Wedding Cookie Table Community attempts record for World’s Largest Christmas Cookie Exchange
Oh, how sweet it was.
The Wedding Cookie Table Community attempted to set a record for the World’s Largest Christmas Cookie Exchange on Sunday at the Washington County Fairgrounds – and across the globe.
In all, 33 teams, decked out in Christmas-themed outfits, exchanged cookies at the fairgrounds, and another 35 teams participated remotely at sites across the United States and in New Zealand, where bakers in the NZ Standard time zone were 17 hours ahead.
“You all should be proud of yourselves. What you’ve done today is amazing,” said organizer Laura Magone, a Monongahela resident and founder of The Wedding Cookie Table Community. She came up with the idea for the record attempt, which also serves as a fundraiser for the Monongahela Area Historical Society.
While the official cookie count – conducted by certified judges – won’t be available until sometime Monday, Magone estimated the 10-member teams baked an estimated 80,000 cookies.
It looked a lot like Christmas inside Kringle’s Kitchen at the fairgrounds, where teams not only baked cookies but also set up holiday-themed tables.
Among the teams were “Yule Love Our Cookies,” the Steeler-themed “Flour Power,” a Christmas carol-themed “The 12 Days of Blingmas,” a Hawaiian-themed “Jingle Leidis” complete with a Christmas tree made of pineapples decorated with sunglasses and grass skirts, and Team Befana Bakers, based on Italian folklore where a witch-like old woman who rides a broomstick delivers presents to good children on the night before the Epiphany.
Many of the teams were made up of bakers who had not met until Magone posted plans for the record-setting attempt on Facebook.
Stacey Adger of Youngstown, Ohio, served as team captain for Baking Up A Blizzard, which included bakers who knew each other and pastry makers Adger met after they responded to a Facebook post seeking team members.
“We’re so excited that we’re here today. We all share a love of baking, a love of carrying on family traditions,” said Adger, who baked Russian tea cakes and cranberry pistachio shortcake cookies. “It was great to meet new people who shared the same interest in baking that we do.”
A Blizzard teammate, Brad Gessner, also doesn’t mind rolling up his sleeves and baking: he once churned out 400 dozen cookies for his daughter’s wedding.
For Catherine Gruda of Weirton, W.Va., captain of The 12 Days of Blingmas, the cookie exchange was a fun way to start the Christmas season. Her husband, John Gruda, dressed as a toy soldier, wrote a song – a “blingy” version of The 12 Days of Christmas – for the cookie exchange.
“This is the perfect beginning to the holiday season. We had so much fun getting things together,” said Gruda, whose team was made up of relatives and friends who divided the 12 days of Christmas among each other. “Everybody’s a skilled baker and they pretty much ran with the theme, and they turned out beautifully,” said Gruda.
Gruda is a member of the Wedding Cookie Table Community, which Magone started a decade ago and has grown to include more than 381,000 members worldwide.
The group broke the Guinness World Record for the largest wedding cookie table in 2019, baking a total of 88,425 homemade cookies for Mononagahela’s 250th birthday.
Over the years, the group has baked cookies for several fundraising events, and has prepared cookie tables for first responders following the Tree of Life shooting, for those impacted by the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and more.
“Laura has promoted an attitude of kindness and caring, and that sets the tone for the whole group,” said Gruda, who also noted the Christmas cookie exchange will benefit Mononaghela’s historical society.
Magone started the group in order to celebrate the Southwestern Pennsylvania tradition of wedding cookie tables, and the Christmas cookie exchange honors the generations-old tradition of baking holiday cookies.
Janet Nicoloudis, a native of the area who now lives in Fort Worth, Texas, ended up finding a long-lost recipe for her grandmother’s hazelnut cookie – a star-shaped cookie that is highlighted by melted Hershey chocolate and crushed nuts – that had been tucked inside her mother’s recipe book.
Nicoloudis was a member of Merry and Bright Bakers, led by team captain Autumn Gorman of Canonsburg, who, it turns out, is a relative of Nicoloudis’s.
“I love to bake and was coming up to Pittsburgh, and I follow the (wedding cookie community) Facebook page and saw they were forming teams,” said Nicoloudis, who recalls making the cookie growing up, and was delighted to bake it for the cookie exchange. “I love baking, and it was really nice to get together with all of these people who share the same interest. It’s been fun, a really great experience.”
The variety of cookies ranged from pizzelles, lady locks, and peanut butter blossoms to soft ginger snaps, sugar cookies, baklava and Italian love knots.
Team Flour Power – the Pittsburgh Steelers-themed team that paid homage to former Steelers coach Bill Cowher – baked an assortment that included five vegan and gluten-free cookies.
Said team captain Kelly Elliott Dine of Pittsburgh, “It’s been so much fun. We’ve made amazing new friends. It has been a real collaboration and a total team effort, and we’ve enjoyed being a part of it.”
Visitors who stopped by the event had the chance to see the Christmas cookie tables and sample goodies, purchase cookies, visit a vendor’s fair that included Grama Jones, which makes lady lock forms, USA Pan bakeware, and Sarris Candies.
Also available for pre-order at the event was a cookbook that includes several of the cookie recipes that were baked for the exchange.
At the exchange, all of the team members exchanged a dozen of their cookies for a dozen of their teammates’ cookies, so everyone went home with an assortment of cookies – just like a typical cookie exchange.
The bakers also made additional cookies for sampling and for the cookie boxes that were available for sale.
While the event was good-natured and the teams enjoyed a sense of camaraderie, there was some competition: everyone who attended was able to cast a vote for their favorite table. The winner will be announced soon.
For Magone, the event was an opportunity to unite people who love to bake and who enjoy the tradition of holiday baking, and to showcase Washington County.
“It was interesting to me that a lot of the bakers had not met until today. They would plan on Zoom or on the phone, and got to meet today for the first time,” she said. “It’s all about the love of baking and maintaining traditions. I am so happy that all of these folks came to Washington County, many for the first time, and get to see how beautiful our county is. And I am happy that it will benefit the Mon Valley Historical Society. We accomplished a lot today.”