'It's Just a Beautiful Christmas Cookie:' Butter Tastin' Jammies big winner in Journal's Holiday Cookie Contest

This is the third year for the Winston-Salem Journal's Holiday Cookie Contest, but local amateur bakers continue to come up with new and different cookies as well as great recipes for old favorites.

From the 40 entries, I chose 20 of the most promising recipes and accompanying stories and asked each contestant to bake up a batch.

I also asked four people to come judge the cookies: Baxter Cromer, a chef at Village Tavern; Judy Carroll of Pfafftown, a veteran winner of many cooking contests at the Dixie Classic Fair; Desty McEwan, a co-owner of Mrs. Pumpkin's Bakery and Deli; and Alison Turner, a pastry chef at Dewey's Bakery.

The judges walked into a conference room at the Journal's downtown offices to find a wide array of cookies in all styles, shapes and flavors. They saw pinwheels done two different ways, crescent-shaped pastries filled with pecans, delicate almond-flavored lace cookies, and cakey Polish mazurkas topped with fruit and pistachios.

Judges awarded first place to the Butter Tastin' Jammies baked by John Konopinski, a 40-year-old truck driver in Tobaccoville.

Konopinski and his wife, Christine, both love to bake. John Konopinski's specialty is actually cheesecake. His banana-pudding cheesecake took first place in the Village Tavern Favorite Dessert Contest this fall.

His Butter Tastin' Jammies are small sandwich cookies filled with buttercream and raspberry jam and drizzled with white and dark chocolate.

Judges said that this looked like a professionally made bakery cookie but tasted homemade. "It's just a beautiful Christmas cookie," Carroll said.

"It's well-decorated, well-flavored, an all-round good cookie," Cromer said.

McEwan praised the texture and the choice of flavors. "I like the contrast between the cookie and the jam.

And I like the chocolate and raspberry together."

Konopinski said that this cookie started with a recipe he found on the Internet about four years ago. "It's nothing like what I have now. The original recipe was too floury; I used less flour and more butter. If you want the right flavor, you have to have the right combination," he said.

Patty Hoth of Advance took second place with a very different recipe. Her Praline Cookies are big and wonderfully chewy, sprinkled with chopped pecans and drizzled with a brown-sugar icing.

"These cookies probably had the most, the strongest flavor of all the cookies" in the contest, Turner said.

Hoth (rhymes with "both") works in information systems at Wake Forest University Health Sciences. She has been making these for more than 15 years, and she was initially drawn to them because she loves brown sugar.

She remembers how her three kids, who are now ages 17 to 20, used to turn up their noses at the cookies. "When my children were younger, they didn't like candy or cookies with nuts. Now that they are older, they love these cookies," Hoth said.

Sharon Hedgecock, a paralegal for Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice who lives in northern Davidson County, won third place with Santa's Whiskers. This butter cookie with candied cherries and nuts appeared at first glance to be just an everyday cookie -- until judges tasted them. They were pleasantly surprised by the well-balanced buttery flavor and unusual, almost crunchy, but slightly chewy texture. "That would be a good family cookie," Judy Carroll said. Others said that these would go over well with children.

Hedgecock said that Santa's Whiskers were one of several cookies that her mother, Joanne Kutach, always used to make around Christmas. "When I was younger I wasn't interested in baking them, just eating them," Hedgecock said. "She passed away in 1995, and I've sort of picked up the baking. Now I enjoy getting into the kitchen and making her old recipes."

Konopinski, Hoth and Hedgecock will receive grocery-store gift cards of $75, $50 and $25, respectively.

Thanks to all the people who submitted recipes -- especially the finalist who drove all the way from Blowing Rock -- for making this year's cookie contest a success.

Butter Tastin' Jammies

First place by John Konopinski of Tobacco-ville.

2 cups all purpose flour

¾ cup butter, chilled and diced

⅔ cup granulated sugar

1 egg yolk

Buttercream and raspberry filling:

¼ cup butter, room temperature

1½ cups powdered sugar, sifted (measure before sifting)

1 small 8-ounce jar seedless raspberry jam

Topping:

1 ounce white chocolate melted with 1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream

1 ounce dark chocolate melted with 1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream

1. Put the flour and butter in a food processor and process until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the sugar and egg yolk and process until the mixture starts to form a dough. Turn out on a floured surface and knead until smooth. Shape into a ball, wrap in clear plastic and chill for 30 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 baking sheets.

3. Roll out the dough thinly, about ⅛ inch thick, on a lightly floured surface. Cut out rounds using a 2½-inch cookie cutter. Re-roll the trimmings and cut out more rounds until you have a total of 40.Place 20 on 1 baking sheet and set aside.

4. Using a small cutter (about ¾ inch in diameter) of your choice (round, Christmas-tree shape or others), cut out the center of the remaining 20 cookies. Place them on the second baking sheet. Bake all the cookies for about 12 minutes or just until pale golden color around the edges. Watch carefully to avoid over-baking. Cool on wire rack.

5. Make buttercream by placing butter and powdered sugar in a bowl that will accommodate an electric mixer with a paddle attachment. Blend on medium speed 3 to 5 minutes, until smooth, light and airy. Place the 20 uncut cookies on a tray and spread each with a small amount of buttercream. Add a spoonful of jam on top of the buttercream. Top each with a cut-out cookie.

6. Melt the chocolate and cream mixtures. Splash or drizzle both types of chocolate on top of each cookie.

Makes 20 cookies.

Praline Cookies

Second place by Patty Hoth of Advance.

1½ cups all-purpose flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

½ cup butter, softened to room temperature

1½ cups packed light brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup coarsely chopped pecans

Icing:

1 cup packed brown sugar

½ cup heavy cream

1 cup powdered sugar

1. Whisk the flours, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl and set aside.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until well blended and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg and vanilla and mix well. Mix the dry ingredients into the butter mixture until blended. Cover and chill the dough for at least 1 hour before baking.

3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

4. Roll small pieces of dough (about 1 tablespoon) into 1 inch balls and place 2 inches apart on greased cookie sheets. Using your thumb or the back of a ¼-teaspoon measuring spoon, make a small indentation in the middle of the cookie. Fill the indentation with chopped pecans.

8. Bake 9 to 10 minutes. (Cookies should not yet be brown; do not allow cookies to overbake or they will become hard). Let sit 1 to 2 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool. Put cooled cookies onto sheets of wax paper.

9. Prepare the icing: Combine brown sugar and cream in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, whisking constantly until it boils. Remove from heat and whisk in the powdered sugar until smooth.

10. Immediately drizzle icing over cookies. Let icing cool and harden before placing in container for storing.

Makes 4 dozen.

Santa's Whiskers

Third place by Sharon Hedgecock of Davidson County.

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

1 cup sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup finely chopped red and green candied cherries

½ cup finely chopped pecans

¾ cup flaked coconut

1. Cream butter with an electric mixer until smooth, about 1 minute. Gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add milk and vanilla, beating until smooth. Stir in flour, candied cherries and pecans. Shape dough into two (8-by-2-inch) cylinders; roll each in coconut. Cover and chill 3 to 4 hours.

2. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Cut cylinders into ¼-inch thick slices. Place on ungreased cookie sheets; bake 12 to 14 minutes, until the coconut outside is golden. Cool on wire racks. (Cookies will harden as they cool.)

Makes about 4½ dozen.