The wait is over: ‘The Ultimate Minnesota Cookie Book’ is out Nov. 5

From caramels and krumkake to sugar cookies and sandbakkels, baking has been a longstanding holiday tradition in many families. And for decades, the Star Tribune’s Taste section has been giving bakers fresh ideas for their cookie platters.

Under retired editor Lee Svitak Dean and restaurant critic and avid baker Rick Nelson, there were grand cookie productions with themes like “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and “The Nutcracker,” architect-commissioned gingerbread houses and cookies developed by local chefs.

“There were stories about cookies every year at Christmas, from the very beginning, just because of the nature of the holiday,” said Svitak Dean. “It was a matter of coming up with a new idea every single year.”

“As a cookie baker, I did the cookie stories,” Nelson said. “The year after the Nutcracker cookies, we decided to do a contest. We knew we were going to do cookies, and we wanted to do something that interacted with readers, kind of in the traditional way of Taste, which had always interacted with readers, especially in the pre-internet era.”

And a new holiday tradition — the Star Tribune Holiday Cookie Contest — was born. Svitak Dean and Nelson were at the helm of the contest for 20 years, and put a bow on their tenure with the upcoming “The Ultimate Minnesota Cookie Book,” a follow-up to 2018′s “The Great Minnesota Cookie Book.” (The contest is now in its 22nd year, and this year’s winners will be announced Dec. 5.)

We caught up with the friends and co-authors, who talked about what they loved about the contest, their secrets to the ideal cookie tray and what cookies they always bake. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why a sequel?

RN: The book that came out in 2018 was the first 15 years, and almost immediately people would ask, well, are you ever going to update this? Because every year we were creating new recipes. That was a main driver behind this book, and it’s also so interesting because as the contest went on, I think the recipes got better and better. I’m so thrilled that we have a book that celebrates them and shows the evolution of the contest.

LD: This book also gave us an opportunity to tell personal stories, to have sort of a personal sign-off on the contest. This was the end of our time with working with it. And so it’s sort of our legacy.

Looking back, why start a cookie contest?

RN: We were talking about the holidays in August or September, the way you do at newspapers, which is scary. I pitched the idea, and everyone was like, “Hey, that’s a great idea, as long as you do it.” So there we were, and we did it.

Was telling the story behind the cookie always part of the contest?

RN: Yes. Because we figured that would set us apart, and it was important to us as storytellers that there’d be good stories.

Does it surprise you that now, 22 years later, the contest still resonates with readers?

LD: Yes! Shocked, really. Initially, we wondered, should we do it a second year? Because it worked the first one, and enough people seem interested, we’ll try the second year. And then the third year came, and it was like, you know, we’ll do it until people aren’t interested. And we thought that that would be very soon. We had no longevity in mind for this at all. What really changed was, maybe 10 years into it, people actually started developing cookies solely for this contest. And so you had whole different types of cookies that were coming in. There were very few traditional ones, and more innovative ones that leaned on whatever trend happened to be around at that point in time.

Why do you think readers embraced the contest?

LD: I think that whole sense of going back into the kitchen to bake during the holidays continues on, even for people who don’t normally bake or may not even cook much. But for whatever reason, they’re headed back there, because that’s what you’re supposed to do in December. And I think that’s also one of the reasons that everybody has a story to tell.

Did your selection process or standards change over the years?

LD: I don’t really think our standards changed, other than we were always conscious of what we had done in the past, and we didn’t want to replicate cookies. So even if there were things that looked good, we’re going to cut it because we’ve already done something similar.

RN: I think from the very beginning, we had a very high-horse approach about what cookies should be. They should be made with butter, they should have whole ingredients and not be made of Trix cereal or vanilla instant pudding. And then it really came to bite us because we got some really great cookie recipes from ingredients that I would have considered less than ideal, and yet they made really great cookies. Maybe one of my favorite recipes, Almond Palmiers, is made out of puff pastry, and I was like maybe you shouldn’t make cookies out of commercial puff pastry. Yes, you should, because they’re really, really good. So that was a great lesson.

What else did you look for in a winning cookie?

RN: From that very first year, we wanted to present an array of styles of cookies. We wanted to have an easy cookie for beginner bakers. Maybe a complex recipe to challenge veteran bakers. We wanted to have things that look beautiful on a tray together. Well, we didn’t know that the first year, but we figured it out very quickly.

LD: I think we were always aware that they had to look good, number one, and for us there had to be a variety. We wouldn’t give five chocolate recipes or five drop cookies or whatever. And the other thing that’s kind of funny is the whole sense of, why did we choose five cookies for a winner? And it was simply because that’s what fit on the page.

Oh, that’s funny. What’s one recipe in the book that you bake without fail?

LD: I make the Cranberry Cornmeal Shortbread. I also make the Spumoni Squares a lot. Both are big hits with a crowd: Both are very pretty, very colorful for the season, with unexpected spins on flavors that guests really like — and they always ask for these recipes after tasting them, which is the true test of a good cookie.

RN: For me, it’s the Almond Palmiers. I also make the Devil’s Delight a lot.

The book adds a chapter of very personal stories. How big of a role does nostalgia play in baking?

RN: I think it plays a huge role. Reading thousands of entries over the years, so many of them were “When I was little, this is what my mother and my grandmother made.” And frankly, most of us have those stories if we grew up in those kinds of households. I know Lee and I certainly did. Some of my happiest memories are baking memories with my grandmother and my mother. To a certain extent, my mother was not a great baker, and I’m not dissing her memory in any way. It just wasn’t her thing. But at Christmas, she baked. That’s what moms did, and she made our holidays so happy as a result.

