Melia's Cookie Challenge
“Congratulations! You have been selected to compete in the Kids’ Cookie Bake-off!” Melia stared at the email in satisfaction. Her blue eyes sparkled as the grin spread across her face.
“Mom, Dad, I made it!” she hollered from her bedroom.
Melia Jo Sweetz had been baking cookies for as long as she can remember. She was 13 years old, and her love of baking came from her Nonni. Melia and Nonni spent every Christmas baking various cookies together, and Melia inherited Nonni’s addiction to collecting rare cookie cutters. She has everything from flowers to vehicles, clothing to letters, and everything in-between. When the two of them are not baking, they are watching YouTube decorating tutorials together.
Mr. and Mrs. Sweetz rushed into their daughter’s bedroom at the same time, both offering their own congratulations.
“We have to call Nonni and tell her!” Mrs. Sweetz said. She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her mother’s number. “Mom! Hold on a second,” she said and then passed the phone to Melia.
“Nonni! I made it! I am competing in the Kids’ Cookie Bake-off next month!” Melia announced.
“Oh, Melia! I knew that you would make it! Way to go! How about you come over this weekend and we can practice some recipes that you can use at the competition?”
“That sounds great! See you Saturday.” Melia handed the phone back to her mother and, after a few hugs and more words of congratulations, her parents left her room. She knew how lucky she was to have two parents who encouraged her to do what she loved, and a grandmother who shared the same interests and taught her everything she knew.
* * *
On Saturday morning, Melia wheeled her pink rolling tote up to Nonni’s front door. Inside the tote everything she needed for a day of baking. She had recipes, decorating items, cookie cutters, and more. Everything fit nicely in her tote, and she was accustomed to storing her baking supplies in the regulation-sized competition-approved carrier. Melia has already competed, and won, four kids’ baking competitions. She was confident that she would take home her fifth win at next month’s competition.
Nonni and Melia spent the entire weekend baking. They made lemon rollout sugar cookies and cut them into various flower shapes, including tulips, daisies, and roses. The decorating was the key to making flower cookies look the best, and Melia knew how to turn these sugar cookies into extravagant, colorful flowers. They also made snickerdoodles, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and rum balls. They had the best taste tester in the whole town – Papa. Melia has been calling him Cookie Monster since she was a toddler because Papa was always the first in line for homemade cookies, and always ate a hefty share.
“All of these cookies are incredible, Melia,” Papa said in between mouthfuls. “You are sure to win!”
* * *
The Kids’ Cookie Bake-off was a one-day competition which took place in Orlando, Florida. Melia lived only 90 minutes north of Orlando, so the entire family was able to travel to the competition. There was a total of ten children, aged 8 to 14, selected to compete based on homemade video applications sent to the producers. The contestants were from all over the United States. Melia was the only 13-year-old contestant. Competing against her were two 8-year-olds, three 10-year-olds, and four 14-year-olds. The children would be given two chances to wow the judges – first by making the best tasting original recipe cookie, and second by decorating the best looking cutout cookies. Melia felt very confident walking into the showroom, dressed casually in jeans and a blue t-shirt featuring Cookie Monster saying, “I’m Just Here for the Cookies.” She started unloading her pink tote and setting up her baking area. Her tote contained decorating tips and icing bags, various jars of different shaped colored sprinkles, her recipe box, rolling pin, a couple of aprons, and a very well-loved copy of Duff Goldman’s Super Good Baking for Kids. It also held her large collection of metal cookie cutters, but she only took out one of them – the large butterfly-shaped cookie cutter. Melia had a plan. She would make her snickerdoodles for the first part of the contest, and her lemon rollout cookies shaped like butterflies for the decorating portion of the competition. The contest required one dozen cookies per round, but Melia planned to make a few extra just in case.
As Melia looked around the room, she saw the other children setting up their own baking stations. She recognized most of the other contestants. In fact, she had already competed against and beat eight of the other bakers. But there was one girl she had never seen before – Allison Matthews. Allison was 14, with a short blonde pixie haircut, and was dressed in jeans and an Aerosmith t-shirt. Band tees were popular, and Melia owned a few herself. Although there was a new baker, Melia was still confident that she could get the win.
