The holiday season is fast approaching and so is all the excitement that comes with it, from Christmas shopping to ugly sweater parties and everything in between!

I have a particular fondness for this time of year. My name IS Holly, after all. And I always light up at the chance to crack open some eggnog, blast Wham!’s Last Christmas and bake all the holiday treats while planning all the holiday activities.

So, naturally, when my girlfriends and I decided to get together for a festive cookie exchange, I was thrilled. Butttttt I’m not going to lie – our second baby is due in January and these days my energy levels aren’t quite keeping up with my excitement.

It turns out I’m not the only one feeling a bit overwhelmed – 51 per cent of Canadians agree that all the prep work around the holiday season leaves them feeling exhausted. That’s why I’m so pleased I had the opportunity to partner with President’s Choice® to host my party. They just released their annual PC® Insiders Collection™ for Holiday which features delicious appetizers and desserts that are quick and easy to serve – meaning you can spend less time prepping and more time enjoying without skimping on flavour. I visited my local Real Canadian Superstore to pick up all my entertaining essentials, which made prep so easy and stress-free.

Appetizers that Pop

As a host, I absolutely loved serving PC® Bang Bang Shrimp, PC® Squash, Kale & Beet Flatbread, and PC® Honey Garlic Too Good to be Wings . Prep was as simple as popping the appies in the oven and they tasted as good as anything I could’ve made from scratch.

The shrimp, in particular, got an 11/10 from me. With a crunchy cornmeal breading and tangy chilli sauce, they were the perfect combo of sweet and heat. Plus, my girl gang was all over them!

Cookies Worth Exchanging

The main highlight of our party though, was the fun cookie exchange!

Hands down, Elle’s favourite cookies happened to be the ones that involved no prep on my part: the delicate Nordica crème-filled wafers in PC® Luxury Biscuit Assortment. It was just one of 13 (yes, 13!) assorted biscuits included in the box and I loved having so much variety.

We also whipped up two batches of cookies from scratch and baked them both on PC® Non-Stick Carbon Steel Textured Cookie Sheets.

The texture on the sheets made it so easy for me to remove my cookies without hassle and getting stuck! First we made a holiday classic: oatmeal cookies, which we elevated by adding PC® Decadent Milk Chocolate Chips. They were melt in your mouth-delicious!

We also decided to try out a new recipe: the PC® Insiders Collection Two-Toned Chocolate Coconut Cookies, made with two layers of buttery dough and the secret ingredient: PC® Milk Chocolate with Toasted Coconut. I’m actually including the recipe below because they were SO tasty and us girls had a lot of fun baking them together.

Two-Toned Chocolate Coconut Cookies

This recipe makes a large batch, but don’t feel like you have to make them all at once. Simply wrap one of the logs in plastic wrap and freeze it for up to three weeks.

Yields: about 5 dozen cookies
Ready in: 4 hours

Ingredients:

•  1 cup (250 mL) PC® Unsalted Country Churned Butter, softened
• 1 cup (250 mL) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 2-½ cups (625 mL) PC® All Purpose Unbleached Flour
• ½ tsp (2 mL) baking soda
• Half bar (300 g bar) PC® Milk Chocolate with Toasted Coconut, finely chopped (about 1-¼ cups)

Directions:

1) Line bottom of 8-inch square glass baking dish with parchment paper, leaving 1-inch overhang on 2 opposite sides. Set aside.

2) Beat butter with sugar in large bowl using electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in egg, scraping down side of bowl. Set aside.

3) Whisk flour with baking soda in separate large bowl. Stir half of flour mixture into butter mixture until just combined. Stir in remaining flour mixture and chocolate until just combined. Remove half of dough to separate large bowl; stir in cocoa powder.

4) Press cocoa dough evenly into bottom of prepared baking dish; press white dough evenly over top. Refrigerate 15 minutes.

5) Lifting with parchment, remove dough from baking dish and transfer to work surface. Cut dough in half; invert 1 piece over the other piece so that both white strips are in centre of stack (you should have 2 thin strips of chocolate dough with 1 wide white strip in between). Press gently to adhere. Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate 2 hours or up to 24 hours.

6) Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C). Cut dough in half lengthwise to make two 2-inch (5 cm) wide logs. Cut each log crosswise into scant ¼-inch (5 mm) thick slices. Arrange, ½ inch (1 cm) apart, on PC Non-Stick Carbon Steel Textured Cookie Sheet or parchment paper-lined baking sheets.

7) Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until pale golden and tops are no longer shiny, 12 to 14 minutes. Let cool completely on sheets.

Entertaining Made Easy

Well, us girls sure had a great afternoon enjoying each others’ company, as well as some delicious food. And I have to say, it felt good making things easier on myself.

By cutting out the stress of preparing all of the appetizers on my own, and by putting out a few pre-made sweets – like the PC® Luxury Biscuit Assortment and PC® Milk Chocolate Toffee Hazelnuts – I was able to channel all the energy I would’ve put into prep work into my girlfriends, instead.

A big thank you to PC® Insiders Collection™ for sponsoring this post and for helping me let go of some holiday stress. Check out www.pc.ca/insiders to view the entire PC® Insiders Collection™.

xo Holly Hunka

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