Dust off those recipe cards and baking sheets. It's time to enter our annual Holiday Cookie Contest.
We are looking for cookies that are new to the bakers among us — not Snickerdoodles or gingerbread cutouts, so familiar to many, but sweet treats that we will want to add to our holiday cookie platters.
There's a treat for the winner, too: a $200 gift card to a Twin Cities kitchen specialty store. The winner and four finalists also will be invited to bake for the public at the Mill City Museum in Minneapolis on Dec. 5.
Here's what we need: a cookie recipe with your name, address, daytime phone and e-mail address. Please include a description of why this cookie is part of your holiday tradition or, if it's a newly developed recipe, why baking is important to you during December. It helps us to have a photo to see how you envision the recipe to look, but if you don't have one, don't fret. Simply send in the recipe.
The cookies don't have to be original, but they do need to stand out. Last year's winner was the Italian almond cookie from William Teresa of Minneapolis, a chewy surprise that drew instant raves from judges.
Will yours? We're waiting to find out!
Enter via e-mail at taste@startribune.com (please write "Taste Holiday Cookie Contest" in the subject field), or by mail to Taste Holiday Cookie Contest, Star Tribune, 650 3rd Av. S., Suite 1300, Minneapolis 55488.
Deadline is noon on Oct. 16. Finalists will be notified by early November. □