During the first round, Melia’s snickerdoodles came out exceptionally well. The hint of warm cinnamon sugar in the air around her station was very pleasant. The three judges did a blind tasting so they would not know who baked which cookies. The scoring after the first round placed Melia in second place with 9 out of 10 points. Allison’s red velvet cookies with cream cheese icing drizzle scored a perfect 10 and she claimed the first place position.
Melia was crushed. She had never experienced anything except first place and began to panic. She was not prepared for anything less than first place. She searched the small audience of family members for Nonni and locked eyes with her. Nonni gave her a reassuring smile, nodded, and mouthed, It’s okay. Deep down, Melia knew winning wasn’t everything, but she had a hard time facing the prospect of not being the best.
During the second round, Melia wasted no time making an abundance of her special lemon sugar cookie roll-out dough. She used her rolling pin to roll out the dough to an even 3/8-inch size and began cutting out butterfly cookies and placed them on a sheet pan, which she then slid into the blast chiller. Melia knew that if cookies were cold when they entered the hot oven, they would not spread or lose their shape. She tidied up her station and then moved the cookies into the oven. She knew her cookies came out the best when they were baked on the center rack, at 350 degrees, for 13 minutes. She set her timer and started making her royal icing for decorating.
Melia preferred working with royal icing because it hardened on the cookie after a few minutes, making the details smooth and shiny. She added a hint of lemon abstract into her royal icing mixture and separated it into different bowls so she could make various colors before placing the icing into decorating bags. Melia took a moment to look around the room. She noticed that Allison was also getting her decorating ingredients ready while her cookies were in the oven. Melia wondered what flavor and shape Allison was baking, but quickly pushed that thought out of her mind when the oven timer dinged.
Melia took her cookies out of the oven and returned them to the blast chiller. She knew that her cookies would have to be completely cool before decorating them, or else the icing would melt and slide off the cookies. Once chilled, Melia started decorating her butterfly cookies. First, she piped a barrier of orange icing around the wings of each cookie, and then flooded the wings with the same shade. The body of the butterflies received a barrier and flooded in black, followed by a sprinkle of lemon-flavored black sugar crystals. Next, Melia returned her attention to the wings and started piping fine black lines and transformed her cookies into monarch butterflies. The icing was shiny and perfect. Melia was sure she would win first place in this round of the competition.
After the judging was complete, the second round results were revealed. Melia received a 9, which made her final score 18. Allison also received a 9 in the second round, which made her final score 19. Allison was the winner!
Melia was heartbroken. She tried very hard not to cry. She wanted so badly to continue her winning streak and bring home another trophy. Instead, she received a red ribbon that said “Second Place” along with a plaque with her name, date, and the competition name engraved on it. She knew she should be happy but was on the verge of tears. As she cleaned up and packed her pink rolling tote to go home, Nonni came over to her station with a huge grin and grabbed Melia into a bear hug.
“Melia Jo, I am so proud of you!”
“But I didn’t win, Nonni.”
“But, Melia, you came in second place out of ten of the best kid bakers in the country. There are billions of other children who didn’t even get the chance to compete. You should be so proud of the fact that you were selected to compete, you scored incredibly well, and you were runner up. That is very impressive and something to be proud of!” Nonni told her.
Melia thought about what Nonni was telling her, and she saw what a great feat she accomplished. “Wow!” she said, “My cookies received second place in the entire country! I never thought of it that way. I guess second place isn’t so bad.”
After Melia was done packing her supplies, she told Nonni to let her parents know she would be a few minutes. She said that there was something she had to do. Melia took one of her snickerdoodles and one of her lemon butterfly cookies and walked over to Allison’s station.
“Hi, Allison. Congratulations. Would you like to try my cookies?”
“Oh, yes! Thank you, Melia. I have some cookies for you to try as well.” Allison handed Melia one of her red velvet cookies, and a beautiful cookie in the shape of a dress, decorated like a wedding dress and flavored with vanilla. It was delicious.
The two girls chatted between mouthfuls of the country’s most delicious cookies and soon realized that they had a lot in common.
The new friends exchanged phone numbers and realized that they didn’t live very far from each other. Melia and Allison made promises to stay in touch.
Although Melia didn’t win first place, she did win a new friend and learned a valuable lesson along the way.
The End
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