We're about to host our 2010 Eve's Garden Texas Annual Christmas Cookie Swap. My thought was to create a hostess gift of ideas in a flyer to show attendees how they could CREATIVELY Present their take home COOKIES as gifts. BHG and Martha Stewart offered some great ideas. I would love to share the flyer however I am not sure how to upload the document (or if I can) So visit our FAN PAGE on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/EvesGardenTexas to see the uploaded photos using collanders, sifters and more. Also please LIKE our page and share your Cookie Swap Photos of creative packaging with us. How FUN will that be? Have a safe and blessed Thanksgiving! Here is a link that might be useful: Eve's Garden Texas Fan Page

I need them to be different sizes for the various patients' requests. Some will eat only the smallest or half of the largest cookie. Others want only the biggest ones, so they can eat small portions of them and make them last, as these aren't cheap and Blue Cross won't cover it, yet. I don't make a profit on this process, by the way, they cover all the costs. What I do get are the extra cookies. This batch is 60 for them and 10 for me. I've been baking these for nearly two years now, and my own personal tolerance is the only baseline I have to use for potency. Tomorrow morning, I'll eat the smallest cookie, that will give me a good idea what the big ones are like and what I will tell the patients. This is where science leaves the room, shaking its head in dismay, and good old "test it on yourself" works best. Many thanks for your help, grainlady. You are certainly a baking magician!

I had forgotten about the tip to pull the ball apart and rotate the top. I did that several times when I first read about it and it worked great. Always1step, what kind of butter did you use? I was just reading on the King Arthur blog about which butters to use for baking. They recommend an 80% fat content butter, their preferred is Cabot. Land O'Lakes and Costco were brought up in the comments of the article as being comparable. King Arthur opinion is that European butters like Plugra and Kerrygold, with their higher fat content, may not produce the desired results. A light bulb went off in my head at that, as I recently made scones and they spread all over the place - and I had used Kerrygold. Usually I use Costco organic or Land O'Lakes for baking and have good results. King Arthur: Which Butter to Use for Baking

I hear ya'! I worked (played) outside until late morning. It was so hot by mid morning I came in and got out my handy dandy pillow slip, put crushed ice in it and pinned it around my neck. Ahhhh .... built in air conditioning ... :-) You are wise to be careful, rest often, and drink a lot of water. I had to stop myself from doing more today although I felt fine.