BROOKINGS Put your culinary talents to the test or simply discover new cookie recipes to serve Santa during the Brookings Public Library Cookie Crawl competition Dec. 19 at 6:30 p.m.
Ambitious bakers will present platters of seasonal goodies, vying for the title of Best Cookie in Brookings, while curious onlookers browse recipes, sample the treats and vote to select the runner-up. The free event is jointly sponsored by the library and Carrot Seed Kitchen, which hosted a similar event several years ago.
In conjunction with the Festival of Lights Parade we used to do a cookie judging competition here at the store, Lauren Freml of Carrot Seed Kitchen said. It was through an SDSU class, but then the people who were involved in that moved away. Then the library saw an opening and jumped on it, which was great.
This year marks the second such Christmas cookie collaboration between the two groups.
The Cookie Crawl started a year ago, kind of stemming off the Bar Crawl that the library did, Freml said. They did that it was a dessert bar tasting and then in December last year, they did their first ever Cookie Crawl They reached out to our store and asked if wed like to partner and provide a judge. And we eagerly and hungrily accepted.
Although she didnt attend last year, Freml said shes excited about being a judge this time.
I love seeing peoples creativity. But also Christmas is such a nostalgic time for me, so Im excited to see if theres any history or traditions or just nostalgia brought to the offerings, Freml said. Thats what this whole thing is for to share traditions, to share flavors, to share creativity. Yes, the competition is exciting and brings out our competitive nature. But the goal is to share the Christmas spirit with everybody. And I think a nice sugary cookie is the best way to do that.
Mikaela Neubauer is community services coordinator at the library and will also be one of the judges.
So the judges will go around and try each persons cookies. And then we will base it on a rubric. So each person does get a score based on a couple different criteria. So we add up those scores, and the highest overall score between all of the judges wins the judges choice award, Neubauer said. And then the community choice award is based on a community ballot. We will have ballots featuring all of the bakers cookies, and you check the box of your favorite one. Then we tally those up and give out a community choice winner award as well.
She said last year they had a full roster of 20 bakers and 70 taste-testing spectators.
Its completely free to participate. Its completely free to come and be a taste-tester, Neubauer said. We had a great turnout, and all of our spots for bakers filled up pretty quickly last year We will have up to 20 participants or bakers. So that means 20 different kinds of cookies that people can come and try.
She said the wide variety of entries last year led to two distinctly different, yet equally tasty, winning recipes.
Last year, we had the double-chocolate fudge as the winner, which was delightful. And the runner-up, he had lemon cookies which made them kind of stand out, Neubauer said. Its free registration to compete. The registration starts on Dec. 12, and it closes 24 hours before the event. So thats Weds., Dec. 18 at 6:30 p.m.
Online registration is available at bit.ly/regbpl. No registration is required to simply show up the evening of Dec. 19 to sample cookies and participate in the community choice vote.
Everyone loves cookies, right? Neuauer said. And we have them in bite-size pieces so you dont get too sugared up. Calories dont count during Christmas time.
Contact Jay Roe at [email protected].
Leave a Reply