Crunchy sesame, caramelized nuts and coconut flakes clinch 2023 Holiday Cookie Contest honors

For the home bakers who enter the Tribune Holiday Cookie Contest each year, the recipes are about more than just sweet things to eat — they represent valuable memories of the holiday season.

This year we were joined by Season 6 “Great American Baking Show” competitors Nirali Chauhan, Sarah Chang and Martin Sorge for judging in the Tribune test kitchen. They were tasked with sampling and evaluating each cookie for its originality, flavor, appearance and texture. Aside from their baking knowledge, they brought a certain holiday cheer to the newsroom.

Watching our three guest judges convene over our 13 finalists reminded me of long winter nights unwinding with my best friends over great food. To me, this is what the holidays are about. A mouthwatering recipe is the center of so many of our celebrations and reunions, and sharing food is a way to break the ice and diffuse tension.

Thirty-eight qualifying entrants vied for our three cash prizes and readers cast over 3,600 votes throughout the two-week voting period. The recipe for ginger crinkles from Sarah Madrid of Naperville was this year’s top-voted cookie, earning 389 votes.

Tribune staff carefully baked our 12 top-voted finalists and one Joe Gray Save recipe — a lemony drizzled sumac shortbread. This year our finalists spanned everything from a miso chocolate chip cookie to candy cane-shaped pistachio cookies, and Swedish almond bars to Czech Pracny cookies.

For third-place winner Mary Kim, persistence paid off; she entered the contest twice before, in 2020 and 2021.

Texture seemed to be top of mind for this year’s judges. All three winning recipes play with this element in surprising ways, from crisp buttery nuts on our first-place cookie, to the sesame seeds that bejeweled our second-place winner, and coconut flakes that crown lemon zest and candied ginger in the third-place recipe.

For the baker who doesn’t have time to spare, this year’s first-place recipe can be done in less than a half-hour and only needs four ingredients. Guest judge Sarah Chang wrote a single comment for it in her judging notes: “Yummmm.”

To the bakers and readers who reignite this contest each year, we appreciate your continued interest. We hope you can enjoy these recipes from the first snowfall to spring’s first blooms. Happy holidays and happy baking, Chicago!

— Lauryn Azu, deputy senior editor

FIRST PLACE

Kathy Evertsberg: Graham Cracker Praline

Kathy Evertsberg remembers spending a lot of time in the kitchen with her family when she was growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Her graham cracker praline cookies come from her grandmother, who she said helped give her a “good foundation,” especially when it came to baking.

“I love the fact that I remember doing it with my grandmother from the get-go,” Evertsberg said. “She was my maternal grandmother, and my grandmother on the other side was a huge pie baker and cake maker, so I’m influenced by her too.”

Evertsberg, 65, has lived in Winnetka since 2014 with husband, William. The couple went to grade school together in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where they both grew up, and have been married for over 40 years.

She worked as a dental hygienist for 40 years and retired just a couple of years ago. Besides baking, she said she also enjoys working on different savory recipes as well as playing tennis and gardening.

This year’s cookie contest is the first Evertsberg has entered, but her baking has been in the spotlight before. Some 30 years ago, she said her graham cracker praline cookies were featured in a newspaper in Grand Rapids. She said someone had told the publication about her cookies, and she got a call from a reporter for an article.

Knowing these cookies already had star power, Evertsberg said she picked them for the cookie contest “because people love them and they’re different.”

“It’s four ingredients,” she said. “It’s a simple combination, but don’t be fooled by how easy they are because when it’s all said and done it’s a toffee-like delight.”

What’s nice about the recipe, she said, is that the ingredients are ones people probably already have at home.

“You don’t have to run to the store and get fancy ingredients,” she said. “You can always make these cookies, and they will be a favorite.”

The recipe is forgiving, but her biggest tip for bakers is to “be really careful” while they’re in the oven. She said she knows her oven tends to run a bit hot, so she bakes her cookies for seven to eight minutes. The recipe says to bake for 10 minutes, but she said to “watch them closely, especially as you get close to the 10-minute mark.”

Evertsberg said she almost always uses salted butter because it’s what she usually has at home. Similarly, she typically has light brown sugar on hand, but she said the recipe is flexible and dark brown sugar works just as well.

