Twice-grand prize winner a true cookie master
Avis Chmielewski’s path to winning this year’s Holiday Cookie Contest took her through many versions of her Evergreen Fruit Bars, starting last January.
She took an early version of the rosemary-laced bars, with a raspberry filling, to a niece’s bridal shower.
“They were very good, but the raspberries didn’t stand up to the rosemary,” she said. “It wasn’t quite right.”
Later, she tried a cranberryorange version, but the flavors “kind of fought.” She needed a fruit that would hold up to the rosemary but not be too strong, one that would also add texture.
Then she spotted a can of apricots in her pantry.
“The apricot gets really silky” when pureed, she said. She also left in a few cranberries, and she added a favorite ingredient, crystallized ginger bits, for “a bit of bite and sweetness.”
After further putzing, she added a tablespoon of honey to the filling, and she substituted brown sugar for granulated in the crust.
At last, a winner. “The key to the recipe is the rosemary,” Chmielewski said. “But … a little rosemary goes further than you think.”
She finally settled on a single teaspoon of the fresh herb, finely minced, which came from her garden. Just enough to evoke the smell of an evergreen tree.
If Avis’ name sounds familiar, it’s because she also won the cookie contest two years ago, then for her Figgy Puddings. Her win required her to take a year off from entering.
“As I was baking my Christmas cookies last year, I kept thinking, what could I do for the contest?” she said. “It’s kind of become a year-round thought process.” This year she has a list of 15 holiday cookies she plans to make, including ones she makes every year: green spritz Christmas trees, her vinegar cookies — that’s the one my kids ask for — and a family recipe, Grandma Betty’s refrigerator cookies, spiced logs of dough that are sliced.
“It’s always the first cookie I bake because it lasts the longest. And it makes like 5 million. And the smell … that’s the thing. The family recipe I haven’t embraced is the lebkuchen.”
She also makes candied pecans and hot (cayenne) pecans and cranberry honey butter to give as gifts. And she’s making orange wine.
“My kids tease me because I talk about needing to study my recipes before a dinner,” said the retired teacher, who lives on Milwaukee’s west side. “My whole process is very much like when I used to write lesson plans.”
When she told her kids she’d won the cookie contest again, they both said, “No surprise.”
“They’re my biggest fans,” said Chmielewski.