Flavorful Fun: CIA Cookie Competition That Brings Students Together
Annie B. Milostan ’25 is a Baking and Pastry Arts major.
What better way to spend your weekend than with a cookie bake-off! Twelve teams of CIA students started their prep using ingredients from our sponsors Plugrà , Ghirardelli, B&G Foods, and Pam and Prova Gourmet. The teams needed to make four hundred cookies for classmates, family, and friends to taste, as well as cookies for the panel of judges. They presented their cookies and set up booths so everyone could taste and vote on their favorite. Everyone outdid themselves in this competition, however, three teams stood out. The Outlaw Cookies with their cowboy cookie and Rasmalai Rookies with their taste of home-inspired cookies. And in first place, The Tourists, with their New York cheesecake-inspired cookie won them $1,250. I had the pleasure of interviewing each winning team and here is what they said about their experience…
The Outlaws
The Outlaws team members were Victoria Madsen ’24, a Culinary Science student; Rachel Hernandez ’25, an Applied Food Studies student; and Hannah Maylambert ’24, an Applied Food Studies student. Their cookie was a brown butter cookie with toasted coconut, toasted oats, pretzels, cornflakes, and a caramel drizzle on top. They used our sponsors’ butter, pan spray, vanilla extract, and dark chocolate chips. They found it extremely easy to stay within the budget to make their delicious cookies and decorate their booth, they even had a little money left over. They loved coming together and decorating their booth as a team.
Rasmalai Rookies
The Rasmalai Rookies team members were Megha Singh ’24, a Baking and Pastry Arts student; Anvi Bahet ’25, a Food Business Management student; and Rahil Mehta ’25, a Culinary Science student. Their cookie was an Indian-inspired cookie, which is called a rasmalai. They infused the shortbread with cashew, pistachio, almond, and fennel seeds. The almond mousse was made with reduced milk with cardamom, saffron, cashew, pistachio, almond, and fennel seeds, topped off with a raspberry rose fluid gel. The sponsored ingredient they used was the butter for their cookie. With how flavorful and home-inspired their cookie was they said they found it super easy to stay within the budget. Their favorite part was the pressure of making all of the cookies and plating them.
The Tourists
Our winners, The Tourists, were an unstoppable duo that consisted of Victoria Mcgee ’25, a Hospitality Management student and Emma Cotter ’25, a Culinary Science student. Their cookie was a New York-style cheesecake cookie. They used vanilla, butter, and baking powder from our sponsors. They found it easy to stay within the budget because of all of the gifted ingredients to the school. Their favorite part was working together which they don’t get to do often with these friends having different majors.