The exact graham cracker count is also open to interpretation, she said. For someone who wants a thicker, more sugary cookie, they could use fewer graham crackers on the cookie sheet.

While her recipe calls for either walnuts or pecans, she said her favorite is walnuts chopped fairly large.

— Shanzeh Ahmad

SECOND PLACE

Clarissa Frayn: Chewy Sesame Chocolate Chunk Cookies

Clarissa Frayn earned second place by putting a new spin on an old favorite.

Growing up in the Belmont Gardens neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side, Frayn said her mom didn’t permit Oreos, Chips Ahoy cookies and other treats at home. But Frayn was always allowed to bake and she always sought to cook the sweetest treats. However, lately savory flavors have captured her attention.

“This is sort of like a grown-up chocolate chip cookie, there’s a bit more nuance there,” Frayn said.

She adapted this recipe from food blogger Sarah Kieffer. As a tahini chocolate chip cookie fan, Frayn took the sesame ingredient a step further by using toasted sesame oil.

“The toasted sesame oil definitely brings more of a flavor and keeps the texture that I wanted. When you use tahini, the texture can get a little bit grainy.”

Sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds and flecks of flaky sea salt, the cookie topping crackles while the base softens in your mouth, and the salty components bring out the richness of the chocolate.

“I know it’s not traditional holiday colors, but I think it still gives the pizazz of sprinkles,” the Uptown resident said. Adding more chocolate would be delicious, Frayn added, but it would also overpower the delicate sesame flair. She also notes that bakers should be cautious not to overcook the butter while browning.

Frayn, 29, is studying to become a nurse at the University of Illinois at Chicago after working in information technology management. Her large Chicago family and a cohort of nursing school classmates helped launch the baker’s recipe to our top 12 finalists. She said this year was her first time entering the contest.

She also lived in the Netherlands for two years, where she was exposed to the precise magic of the metric system. Her plea to Chicagoland bakers? Use a baking scale to get those exact measurements that will bring your treats to the next level.

“It just takes the unreliability out of baking,” Frayn said.

— L.A.

THIRD PLACE

Mary Kim: Coconut Tassies

“It’s a macaroon with different flavors in a pecan tassie crust,” Mary Kim said when asked to describe her cookie.

Tassies are little cups, traditionally bite-sized pecan pies. Her fillings feature chocolate, lemon zest and candied ginger.

“But in three different cookies,” said Kim, who lives in the West Ridge neighborhood on the North Side of Chicago.

She experimented quite a bit with her bakes.

“My younger daughter came up with the idea,” said the baker, a former executive support supervisor at a consulting company. “She suggested something she called coconut cream tassies inspired by my dad, who is going to turn 100 in December.”

Kim’s father, Vern Houting, loves coconut, especially coconut cream pies and, yes, coconut macaroon cookies.

Kim was excited to learn she won third place, particularly impressive since she just heard about the cookie contest a few years ago, and before becoming a baker.

Her daughter Rebekah Kim had first entered the contest with a thumbprint cookie in 2019.

“The filling was my mother’s recipe for sweet potato casserole,” Mary Kim said. “That’s how I heard about the contest.”

The following year, she and her daughter worked together on spicy speculaas.

“Based on my Dutch background,” said Kim, who grew up in Holland, Michigan.

She thought it was going to be their new holiday tradition to work on a cookie together.

“But she got busy,” Kim said about her daughter. “So in 2021, I did it myself. The mulled wine cheesecake bar.” That recipe made it to the top 12 finalists.

And last year, she got too busy, with good reason.

“I say I’m not retired, because I’m a caregiver for my dad,” said Kim, who goes back to Holland every other weekend to spend the week with her father. Her mother, Leona Houting, died in 2021.

So this year she was determined to start working on cookies sooner.

“My chief taste tester was my dad,” Kim said. “He was the guy to test it being the coconut connoisseur.”

Any baker’s tips?

“Don’t use sweetened shredded coconut,” said the baker. “I think it will make it far too sweet.”

But the most important part of her cookie went beyond the bake.

“It was very meaningful for me to do this cookie with an idea from my daughter, who was thinking of her grandfather, then to include my dad.”

— Louisa Kung Liu Chu