Cookie Monsters

Here are a few highlights and photos from the 2012 Just Desserts competition hosted at Hotel Icon by the Girl Scouts of San Jacinto on Thursday, February 3, 2012. Given my sugar high (I couldn’t fall asleep until 2 am this morning) and the frenzy of mega-badged girls, doting parents and green ambient lighting, I might have had my notes collected along with my many plates during the clean-up process. I’ll update this page with the winners (they are all winners, literally) and some non-iPhone photos as I get them. Here is the list of competitors:

Amy’s Ice Cream — Mixing their Mexican vanilla ice cream with bits of Peanut Butter Patties, they also gave guests a scoop of chocolate ice cream on the side.

Dessert Gallery — Using Thanks-A-Lot cookies, they created a decadent, creamy cupcake-size dessert. (People’s Choice winner)

Fluff Bake Bar — Do-Si-Dos (formally known as peanut butter sandwiches) were used by FBB and made into chocolate-peanut-banana madness. The culinary team put it on a stick and torched it.

Grand Finale Catering — Shout Outs were used with cream cheese and apple flavors. This dessert wasn’t high in sugar and was a great dessert for those who don’t care much for sweets.

Haven — Randy Evans and his assistants made lemonade pops using Lemonade cookies and dark chocolate.

Line & Lariat — Their dessert consisted of Thin Mints, chocolate and more chocolate with fresh fruit as a garnish.

Michael’s Cookie Jar — Using Caramel deLites, the MCJ team made a petite dulce de leche and Bavaria cream dessert that was perfect for fans of caramel.

Ooh La La — I am sure Ooh La La won the “best campfire dessert” category because their bar-shaped key lime cheesecake bites would be perfect to make-and-take. No muss in the Tupperware.

Below we’ve got a few photos of celebrity judges, the hard-working ladies of the Girl Scouts and the local chefs who created desserts for this annual competition. Houston-area Girl Scouts who were top cookie-sellers were selected to assist judges or chefs. The Girl Scouts are also celebrating 100 years this year — and have declared 2012 The Year Of The Girl.

By the way: Are you trying to get your hands on a box of Thin Mints? Cookies will be on sale until late March. If you didn’t order cookies from a Girl Scout, you can often find them selling cookies outside of Kroger and H-E-B stores.

Amy Davis and her assistant judge did some deep investigation of the cookie creations.

Univision’s Rebecca Suarez told me she never participated in Girl Scouts, but that she was very impressed last night. These young ladies had great manners and worked hard to help the chefs hand out desserts.

Pastry chef Rebecca Masson and her Fluff Bake Bar team created a birthday cake made out of cookies and had a very festive birthday theme, while chef Randy Evans (joined by his adorable daughter) went for a minimalist approach. Both chefs coincidentally made desserts-on-a-stick. Evans used Lemonades, a newer lemony cookie, and blended the cookie crumbs with milk and lemon extract, froze the mixture into “pops” and dipped each pop in dark chocolate. Rebecca made a banana and peanut butter creation, with each pop individually blowtorched upon handing it to tasters. Elvis would have been impressed.

(PS The daughter of chef Carlos Rodriguez of Vic & Anthony was another top seller in cookies this year and is in the Fluff Bake Bar photo. She’s a hard-core foodie.)

See this ball of chocolate? It is the creation submitted by Line & Lariat, Hotel Icon’s new restaurant. A blend of creamy chocolate mousse and Thin Mints, it wasn’t overly sweet and was my personal favorite (but I’m a helpless life-long fan of Thin Mints). It was garnished with decorative chocolate shavings, blueberries and raspberries. I think it should be a seasonal dessert offering at Line & Lariat.