LD: I think in addition to nostalgia, or maybe similarly, cookies are really a kind of a comfort food. Not only is it nice and sweet to have, but it also does tap into the nostalgia — for us anyway.

What’s the best baking tip you’ve ever been given?

LD: This comes from Rick, and I can’t believe that I went all these years without knowing this. But if you’ve learned how to bake from somebody else, you kind of pick up their habits. And in my case, I’ve learned from my mother and grandmother, and when they’re dropping cookies, they’re doing it by hand or with a little spoon. And I realized that Rick was always using a scoop, which I should have figured out after all those decades, and it was a game-changer. They all are the same size cookies, so uniform.

RN: Mine is so boring, but it’s read the recipe twice before you do anything. Somebody told me that a long time ago, and it really was the best advice, because I’m a skip-ahead person. I just glanced at things like, oh yeah, I get that, and then you get to the point in the recipe that says, “Now you’ll need to make something, and it’ll take eight hours.” And then it’s like, well, I’m just gonna throw everything away.

How do you select recipes for the ideal cookie tray?

LD: For me, it’s variety of the shapes and the flavors and probably the amount of time it takes to make them, as well. It should look pretty and not lunchbox-like. If it’s for other people, you want to surprise them with something. So I like to surprise.

RN: For me it’s having a variety of types of cookies in terms of preparation. So, do you have some that you can make in advance? Do you have some where you can make the dough and put it in the refrigerator and bake it off right before everybody comes over, so they’re super-fresh?

How many varieties should a cookie tray have?

LD: Five is a good number. You can get by with three. But like any type of platter you’re putting together, you can have one kind and people will be happy and will eat it. It’s just kind of fun to ratchet it up a little bit.

RN: One of the best non-baking tips I ever received was from [baking instructor] Matt Deutsch. He goes to secondhand stores and buys used cookie platters, so when he goes to somebody’s house, he puts the cookies on the platter and he never wants to see that platter again. He spent almost nothing and he doesn’t have to worry about it. And then they can give it away to somebody else.

One last question: Is a bar a cookie?

LD: Absolutely.

RN: Unless it’s a brownie.

“The Ultimate Minnesota Cookie Book” (University of Minnesota Press, $29.95) by Lee Svitak Dean and Rick Nelson is available Nov. 5. Meet the authors at these “Ultimate” events.

Nov. 10: Baking class and conversation at Cooks | Bellecour. 4-6 p.m. $125, register at cooksbellecour.com. 877 Grand Av., St. Paul.

Nov. 12: A Talk of the Stacks conversation with the Minnesota Star Tribune’s Chris Hewitt, sponsored by the Friends of the Hennepin County Library. 6:30 p.m. Free, but registration required (bit.ly/3BFjvcG). Via Zoom, or at the Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Mpls.

Nov. 16: Conversation and book signing at Norway House. 1-2 p.m. Free. 913 E. Franklin Av., Mpls.

Nov. 20: Conversation and book signing at Magers & Quinn. 7 p.m. Free, but registration required (bit.ly/3zFZjHe). 3038 Hennepin Av. S., Mpls.

Nov. 23: Conversation and book signing at Barnes & Noble. 2 p.m. Free. Galleria, 1 W. 69th St., Edina.

Nov. 30: Book signing at the General Store of Minnetonka. 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Free. 14401 Hwy. 7, Minnetonka.

Makes 2 ½ dozen cookies.

From Lee Svitak Dean, who writes in “The Ultimate Minnesota Cookie Book”: “It’s not a new phenomenon to reference a ‘million dollar’ recipe. They’ve been appearing since at least the 1950s, though it’s tough to find out why those older recipes took the name. While there are similar recipes out there to this one from the Svitak repertoire, coconut offers the signature — and different — ingredient to the mix for a terrific combo. If a Russian tea cake merged with a coconut cookie, this would be the result.” (University of Minnesota Press, 2024)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, stir together flour, salt, baking soda, nuts and coconut, and reserve.

In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla extract, and beat until thoroughly combined.

Reduce the speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing until just combined.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls, and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Place about 1 cup granulated sugar into a shallow bowl. With the flat bottom of a glass, carefully press it onto a cookie, flattening it until the dough is about ¼-inch thick. Dip the glass bottom into granulated sugar and repeat with the remaining cookies.

Bake until the cookies are set and lightly browned, about 10 to 12 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven and cool for 2 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

Makes 3 dozen cookies.

Some of author Rick Nelson’s earliest memories were baking with his grandmother, Hedvig Nelson. Rick often craved this recipe of hers, which contains a unique ingredient. Note: For a more refined texture, place the rolled oats in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse until the oats have an almond flour-like consistency. From “The Ultimate Minnesota Cookie Book” (University of Minnesota Press, 2024).

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line baking sheets with parchment paper. Place a wire rack over wax paper or parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg, and reserve.

In the bowl of an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until thoroughly combined.

Add the vanilla extract, and beat until thoroughly combined. Reduce the speed to low. Add the flour mixture in three additions, mixing until just combined. Stir in the rolled oats, crushed Wheaties (or other wheat flakes cereal) and the coconut.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls, and place 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are lightly browned on the edges, about 9 to 11 minutes.

Remove the cookies from the oven and cool for about 5 minutes before transferring them to the prepared wire rack to cool completely.

In a double boiler over gently simmering water (or in a bowl in a microwave oven), melt the chocolate, whisking occasionally until smooth. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the cookies. Allow the chocolate to set before serving.