By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
On Monday night, the atrium in the Wood County District Public Library was no place to start, or maintain, a diet.
The library’s holiday cookie bake-off featured the wares of 20 bakers, some offering tastes of more than one confection. There were varieties of ginger snaps, pecan-pie like cookies, sugar cookies under various forms of frosting, caramel confections and, others with a hint of almond, and chocolate, of course.
Last year’s winner, Sherry Potocnak, went with chocolate again. In 2018 it was chocolate covered cherries. This year it was a double Oreo delight. That was enough for Potocnak to win second place, but not repeat as champion.
That honor went to Mariia Pushina who’s entry was as eye-catching as it was palate pleasing.
Over a cream filled tartlet she had constructed a miniature gingerbread house.
Each house has six parts — so that was 360 bits that went into the construction of six dozen of the winning confection.
Michele Raine said the library hosts the event, now in its fifth year, because it’s fun, and it is a way to promote the library’s cookbook collection.
A library patron won’t find the winning entry in any of those books.
Pushina said this was her original creation. She had been thinking about what to make since last year’s event when she served up a cupcake with a caramel snow globe on top.
The ambitiousness of her creations belies her recent introduction to baking. Pushina, who comes from Russia, said she only started cooking when she started attending college. She first tried her hand at baking five years ago when she made a cake for her mother.
She’d loved the creativity of it. Now she bakes and watches baking shows. “I’d love to be baker, but I’m a chemist,” Pushina said.
She came to Bowling Green six years ago, and earned her doctorate. She now works as a research and development chemist at Spectra Photopolymers.
Potocnak said that she’s made the double Oreo cookie before. Like last year’s winning entry, the recipe from her regular repertoire.
She explained that Pennsylvania, where she lived before moving to Bowling Green two years ago, has a tradition at weddings of having a cookie table as well as a cake.
Both the double Oreos and cherries were baked for her daughters’ weddings, she said.
Her granddaughter Ava Nichter was on hand but not with her grandmother. Instead, she donned a tiara and was helping her friend Tucker Hetterick and his family hand out reindeer snickerdoodles.
Tucker had helped his mother Heather Hetterick make them by putting the candies on for the reindeer’s nose and eyes.
“We love reindeer,” the mother said.
She laughed as she mentioned the minor drama created by Ava insisting on supporting her friend instead of her grandmother.
The grandmother took it all in stride. She enjoys the bake-off. “It’s fun to see what people make.”
The mood for all this Noel-themed noshing was set by holiday tunes performed by students from Vicki Hoehner’s piano studio.
Raine estimated that there were at least 100 tasters, who had gotten tickets to register their preference. Each a taster got five tickets to be distributed as they choose in the bags set out near each baker. They could put one ticket each in five bags, or if they really liked a cookie, cast all five votes for a single entry.
Given that some bakers, including Potocnak, ran out of cookies, despite having brought five dozen, clearly not many tasters were worrying about their waistlines.
