The NYRR Holiday Cookie Swap: A Recap

This week, NYRR staff took part in an annual end-of-year celebration: The NYRR Holiday Cookie Swap. Organized by the NYRR Fun Committee (yes, we have one of those!), the event brought departments together to show off their baking prowess—or their ability to run to the supermarket across the street for some store-bought baked goods.

In any case, I set out to cover this event not to prove who made the best cookie, but to celebrate the different types of treats our team brings to the table.

A look down the line at some of Team NYRR's offerings.

After a tour of all three tables' worth of cookies, here's what I came away with:

By this point, some readers may have noticed that I did not pick every cookie available; I did this for two reasons:

1. I felt I it would have been selfish to take every kind of cookie; you have to leave some for other people to enjoy.
2. That would have been like 25 cookies, and there is absolutely no reason why I should have that many cookies.

But the ones I did pick, I picked for a reason, so let's break that down now. Below is an annotated view of my plate:

And my selections here fell in to three categories as to why I chose them:

1. The Look
2. The Story behind the cookie
3. Because they just sounded good

The Look

In this category, we have cookie #4, named "Christmas Massacre," a name that might give pause to some cookie enthusiasts, but once its maker assured me that the red color came from combining chocolate chip cookie dough with red Oreos, I was all in. Next in this grouping was #7, a dog-bone-shaped cookie; similar to Christmas Massacre, the shape gave me "paws," but once I was assured that they were not for dogs, but for people, I picked one up.

Just beside that we have #9, a "Citrus Shortbread," which looked interesting, and could provide a nice change in flavor from the usual cookie palette. And rounding out this category, we have the question mark cookie (#10). It's a question mark! It's got mystique! That's good enough for me, and on to the plate it went.

Story Behind the Cookie

In this category, the pick was based more on the how than the what of the baked good—although they all still sounded like they'd be delicious. We begin with #5, a homemade toaster pastry filled with strawberry jam. In hindsight, I regret not noticing some of the other versions of the toaster pastries, as I'd learn after the fact that there were some with frosting, and some that had frosting and sprinkles. (And as we all know, putting something back after you've picked it up from a buffet line is a borderline criminal offense, so there were no givebacks.)

Right next to that selection is #6, an Italian Rainbow cookie. As someone who grew up with family members who are from an Italian background, these were always a part of our holiday celebrations, so they were a natural pick.

We're going to get a little subjective as we finish up this category, as I went with #11, the holly wreath cookie. This is what I brought to the cookie swap. (Think of it like a Rice Krispies treat, but with Corn Flakes...and also, they're green.) Growing up, my parents would bring us to a holiday cookie party hosted by their friends from college, and these would always stand out on the table there, so I wanted to introduce them to a new audience.

Because They Just Sounded Good

Sometimes it's not about how the cookie looks, or how it was made. Sometimes it comes down to writing out what the cookie is made of, and that's enough for me to want to grab one. In this final grouping, we have #s 1, 2, and 3, and 8 in the image above.

We start with #1, a triple chocolate cookie. If a chocolate cookie is good in general, then logic would dictate that a triple chocolate cookie would be at least three times as good, and I set out to prove that hypothesis.

Right next to that were #2 and #3, made by different staffers but following a similar theme. Cookie #2 was a chocolate bourbon ball, whereas #3 was a bacon bourbon blondie with toasted pecans. All of those ingredients sounded good to me, so they were a pretty easy pick to make.

Finally, we have cookie #8, a snickerdoodle, which is a cookie you can't generally go wrong with having on your plate.

An Addendum

After making my selections, I was informed that more cookies were added to the table, so I hustled back upstairs to see what was new. I came back with two additional cookies, pictured below:

To the left, we have a thumbprint cookie, which would have fallen under the Story category. These made their way to New York City from Tennessee earlier that day, so I figured that any cookie that traveled 700-something miles to be here must be worth a try. Next to that was a gingerbread white chocolate chip cookie, which would group them into the Because They Just Sounded Good category. The cookie's name lists out the ingredients in a pretty straightforward way, and those ingredients sounded like they would pair well together, so I picked one up in the name of research.

Coming away with more than a plateful of cookies, I'm now feeling well prepared to celebrate the holiday season. As I can only have so many cookies at one time, or in one day, these may last me until it's right about that time to get ready for the NYRR Midnight Run.