HOUSTON — Local chefs competed at the Houston Junior League Thursday creating desserts made from Girl Scout cookies.
The competition was fierce. Ask an expert and she’ll tell you.
“Those are always the first to sell out, so it’s a number one seller,” said Audrey, who has sold thousands of dollars in cookies during her career as a Girl Scout.
Everyone has a favorite and everyone has a cookie that’s at the bottom of their list.
That’s what’s made the Girl Scout cookie bake-off so challenging for the chefs, who didn’t get to pick which cookie they’d be assigned to use.
“I’m not a lemon girl – but I love these,” said Suzanne Behrens from Salt and Sugar, Texas bakery in Katy.
She was given what is likely the most divisive Girl Scout cookie of them all.
“The Girl Scout’s lemon shortbread cookie,” she said.
In what was literally a lemons-to-lemonade feat, Behrens created mini cheesecake bites using the ground cookies for a crust.
“They had to get creative with what they got,” said Girl Scouts of San Jacinto marketing and communications director Heather Ganucheau.
She said not much has changed in the decades that girl scouts have been selling cookies.
They still go door-to-door, sell boxes outside of retail stores, and even host lemonade stands in their front yards.
“All of the funds from the cookie program goes directly toward the girls and their local troops and helps fund different activities they do throughout the year,” Ganucheau said.
“I brought a traditional French merveilleux, which I don’t know if I’m saying it right, but there it is,” said Jennifer Harding Hill of Good Sugar Bakery in Kingwood.
Difficult to pronounce and tough to explain, but easy on the palate.
“I think it’s like a French dessert, I don’t know, I kind of forgot the name,” said Sonya, one of the Girl Scouts.
Thursday night’s winners left with awards, in addition to bragging rights.
Not much could be better than that, except for maybe a box of the originals.