Grandma may have been able to bake a batch of cookies using only local ingredients, but a 100-mile cookie competition in Camrose showed it isn’t that simple anymore.
As part of its food theme, organizers at the University of Alberta’s Augustana campus asked bakers to bake a cookie using ingredients available within 100 miles of Camrose.
A dozen bakers submitted cookies for the competition.
“We didn’t know how hard it would be to get ingredients prior to getting in the test kitchen,” said Lucy Ernst, who with Ramona Parent-Boyd brought a batch of cookies to the university for the competition.
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“It’s a lot harder than we thought it would be,” added Parent-Boyd. “You have to be persistent.”
Competition organizers suggested a few ingredients that could be found within the area, but Ernst and Parent-Boyd spent a lot of time on the internet searching for other ingredients they could use in their Not So Nutty Peanut Cookie, adapted from the No Nuts Golden Peabutter website.
They used flour from the Sunny Boy mill in Camrose, honey from an apiary in Gwynne, eggs from Rollyview, peabutter from No Nuts Golden Peabutter in Legal and margarine made at the Bunge Food plant in Wainwright.
Each recipe was allowed one ingredient from outside the 100-mile area. Their ingredient was chocolate chips.
They ignored instructions that called for baking powder, baking soda, salt or vanilla.
“We like chewy cookies anyway,” said Parent-Boyd.
Ernst said the competition made them more aware of local food and where their food comes from.
“It will shock people to know you can make cookies with only local ingredients.”
Dana Andreassen of Camrose, who tasted the cookies, liked the idea of using local ingredients when it’s practical.
“For a lot of things, it isn’t realistic, but what you can, you should.”
Assistant dean Paula Marentette said the 100-mile cookie contest is one more way to help raise awareness of where food comes from during the university’s year-long food theme.
Judge Agnes Hoveland said she was surprised at how tasty the cookies were, considering how many ingredients were eliminated.
“Except for a couple of them, they’re as good as Grandma makes,” said Hoveland.
Nine hundred cookies from the winning recipe by Liz Demers were made and handed out when the winner was announced March 19.
Marentette said competition organizers forgot while planning the event in September that some local ingredients wouldn’t be available during the winter.
“I lived in fear someone would submit a rhubarb something. Where do you get rhubarb for 1,000 cookies in March?”
Saskatoon Shortbread by Liz Demers
Cream honey, butter and egg. Mix flour and baking powder in a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients and the milk to the wet ingredients.
Add more flour if needed. Roll into small balls and make an indent in the centre. Fill with jam.
Bake at 350 F for 12-15 minutes.
1 cup honey
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup butter
4 tablespoons milk
Everlasting King of Norway Cookies
by Erika and Severin Heiberg (best student entry)
Whip margarine and the first amount of honey together. Gradually add flour while continuing to beat.
Beat egg white with one to two tablespoons of water. Form balls of dough and roll them in the egg white mixture, then in sliced almonds to coat. Place on greased cookie sheet and make an indent in the centre with your thumb.
Bake at 375°F for 12-15 minutes. While they are cooling, reshape the indent.
Combine two cups of fresh or frozen saskatoons with four tablespoons of water and two tablespoons of honey in saucepan. Heat until honey has melted. Mash the saskatoons a little. Add up to one tablespoon of flour as needed to thicken into a jam-like consistency. Put about one teaspoon of filling into the indent of each cookie.
1 cup margarine
1/2 cup honey
2 cups flour
1 egg
2 cups saskatoons
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon flour
2 cups sliced almonds
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
11/2 cups flour
jam (raspberry, strawberry, any local kind)
