Aitkin – Years of baking and ovens is all Aitkin County teens have to offer over 133 other submissions for chocolate chip cookies at the Minnesota State Fair this year.
16-year-old Mallory Leitinger’s recipe for Baked Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies is a recipe she found in her own cookbook with slight modifications. This cookie won the top prize in the “Chocolate Cookies, No Fruits or Nuts” category at the Big Party in Minnesota.
“This is a recipe that I don’t think will outperform other recipes I’ve printed,” Reitinger said in a phone interview Thursday, September 29. “The only reason I got into this was because my mom said I had to do it. I really thought it was never good enough.”
Leitinger also entered the production of chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter chili cookies, and oatmeal tartlets.
While she prepared appetizers for the state game, Reitinger’s parents were remodeling the house, limiting her baking options.
“We don’t have a real oven for the state fair right now, we only have one because our kitchen is being remodeled,” Leitinger said. “So cookies are better than cakes because they’re hard to bake right in a small oven.”
Leitinger said this is her second year presenting baked goods at the State Fair and the Atkin County Fair, where she won the blueberry muffin and chocolate mint layer cake winner. Hoping to have a fully equipped kitchen next year, Leitinger wanted to try the layer cake again and try to get her hands on the nut cookie category.
Reitinger said her interest in baking came from her grandmother. When she was about 10 years old, Leitinger received her first cookbook and began to take baking seriously and not just as a hobby.
“With my other grandmother, we usually make cupcakes or something,” Rettinger said. “I remember making applesauce with her and just making different recipes. She helped me with birthday cakes or we baked cakes for my family’s birthdays. And then she kind of, when I got my first cookbook, she encouraged me to lead baking.”
Leutinger developed a sense of competition during 4-H and says she decided to try and plans to continue through college. Leitinger, a student at Aitkin High School, says she still bakes several times a week and uses her friends and family as tasters.
“I do a lot of things, like decorating cakes and cookies, brownies,” Reitinger said. “I also make a lot of muffins and quick breads, like the last thing I do is pumpkin muffins and zucchini bread.”
Leitinger said she would encourage anyone who wants to bake and compete to try it, but make sure they read and measure the ingredients correctly.
“Don’t choose overly complicated recipes,” says Leitinger. “It helps to make sure you read the recipes and measure everything right. Because I always have kids at school who tell me that their things don’t work out. It’s because they don’t measure it. Then about the competition, I think, I’d say go for it… I mean, the worst thing that can happen is that you don’t win.”
Staff correspondent TIMMY SPEER can be reached on Twitter @timmy2thyme, 218-855-5859 or email tim.speier@brainerddispatch.com.
Post time: Oct-10-2022