, 
, 
, 
Luverne Area Chamber Director Jane Wildung Lanphere and Chamber staffer Angela Sneller announced the winners of the Holiday Cookie Contest last week.
“Wow! Were we blown away by all the delicious-looking entries,” Lanphere said. “Both of us said we should have had you bring in 14 cookies …so there would be six cookies for each of the restaurants judging the cookies and one for each of us. … Maybe next year.”
She said competition was close among the 36 individual cookies and recipes entered in the contest.
“Each restaurant had a very, very hard time selecting their winners,” Lanphere said. “They all said that there were too many delicious cookies and they were bummed that they could only pick one.”
Restaurants selected the following cookie bakers as the 2020 champions:
In the youth division, 75 Diner’s Codie Deutsch and her staff selected Stella Brecher’s Frosted Sugar Cookies, and The Bean’s Leah Radisewitz and her staff selected Tenlee Pick’s Molasses Christmas Cookie.
In the adult division, Brian Sterling and his staff at Sterling’s Café & Grille selected Arnie Gerdes’ Chocolate Mint Cookies, and Wildflower’s Coffee Boutique’s Traci Wieneke and her staff selected Becky Ossefoort’s Grandma’s Molasses Cookies.
The participating restaurants have the cookie recipes and will bake them as their featured Thanksgiving holiday desserts.
Lanphere said winning recipes can be submitted only once, and she encourages bakers to enter the Holiday Baking Contest again in 2021.