Salty the Theme of the Day as Two Crowned Champs of 3rd Annual Cookie Monster Charity Bakeoff

For the third year running, hundreds of people with sugar cravings flocked to The Hutong Sunday to soak up Beijing's first few spring rays, support charity, and to select which of 20 bakers deserved to be crowned the ultimate cookie champ of our fair city.

Walking away with the judge’s award was the “Queen of the Cookie Jar,” a white chocolate chip oatmeal cookie drizzled with salted caramel, baked by Jamie Kung of Sugar & Spice. Kung's creation won the judging panel's hearts with its delightfully chewy cookie base and its salty/sweet combination of white chocolate and salted caramel.

Meanwhile, the people’s choice was “A Salty Surprise,” baked by Becca Ruskin, Rachel Friedman and Sydney Hess. Their creation was a take on the classic chocolate chip cookie made fabulous with the addition of pretzel pieces, browned butter, sea salt and chocolate-peanut butter ganache.

A surprising number of contestants this year went for salty-sweet concoctions, employing caramel, pralines, toffee, peanut butter, pretzels and sea salt to achieve perfect blends of salty and sweet. White chocolate made more than a few appearances in the recipes, and vegan entries and gluten free options were also among the 20 cookie contestants.

The 20 bakers included people drawn from all walks of Beijing life, including the winners of our Editor's Pick award for Best Baked Goods in the Beijinger's 2016 Restaurant Awards, Ahava, whose Buzzerscotch cookies were baked by Peter Vandermeulen and features butterscotch made from scratch. 

Also present was Rager Pie, who presented a cookie version of their famous pecan pie.

Anete Elken of probably Beijing's only Estonian bakery RuKis expressed her passion for rye by presenting her Rye Chocolate Cookies with Cranberries. Though they had a markedly different texture from the typical chocolate cookie, they were fluffy and delicious and featured a tartness that made them a standout among the afternoon's contestants.

Another tart standout of the day was the White Chocolate Raspberry Macadamia Nut Cookie presented Grace Yang and Rachel Sun of East Hotel's Domain.

Other standouts included Sweet Julie’s Praline Peanut Cookies by Julie Bonanno, which played effectively on the day's salty theme; Matcha Almond Cookies with white chocolate by Malou Claessens, which used green tea for subtle taste highlighting without making it overwhelmingly herbal; and Kyla McIntyre's classic Dawn's Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever, the kind that a few tasters exclaim they were just like mama used to make.

There were also those who don't bake for a living, for example Gretchen Johnson, who told us that she was taking over the space from a friend who was unable to join last minute. "I love baking, so we just started baking different cookies and finally things started coming together!" Her toasted hazelnut cookie flavored with cinnamon, raisins and an Irish Cream chocolate dip was a popular choice.

Easily the most attractive cookies of the afternoon were Greta Bradford's amazingly detailed Spring Sugar Cookies, which featured almost perfect patterns of frosting that lit up The Hutong with their Easter pastel colors and seasonally appropriate shapes such as bunnies, eggs and chicks.

Each attendee was given a tasting card that entitled them to samples of 20 different cookies, a drink, and three dried beans for voting. After sampling each, tasters deposited their three beans into voting containers of their three favorite cookies.

The charity event, organized by Beijing foodie Kristen Lum of LumDimSum and The Hutong, raised RMB 10,133, which was donated to the Beijing Cultural Heritage Protection Center, an organization whose mission is to preserve what makes Beijing unique.

In the end, it was a fun afternoon of sugar highs and lows, and the confirmation that the bakers of our city know what they are doing: we are excited to hear more from this year's winners as the year goes on.

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Email: margauxschreurs@truerun.com
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Photos: Margaux Schreurs, Michael Wester