It’s that time of year again … when there are baked goods everywhere you turn. Which is perfect for me, because it means I can get my baking on non-stop and have plenty of ready, willing and able taste testers on call. For the second year in a row I held The Salted Cookie’s annual holiday cookie swap. This year I had 19 participants from Boston all the way down to Miami who are baking and shipping a batch of delicious cookies to a lucky swapper and receiving a batch from another. For my cookie this year, I had my friend Josh as my lucky recipient, who is a tough cookie critic. So I knew I had to bring out the big guns with solid holiday cookie recipe. I’ve never gone wrong with a browned butter recipe, and these Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies certainly did not disappoint. They were incredibly fast and easy to make, and held up in transport from North Carolina to Boston. Though I can’t say how long they lasted once they were opened!
There are all different types of holiday cookies that I like to make, ranging from fast and easy to family recipes to decorative cookies. When I was younger, my mom, uncle and Grandma used to all bring their mixers to my Grandma’s kitchen one day in December and bake nonstop for hours and hours until they had so many different types of cookies that they would assemble these huge cookie trays that would go to all different places, with the two biggest trays sticking around for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day desserts. I do this on a smaller scale around the holidays, baking as many cookies as I can and sending them off to people over the course of the month, as well bake cookie trays for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. The key to a good cookie tray is having both variety in flavor and textures. I always start with a solid base of chocolate chip cookies, and now these Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies would make a great cookie base as well.
These cookies are incredibly flavorful, given they only have a few ingredients. Plus, the fact they are supposed to have giant cracks in them means all of them will come out perfectly every time. Genius.
For this year’s cookie swap, I knew that I needed a cookie that was both easy and flavorful and would also last the journey from North Carolina to Boston without ending up a box of crumbs. I decided on a cookie that was going to be soft coming out of the oven, so that even if it firmed up a bit over the few day UPS journey, it still wouldn’t be too hard to eat. Which sometimes happens when I bake sugar cookies, which are great the first two days but then get too crunchy for my liking.
I also went to Target and picked up lots of fun holiday-themed placemats, dish towels and a bunch of cookie boxes from the $1 section. It’s a super easy way to package up your treats in a fun way and keep them in one piece.
This cookie swap has been such a fun experience the past two years, and I can’t wait to start baking and sharing with you all the recipes that come out of it this year. In the meantime, if you are looking to get a head start on your holiday baking, definitely whip up a batch of these Browned Butter Crinkle Cookies. They will definitely get you on Santa’s nice list this year!
Yield: 36 Cookies
Prep Time: 10 Minutes + 30 Minutes to Chill
Cook Time: 20 Minutes
Total Time: 1 Hour