Editor's note: For photos of the mother and son with cookies, e-mail jaeasley@ucdavis.edu.

As a mother of two boys and their little league baseball teams, Joan Heylman of San Diego learned years ago to quadruple her snickerdoodle recipe and make big cookies.

Even so, she might be surprised at how many of the cookies were served at UC Davis one day this week: about 375 dozen or 4,500.

Heylman's snickerdoodle recipe is one of about 30 recipes submitted by students' families and adapted for service in the dining halls, where about 5,000 students eat daily. The program, called "Favorites from Home," is a 25-year-old tradition at UC Davis.

"It allows us to introduce foods that come from home and are favorites of students living with us," said Linda Adams, a registered dietitian with Sodexo, which operates Dining Services at UC Davis. "It adds diversity to our menu as we enter spring and the residents have been here for six months already."

Dining Services solicits recipes from families in the fall, and typically receives 150 to 200 submissions. Adams and Andy Burtis, the director of culinary services, review the entries with an eye toward taste, appropriateness to the dining service and the kitchen's ability to actually make the recipes.

Sodexo tests 45 to 50 of the recipes and selects about 30 to serve in the spring quarter. Among those tasty treats on the menu are Pasta with Blue Cheese, Ricky's Lemon-Pepper Broccoli, Butternut Squash and Peanut Soup, Comforting Cobbler and Cranberry Soy Chicken Strips. The number of servings prepared varies from 200 to 4,000, depending on the anticipated popularity of the dish.

"Students seem to enjoy it, but the parents seem to enjoy it more!" Adams said. "Sometimes we'll even have winning families come to campus to sample their dish."

Scott Heylman, who is majoring in managerial economics and plays shortstop on the UC Davis baseball team, recently enjoyed his mom's snickerdoodles on campus.

"My mom's been making them since I was a kid," he said. "All my friends like them."