recipe for everyone).  That worked well for the event because people could bring all kinds of foods, appetizers, cakes, etc. and not have to worry about how people were going to divide up the food to take home.  We just all sampled the food there and took the recipes home with us.

m_and_m

I don't know about dessert exchanges, but I've done cookie exchanges before. Everybody bakes a crapload of cookies, enough for each person to take several home with them and thhen some to eat there. You can either have each person package them for each person before they come, or each person just brings a large tub of cookies. If they are not packaged for each person I rec bringing two containers with you- one full of your own cookies and an empty one that will be filled with everybody else's cookies when you leave (the one that's full when you arrive is empty when you leave). That way you can each set out your cookie tins and still have something to put the other cookies into.

I don't know if I explained that very well. 

karen2508

Ditto the other posts. The last one I went to also asked us to bring a copy of our recipe-enough copies for all the attendees, so you took home not just the cookies, but the recipes.

They also did several prizes (best presentation, best tasting, etc), but this was a competitive bunch, so I doubt that's the norm.