It’s December, meaning it’s time for The Food Channel’s Virtual Cookie Exchange. Here’s how it works: You bake your favorite cookie (yes, it can already be on your site – if it’s your favorite, we’d expect that). You take a high resolution photo of it (minimum 300 X 300 pixels), and send the photo as a jpeg, the recipe, and the link to your page of choice to us at recipes@foodchannel.com. You can link to your homepage, link to another recipe on your site, or link to that recipe with your own commentary.

Cookies may be drop cookies, shaped cookies, bar cookies – no limits. If you have a story that goes along with them, feel free to send it – we’ll select a limited number to feature. You do need to have the rights to the recipe – no cookbook recipes unless you have modified them into your own over the years, or unless you’ve obtained permission from the publisher to include the recipe in this swap.

We will put the selected recipes in a special VCE section on The Food Channel. You are then free to ‘take’ any of the accumulated recipes and use them for the holidays. Print them out and attach to a batch to take to a neighbor. Make them for your own cookie exchange. Take them to the family potluck. The point is to enjoy trying some new recipes that have been tested by foodies and reviewed by The Food Channel.

Submitting a recipe means you are freely giving it for others to place on their site, make for their friends, and enjoy for the holidays. It also means you are eligible to have your site and story featured on our homepage. You may submit more than one recipe.

So join in the fun and send your recipe today! Recipes will be accepted through December 19 so get yours in early! We’ll get you started with one of our favorites, Grandma Nehmer’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars.

All submissions, of photos, stories and recipes, implies permission given to The Food Channel to use and place on our site and any of our affiliate sites, as well as permission for other sites to either use or link. All site policies apply.