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Cookie exchange voting, categories and prizes

A vote gives a cookie swap a moment in the middle: people taste, mark a ballot and find out who won. It only works if the setup fits the group. Ten guests with five categories leaves two cookies per category, which is a coin flip. Below is how I'd size the vote for your guest count.

What other hosts do

Two host guides I read describe two styles. Handle the Heat hands out ballots for favorites, with categories such as "Most Creative", "Best Decorated" and "People's Choice", and small prizes such as an ornament, a cookie cookbook or oven mitts. Gift of Hospitality sets up about five category plates, and each guest puts one of their cookies on one plate for judging. Teams judge, nobody judges their own category, and the winners go onto a "Best in Show" plate. It suggests no more than 5 or 6 categories, so each has enough entries.

In a swap where each guest bakes one kind, the number of cookies to judge equals the number of guests, and each category plate gets only a few. So the size of the group decides the format.

Picks and categories, by number of guests

Guests means everyone who bakes, so it is also the number of kinds on the table. These numbers are my suggestion. The rule behind them: every category should have at least 4 kinds to choose from.

Ballot picks, category count and marks to count at a cookie exchange, by number of guests
Guests Picks per ballot Categories Marks to count Prizes
6 1 none 6 1
8 2 none 16 1
10 2 2 40 3
12 3 2 72 3
16 3 3 144 4
20 3 4 240 5

"Marks to count" is guests times picks, times categories if you use them. With 12 guests, 3 picks and 2 categories, that is 72 marks, which one person can tally in about the time it takes to pour coffee. Past 20 guests I would drop categories and keep a single favorite vote. The extra prize in each row is a "Best in Show" for the category winners.

Run it in five steps

  1. Print the cookie list from your swap. It gives every cookie a number, so ballots can say "7" instead of a long name.
  2. Let everyone taste first. Voting before tasting turns the contest into a vote for the prettiest plate.
  3. Ask guests not to pick their own cookie. Put that line at the top of the ballot.
  4. Collect ballots in a bowl and let one or two people who did not bake count them. A neighbor or a guest's partner will do.
  5. Break a tie with a second round between the tied cookies only, or give both a prize.

Category ideas that need no extra baking

Categories work best when they describe cookies already on the table. Good ones for a one-kind-per-baker swap: best chocolate cookie, most festive, most unusual ingredient and best with coffee. A "best looking" award works too, and it tells you who spent the evening before decorating.

Prizes

The guides suggest small prizes: a spatula, baking mats, a cookie scoop, cutters tied with ribbon or an apron (Gift of Hospitality), an ornament, a cookbook or oven mitts (Handle the Heat). My addition is to keep the total under what you would spend on a box of cookies, so nobody feels a swap is a contest they lost.

Get the cookie list first

The ballot needs the final list of cookies. Set up the swap here, let guests claim their cookie, and print the list on the day. For the rest of the evening, see how to host a cookie exchange.

Start a cookie swap

More guides

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