Making new food blogger friends is always great fun... and once a year it is made even 'funner' with the swapping of dozens and dozens of cookies.  The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap was started in 2011 by Love and Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen and 2012 marks the second year of this annual event.

The premise is simple: you sign up, pay $4.00 to support the Cookies for Kids Cancer charity (with donations matched by OXO up to $100,000), get sent names and addresses of three other food bloggers in your country, cook them each a dozen cookies, get a dozen from three different food bloggers in return, and finally eat 36 cookies all to yourself without sharing with your boyfriend... wait, maybe that last one was just me!

Today is the day that all the participating food bloggers post their cookie recipes for all to see. So, even if you didn't get the chance to participate directly, you get the benefit of tried and tested recipes to cook yourself at home.

I'm a lover of cookies, so it was definitely a no brainer that I had to participate. Last year I found out about the cookie swap just after the sign-up deadline, so this year I was delighted to see the notification of registration and signed up straight away.

Deciding what cookies to make for the swap wasn't difficult, but I'm not going to lie... I did have a slight disaster. After making and freezing four dozen Fresh Raspberry, White Chocolate and Macadamia cookies, I baked one dozen as a test and quickly realised that while these cookies tasted AMAZING (recipe to come), they needed to be consumed the day they are baked as the fresh raspberries start to soften the cookies if they aren't eaten quickly.

So, leaving the pre-made ready-to-bake raspberry cookies in the freezer, I quickly needed to come up with another cookie recipe for the swap. Learning from the fresh fruit vs postman debacle, I decided on Chocolate, Honeycomb and Roasted Almond cookies and got to work making another 3 dozen cookies.

I excitedly headed to the post office on December 5 to send one dozen cookies each to the following wonderful Australian food bloggers (check out their great blogs and find out what cookies they made for the swap):

1. Faaiza of Modest Munchies
2. Erin of Cut the Cookie 
3. Muppy of Muppys  

In return for my gift giving, I received in the post three dozen spectacular cookies as follows from fellow Australian food bloggers:

Chocolate, Honeycomb and Roast Almond Cookies

Makes 3 dozen

200g butter, softened
1 1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
3 cups plain flour
1 1/2 cup self raising flour
300g good quality chocolate covered honeycomb
225g roasted almonds


Preheat oven to 180° Celsius. Line three large baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Beat butter and sugar until very well combined. Then add eggs and beat again until combined. Sift in flour and stir with a wooden spoon till well incorporated.

Roughly chop the honeycomb and almond and add to the mixing bowl. Stir gently till almonds and honeycomb are evenly distributed through the cookie dough.

Roll tablespoon sized balls with the cookie mixture. Place 12 balls on each baking tray (leaving enough room for them to spread out slightly) and flatten slightly with your hand.

Place trays in the oven and bake for 20 minutes until lightly golden, turning the trays and swapping their position in the oven halfway through.