different ways to arrange cookies

Part of the fun of serving baked goods is arranging them prettily on a plate. It's best to work with a variety of cookies with different colors, textures, shapes, and/or sizes. I love using old-school paper doilies, but I confess to hating how it looks once the plate is half-empty and the doilies are left with greasy spots and crumbs (ick). It's perfectly fine just to place the cookies directly on a pretty plate (or even a really plain plate, letting the cookies speak for themselves.) You can make great arrangements in concentric circles, building towers, or stacking cookies in sections by type. When I do circles, I like to intersperse a couple of cookies of one type with one or two of another type to add visual interest. Here are a couple of ideas using chocolate-chocolate chip cookies, magic cookies, and salty-sweet butter pecan cookies.