Holiday Cookie Bake-Off: Enter now; try ‘strike-breaker’ cookies

Have you submitted your recipe yet? Entries are now open for the fourth annual Los Angeles Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off. Think you’ve got the best holiday cookies ever?

Curious about the competition? Check out these butterscotch nut bars (also known as “strike-breaker” cookies) from Geraldine Knatz of Long Beach. She writes:

“This cookie is not something handed down for generations and brought from the old country, but it does have a story. Actually, these are so great they don’t need a story. It is the cookie that I baked the most for employees as director of the Port of Los Angeles. It was always a hit. It’s great for mailing, and I even sent some to our port employees who were called up for service in Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s a great one to mail to service people. Last December, when the Office Clerical Unit (OCU) went on strike, closing some of the Port of Los Angeles terminals, we allowed labor and management to use our facility at Banning’s Landing for the negotiations.

“One morning, I brought over about 5 pounds of these cookies. As I learned later, they wound up with labor not management. When Mayor Villaraigosa and I went into the negotiations to talk to the mostly women negotiating team, a few ladies asked me for the recipe. I remember teasing them ... well this might have to be a contract deal point.” A deal was struck by the next morning and since then, I have called them my ‘strike-breaker’ cookies.”

RECIPES: Check out our past Holiday Bake-Off finalists and more in our new California Cookbook

Think you can do better? Well, don’t just sit there. Show us. Through our Facebook page, enter our fourth annual Los Angeles Times Holiday Cookie Bake-off. Entries must be submitted by Nov. 19 at midnight.

Go to our Facebook page and submit your cookie recipe, along with a short essay about why your cookie is such a holiday favorite. Include a photo if you can; voters will want to see proof.

Every year, we get hundreds of entries and thousands of votes cast, so get your recipes up quickly.

You, the readers, will vote online for your favorites. Voting ends at midnight Dec. 2, then we’ll test and taste the top 50 vote-getters at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Pasadena to come up with the 10 we like best.

We’ll take top vote-getters and try out the cookies in The Times Test Kitchen. The finalists will be invited to the Los Angeles Times for a tour of the Test Kitchen, and will be photographed and featured in a Saturday section article during the holidays.

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