They taste better than they look.
I'm not a big baseball fan - in fact, I'm not a big sports fan in general - but I will take any excuse to bake cookies. I like watching an exciting baseball or football game and though I generally tend to root for New York teams by virtue of my geography, I wouldn't consider myself a die-hard fan.
This year, the Major League Baseball World Series happened to fall a little bit closer to the holiday season, a bit closer to the best time of the year for baking Christmas cookies. This year, I started a little bit early and baked a few batches of Drop In & Decorate sugar cookies with the intention of donating them to a Ronald McDonald House in New York City just in time for Game 6.
What I didn't count on was running out of icing after half a dozen cookies. It seemed silly to make the trek to the Upper East side to drop off only six cookies, so I distributed the few that I'd already made to friends.
If you're not familiar, Drop In & Decorate is a tax-exempt non-profit organization based on a simple concept: bake some cookies; gather a group of family, friends, neighbors or co-workers to decorate the cookies together and donate the cookies to a nonprofit agency serving basic human needs in your own community.
Lydia founded the organization in 2002 (which may or may not have been the year I graduated from high school) and I teamed up with her last year to lend some of my public relations expertise. This holiday season, someone, somewhere in the U.S. will donate the 10,000th cookie.
Yeah. Even I couldn't eat that many cookies.
This year Pillsbury has donated VIP coupons, worth $3.00 each, off any Pillsbury product -- including sugar cookie mix, icing and flour for the first 50 people who plan to host a Drop In & Decorate event this year (max. 5 coupons per person). If you're planning on hosting a cookie-decorating party, write to lydia [at] ninecooks [dot] com and we'll even include a Comfort Grip cookie cutter, donated by Wilton (while supply lasts).
For more, read on about the Drop In & Decorate gathering I hosted last December and the cookie decorating party that Molly and I had in May.
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Did you notice that I've been posting more frequently than usual this week? In celebration of National Novel Writing Month, some bloggers choose to commemorate November with NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. I've challenged myself to post daily this month and hope that you'll challenge yourselves to read them all!
I just had a Drop In party for my birthday – we did over 250 cookies for a local food pantry.
This will be my 4th year doing a Drop In at work. Staff and clients in a brain injury rehab. program love it. Last year we had extra cookies after our planned donation, so I took them to Curves and sold them, then donated the money to a local food pantry.
Posted by: Lucia | November 12, 2009 at 08:42 PM
I grew up in Manhattan and I have always been a Yankees fan - not easy since I now live in Boston. The cookies look great - but should say 27 - the number of World Series they have won.
Posted by: Ted Chaloner | November 12, 2009 at 09:10 AM
What a cute idea! Drop In & Decorate sounds great, and those cookies are adorable. (We're Yankees fans in this house - we even just went to the parade.) And I agree with you - any excuse for a cookie. :-)
Posted by: Chrissy | November 07, 2009 at 03:48 PM
i think they look great!! I love sugar cookies!
Posted by: sunny | November 05, 2009 at 09:36 AM
Good luck with NaBloPoMo. I did it the first year & its quite a feat to get through
Posted by: kat | November 05, 2009 at 08:41 AM
The cookies worked! The cookies worked! Incontrovertible proof that cookies make everyone's day better. I hope the Yankees appreciate all you've done.
Posted by: Lydia (The Perfect Pantry) | November 05, 2009 at 06:44 AM
I love the cookies - Go Yankees!
Posted by: Christina | November 04, 2009 at 09:09 PM
The cookies look great but not a fan of the Yankees....I'm a Sox fan:)
Posted by: Nutmeg Nanny | November 04, 2009 at 08:54 PM
I love the concept of Drop In and Decorate. I'm not sure I'll get to have a party this December because in addition to cookies for Christmas, I'm also baking cookies for my cousins wedding. One of these days though, I definitely want to have a proper party.
Posted by: mandy | November 04, 2009 at 07:10 PM
They look fabulous to me!! :)
Posted by: VeggieGirl | November 04, 2009 at 06:33 PM
these are adorable and a favorite of mine but-GO PHILLIES!!!
Posted by: Daryl | November 04, 2009 at 06:15 PM