Help me finally win a contest for once [cookie filter]

December 23, 2024 9:37 PM

I find myself in a friend's holiday party + cookie contest tomorrow. What is a cookie recipe that you believe will win me the gold, if properly executed? (Assume no dietary restrictions.) Thank you.
posted by kensington314 to Food & Drink (11 answers total)

Brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies. I use Skor bits instead of Skor bars. For half the chocolate, I use milk chocolate discs, and the other half dark chocolate chips. Use the best quality chocolate you can find, and age the dough for two days in the fridge before baking.
posted by wheatlets at 10:14 PM on December 23 [5 favorites]

Every time I make these lime meltaways, people FREAK. OUT. Though I will warn you I cannot ever get it to roll in logs, it's too soft, I always have to chill it in the bowl and roll out and cut. Also they are easy to burn, be vigilant.
posted by blnkfrnk at 10:16 PM on December 23 [3 favorites]

These Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies really are pretty much perfect. They are very, very good! However, for the highest degree of perfection the dough needs to be refrigerated for about 12 hours. And you need superfine sugar, which you very likely do not already have and may not easily be able to find. So they may not be a good choice for this particular contest. But they're so good I feel like I have to at least mention them, just in case it would work out for you to make them early in the day tomorrow and then bake them in the evening. (They are still good even if you only refrigerate them for an hour or so, but they're even better if you can refrigerate them overnight.)

For some reason, not everyone likes shortbread (so maybe it's a risky choice if you really want to win.) But for those who do, these Chocolate Shortbread Hearts are perfection. The recipe calls for European butter and they will not be quite as good if you use regular butter. I have never cut them out in heart shapes and dipped half in chocolate as recommended, but if you did that it would probably help you win the contest. If you're not going for a fancy presentation you can just cut the dough into squares or rectangles.

Ginger cookies are another possibly risky choice, but I love Triple the Ginger cookies. To make them even better, drizzle melted bittersweet chocolate over the tops after they come out of the oven. It counteracts the sweetness from the crystallized ginger and keeps them from being overly sweet. Plus it's chocolate!
posted by Redstart at 10:17 PM on December 23 [1 favorite]

World Peace Cookies. A classic of the genre.
posted by atomicstone at 2:53 AM on December 24 [6 favorites]

Ginger Orange Brownie cookies

I've gotten best baking w. ginger results by peeling and then freezing the ginger before microplaning it. Keeps all the juices intact while guaranteeing short hairs.
posted by droomoord at 3:04 AM on December 24 [2 favorites]

Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookies

Weed Butter

(Weed is legal in CA. Take advantage)
posted by BadgerDoctor at 3:39 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]

Ginger-Molasses Biscoff cookies. They're seasonal, since they're a bit gingerbread-like, but they're unusual because they're soft sandwich cookies. They are a bit more time-consuming, being sandwich cookies, but very delicious and worth the effort. They'll be slightly less effort if you have a cookie scoop, but I've done fine making them without.
posted by EvaDestruction at 4:41 AM on December 24

I brought these chocolate amaretti to a cookie swap last night and had a couple people tell me they were their favorite. I topped them with dried cherries soaked in amaretto. I also brought rum balls with weed and can confirm that 2.5mg is a desirable dosage (for a 30 something crowd at least). I used a commercial tincture which made them easy to dose individually.
posted by umwelt at 8:09 AM on December 24

I realized that I neglected to mention why I'm so sure my cookies can win a contest.

I had a joint fused in my foot, with hardware put in. At my follow up appointment, I asked the surgeon about getting the hardware removed. He was like "Ehh, I'm not sure if you need it." I gave him these cookies (it was around Christmas) and left to get x-rays. When I came back, he had all the paperwork ready for me to sign. The wait list was six months; I got my surgery in two.

They're also the only thing I bake that my roommate will eat. (Most of my roommates have eaten everything I make, but this one is slightly suspicious of me, for fair reasons.)
posted by wheatlets at 9:00 AM on December 24 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks everyone! (I am going to avoid weed recipes because I have no way of getting permission to dose all the adults and this is a holiday party where children will be among the judges.)
posted by kensington314 at 11:40 AM on December 24

I am probably too late for your contest purposes but here is a gift link to an NYT Cooking recipe for gochujang caramel cookies. I have dreams about these cookies.
posted by hilaryjade at 5:24 PM on December 24 [1 favorite]