It’s holiday baking time and that means one thing: cookie exchanges. These simple soirées are hands down one of my favorite type of parties to host or attend during the holiday season. It’s a great way to get a ton of your friends together, share the holiday spirit and stock up on lots of different holiday cookies. If you’ve never hosted or been to a cookie exchange, the concept is pretty simple: Make your favorite kind of cookies, bring them to the party and give them away. In return you get a plethora of cookies from your friends that you get to turn around and take home to your family. So basically, you’re spreading a little of your holiday baking love and getting some serious love in return. I always serve some savory nibbles at these parties to make sure no one goes into a sugar coma. A cheese plate with some crackers or a dip duo with some pita chips tends to do the trick.

This year, I’m all about these Malted Milk Chocolate Chip Cookies from Ree Drummond.

I’ve been eyeing this recipe of Ree’s for quite some time now, and it wasn’t until recently that I got around to finding Malted Milk Powder. (For those of you who don’t have any on hand, it’s close to the powdered chocolate milk section in your market.) The malt powder combined with the milk chocolate chips really gives this cookie recipe that extra boost of flavor. It’s kind of like a chocolate milk shake and a cookie all rolled into one delicious bite. These cookies are pretty thin, but still remain a little chewy in the middle, which translates into being 100 percent addictive and perfect for your simple soirée cookie exchange this year.

Gaby Dalkin is a chef, photographer/food stylist, enthusiastic traveler and guacamole fanatic. She is the founder of What’s Gaby Cooking, where she showcases her simple and sassy recipes that feature whichever ingredients she is currently obsessing over. She lives in Los Angeles with her fiancé, Thomas, and her cat, Stella.