Host A Cookie Exchange Party, with President's Choice®

Ain't no party like a cookie party! 🍪🎈

Guys, can you believe it's mid-November already?! Although people typically mourn over the end of summer/autumn, this is actually one of my favourite times of the year. The gorgeous autumn colours (remember my trip to Muskoka I posted about?!) + the ramp up towards the holidays makes my heart happy. I always try to emphasize spending time with family and friends during this time of year & one of the best ways to do that IMO is to host a party!

The smell of cookies baking in the oven has got to be one of my favourite smells, but I'm a princess when it comes to cookies. I like variety, so when President's Choice® asked if I wanted to host a cookie exchange party, I was all in. The rules were simple: everyone bakes a dozen cookies. You meet up to share your cookies with everyone else & eat 'em all together! I can't think of a better excuse to noms on some cookies haha, can you? ;)

I am totally one of those people who start playing Christmas music on November 1st (hello John Legend and Michael Bublé), so I decided to go festive and make chocolate dipped shortbread cookies with a peppermint sprinkle! Hack #1: Use bakery products from the PC® Insider's Collection™ for Holiday. They have everything you could possibly need, and it makes life so much easier. You spend less time prepping and more time enjoying with your loved ones! Here, I used the PC® Textured Cookies Sheets to make shortbread cookies, PC® The Decadent Chocolate Chips, the PC® Crunchy Chocolate Hazelnut Spread, and crushed candy canes.

 

Since this still takes some time, I obviously would never keep my guests hungry and waiting! Which leads me to Hack #2: Keep your guests satisfied with delicious appetizers that you can easily pop in the oven. There are a number of different apps to choose from in the PC® Insiders Collection™ for Holiday line, including the Bang Bang shrimp & the Squash, Kale & Beet Flatbread from the Holiday collection. I went with the PC® Bang Bang Shrimps and they were a huge hit! All I had to do was take them out of the packaging, place them on a baking sheet, and pop them in the oven. So quick & easy, and it took me literally no time at all. (Side story: after I made these delicious Bang Bang Shrimps for this party, John asked if we could always get PC® appetizers for our weekly homemade date nights LOL).

Or, if you're all for the sweets, there's also the PC® Meringata which is basically a meringue cake with cream and chocolate chips *drools*. ORRRRR, Hack #3: You can also grab a box of the PC® Assorted Biscuit Cookies that have 13 different kinds of cookies in it (approx 111 cookies)! I don't think this would count as part of the cookie exchange though, as that'd be 'cheating' ;) 

For Viv's cookies, she decided to make a basic chocolate chip cookie with a lil twist. She cut up bits of a PC® Toasted Coconut Milk Chocolate Bar, mixed them into her cookie dough, and added a couple chocolate chips. John went with classic white chocolate macadamia cookies, and voila!

All the cookies were in place, and we're ready to exchange and enjoy!

Although Viv was a little shy in the photos (only allowing me to post photos of her beaut hands), we all had a lot of fun at this impromptu cookie exchange party. I’m saying impromptu because it literally only took me 2 days to plan this! I cannot emphasize how easy it was for me to pull this whole thing together. Everyone just needs to spend about 30 minutes in the kitchen baking, you all enjoy a couple appetizers, eat the cookies, and you'll have the rest of the time to spend with each other. I’ve always thought hosting a party is time consuming and that I’d never be able to pull it off, but here I am and it’s all thanks to President’s Choice®. Happy to say this won’t be the last time I’m going to host one of these this year during the holiday season! What’s stopping you from doing the same?!