Home bakers across Milwaukee are being asked to show up to a brand-new holiday event next month with exactly six dozen cookies in tow — two dozen for tasting, four dozen for swapping with strangers who brought their own batches. It is the first time Taste of Home has brought its Cookie Exchange to the city, and organizers are framing it as the start of a new local tradition built entirely around trading treats.
What the Dec. 9 Event Looks Like
The first-ever Milwaukee Cookie Exchange is set for Wednesday, Dec. 9, from 6 to 9 p.m., according to TMJ4. The station reports tickets are available through Dec. 1, giving procrastinating bakers a firm deadline to commit to their holiday baking plans. Attendees who show up without cookies will be out of luck, since the whole point of the gathering is the swap itself.
The event listing from Radio Milwaukee spells out the math: each guest brings six dozen homemade cookies, with two dozen set aside for tasting and four dozen going into the exchange pool. Radio Milwaukee describes the gathering as bringing together 300 holiday bakers for a swap featuring nearly 22,000 cookies in total. Tickets are listed at $35 plus applicable fees, and the event is slated for 1139 S. 70th St.
Appetizers, Swag Bags and Expert Baking Tips
Beyond the cookie trading itself, the evening is being billed as a full holiday party. TMJ4's report describes appetizers, a Taste of Home and Plugrà swag bag, and a cash bar rounding out the night, along with a chance for guests to meet the team behind Taste of Home magazine. The event is hosted by Taste of Home and sponsored by Plugrà Premium European Style Butter, per the same Radio Milwaukee listing.
Taste of Home experts plan to lead attendees through the finer points of holiday cookie trays, the station's report notes, touching on everything from choosing varied flavors, textures and colors to arranging cookies for maximum visual impact. The same TMJ4 account says the experts will also cover make-ahead baking strategies and help bakers figure out which cookies hold up best for gifting — practical skills for anyone staring down a stack of holiday orders.
Borrowing an Idea From Cleveland
Milwaukee's exchange did not spring up in a vacuum. TMJ4 reports the event was inspired by a popular gathering in Cleveland, where Taste of Home and bakery owner Kelsey Elizabeth held their 2025 Cookie Exchange at the city's historic Arcade on Dec. 3, according to Taste of Home. That Cleveland event had 300 spots, and Taste of Home reported tickets sold out in minutes, with attendees arriving with six dozen cookies apiece — the same format now headed to Wisconsin.
Cookie exchanges of this scale have been popping up elsewhere too. A Pittsburgh-area exchange at the Washington County Fairgrounds drew more than 300 bakers organized into teams of 10, according to the York Dispatch, with each team member baking three dozen cookies — two dozen donated and the rest exchanged. Organizers there pursued a community-set record through Record Setter rather than Guinness, the paper reported, after estimating that an official Guinness adjudicator on site would have cost around $15,000.
Not every exchange chases a record. A separate Washington County gathering organized by Laura Magone, known for her Wedding Cookie Table Community Facebook page, brought together 67 teams that swapped a combined 73,835 cookies, according to WTAE. Magone's group had previously set a Guinness record in 2019 for the largest wedding cookie table, assembling 88,425 cookies, the station reported.
Smaller Traditions Carry the Same Spirit
Not all cookie exchanges are built for scale. In Chicago's Hegewisch neighborhood, Pat Duck has hosted an annual cookie swap in her living room for about 45 years, according to Block Club Chicago. The tradition started around 1978 after Duck got the idea from a coworker, and attendance has ranged as high as 20 people over the decades, though only nine showed up in the year the outlet described.
One longtime participant in that Chicago tradition, Smith, told Block Club Chicago the appeal has little to do with the baked goods themselves. “It’s not really about the cookies,” Smith said. “We could all probably go out and buy cookies. It’s about the connections and being there for each other.” Whether Milwaukee's much larger, ticketed version built around appetizers and a cash bar taps into that same sense of community remains to be seen when bakers show up Dec. 9 with their six dozen cookies in hand.
