Dallas Morning News / Central Market Holiday Cookie Contest

Yesterday was the 18th annual contest. I've only been involved for 6 years. I've had the pleasure of being accepted as a finalist 3 years. I felt honored to have  2 recipes accepted in the competition this year. It's difficult to get 1 recipe in the finals.
The contest involves hundreds of entries. Here are some of the guidelines: You can enter a total of 3 recipes, each one has to be in a different category. There's a nominal entry fee and all of the money raised goes to charity.
Here are the categories:

Easy
Family
Decorated
Bar
Decadent
Cookie Man

Each contestant brings 1 dozen cookies for the judges and a minimum of 1 dozen for sharing. The Cookie Man contestants bring 7 cookies.  We are asked to bring 50 copies of our recipe.There is one finalist chosen in the Cookie Man Category and the cookies entered are amazing.
The Cookie Man Cookie is photographed and featured on the cover of the Taste Section of The Dallas Morning News when the story is published in the paper in December. All of the top three winners in each categories have there recipes and stories published in the paper.

The cookies for sharing are placed on tables in a conference room away from the judges. They are organized by category on the tables.
During the judging the staff from the Dallas Morning News and Central Market entertain the contestants. There are sponsors at the event that give away prizes and there's a drawing with many door prizes.
At check in, each contestant receives a bag of goodies.

After the winning recipes are announced we all rush to the table with our empty containers and a free for all begins as we have the opportunity to get as many cookies as we can. It's truly a friendly frenzy and we all walk away with a ton of cookies!

I photographed the event and you can get an idea of how competitive the contest is when you see the amazing cookies entered.
I was interviewed by the newspaper and when I was asked if I felt that the competition was tough, I told them that the competition is very friendly, everyone involved is so nice that it's not about the win, it's about the fun that we all have and the stories and recipes that we share.

I did win a door prize and I seem to be lucky enough to have won a door prize every year I've been in the contest.
I'll begin working on new recipes for next year and look forward to , hopefully, getting in again next year.

Here are photographs of the event:

These adorable Armadillos were a winner in the Decorated Category.

The contest is covered by the Dallas Morning News.

The tables are emptied when we all take cookies at the end
of the contest.

Another photo of the table after we all fill our containers.

These are my Maple Maple Pecan cookies in the Decadent Category.

This was in the Cookie Man category.

These are my Peppernuts in the Family Category.

This was the winner of the Cookie Man category.

This is what the tables look like after the frenzy of
all of us filling our containers with cookies.

These are filled with Jalapeno Jelly

This is the photograph from the Dallas Morning News on December 11th.
This is when they publish all of the winning recipes.
It's the first time they have published a picture of this part of the event
when we all get to take samples of everyone's cookies.
You may think that's Santa in the picture, but I can guarantee you, it's not!
That's the Hippy in the Kitchen!
I was looking at this post the morning of the 19 Annual contest. November 6, 2014.
I have 2 recipes accepted in this year's contest: Texas Brittle Bars
and Tex - Mex Sugar and Spice.
There's also another major difference to point out as I head out the door
to the contest in 2014, The Hippy in the Kitchen is 70 pounds lighter.
What an amazing year it's been.
I started my quest in March and it took 5 months and a lot of
hard work and discipline to accomplish it.
I won't be eating quite as many cookies this year but Anne and I look forward to
the event today.