The Haines Visitor’s Center was stocked with 600 cookies and candies for photos with Santa Saturday, due to a jump in participation in the annual Christmas Cookie and Candy Contest.
“We ended up with 150 to 200 parents and kids here, so they had quite a choice,” Tammy Piper, the center’s visitor information coordinator, said Monday. “We still have some here now.”
There were 25 entries in the competition, and contestants must provide two dozen samples of each entry.
Abby Blaine’s “lemon crinkle” took the top award from seven entries in junior cookies. Blaine, 6, said this week that the recipe included lemon cake mix. “The interesting thing is that it takes one whole container of Kool Whip to make it,” Abby said. The cookies stay soft for more than five days and they don’t really crinkle, she said. “That’s just the name of it.”
Coltin Combs and James Stickler placed second with their “sugar cookie swirls.”
In the junior candy division, Natalie Jobbins won with her “Christmas caramelts,” ahead of Kaeden Ganey, who placed second for his fudge.
There were 10 entries in adult cookies, the most popular division. Contest rookie Kaitlin Combs won with her “shortbread caramel chocolate cookie.” Barb Blood took second with her “magical Graham bars.”
Combs this week said she got the idea for her winning cookie at Mountain Market, where she had tried a similar one. She typed a description of the cookie into Pinterest and used a recipe she said wasn’t as good as the one from the local store. It featured a shortbread base and caramel middle topped with semi-sweet chocolate.
“It still turned out pretty good. Next time I’m going to try salted caramel,” Combs said.
Combs said she was “pretty proud” that son Coltin and friend James Stickler placed second in junior cookies with their sugar cookie swirls, a twist on a favorite family recipe that left off icing, dyed the dough and rolled the cookies into a spiral, then sliced them.
Her family was at a disadvantage, using a “terrible old stove” that often burns half of what it cooks.
In the adult candy division, Tammy Jobbins won for “almond snowballs” and Charlotte Olerud finished second with “chocolate caramels.”
Jobbins, a perennial winner in both the cookie and candy contests, said the snowballs were from a recipe in the cookbooks her family collects, but she doesn’t like it.
“Truly, I don’t even like them. I don’t like almond flavoring. I wasn’t even going to enter them. I couldn’t believe (I won). I was shocked,” Jobbins said. The recipe includes chopped almonds, cocoa, almond flavoring, Karo syrup and apple juice. “It’s a candy that you roll in a ball.”
Mark Patterson, Michael Marks and Dan Egolf served as contest judges. Entries are judged on flavor, appearance and originality.
Residents with a serious sweet tooth arrive promptly at the Santa photo shoot, Piper said. “People who’ve figured it out come in early because the first-place items typically disappear fast and not everybody gets to taste them.”
Winners earned gift certificates to local stores and baking cookware.