Bake-off a New Halloween Tradition

 It may not be an annual Halloween tradition yet, but if the owners of Capitol City Cheesecake have their way, their fall-themed Annual Bake Off will end up on your calendar, right next to the Takoma Park costume parade. 

The bakery/café's premiere bake-off took place  just in time for trick-or-treating  Sunday, and featured a fall-flavored cookie contest.  After poring through more than 20 submissions, co-owners Meaghan and Caitlin Murphy selected three cookie recipes for the final bake-off, based on the use of fall-like flavorings, overall taste, ease of baking, and a manageable ingredient list.  The patrons themselves were offered the chance to sample the three finalist's cookies, then place a vote for their favorite. The winner's cookie will be baked and sold at Cheesecake's storefront in Takoma Park for the month of November, and they will receive a cut of the profits.

For those not lucky enough to be on-hand for the voting, there was a White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookie from Lachecha Bevel-Downing of Greenwood, Del., a Chocolate Peanut Butter Pumpkin Cookie by Jacob Coon, a teacher in southern Maryland, and the Red Ginger Gingers by Lucy McMurrer of Amherst, Mass.

"I was kind of timid at first, because I've never entered any contest in my life," said Bevel-Downing.  "But a lot of my co-workers said, 'Oh you should enter, your baking is great.' So this is my very first contest, and I'm very happy to be here."

Bevel-Downing said she found the contest online and specifically altered an oatmeal cookie recipe in her repertoire to fit in with the contest's fall theme.  The result was a White Chocolate Cranberry Oatmeal Cookie studded with white chocolate chunks and cranberries.

Lucy McMurrer, a stay-at-home mom and voracious baker, initially got her recipe for Red Ginger Gingers from a friend.

"I played around with it and did different things," said McMurrer. "I kind of made it into something that I think is better.  She may disagree, I haven't tried these on her!"

McMurrer's Red Ginger Gingers were the color of fall leaves, and included the use of candied ginger, which gave her chewy cookie a zesty taste.  Like Bevel-Downing, she also used cranberry flavoring, and included craisins in her recipe.

McMurrer got the chutzpah to enter the bake-off after recalling her children's love of the cookies.

"These are ones my four-year-old and seven-year-old like too, even though they're not big ginger fans," she said.  "I thought 'Hey, if my seven-year-old, who is the pickiest eater in the world, likes these, then maybe they're pretty good.'"

Jacob Coon got his inspiration from a favorite family recipe.   He took his mom's Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie and added pumpkin for some seasonal flair.

Coon couldn't make it to the bake-off, but his stand-in for the day, Nicholas Michener, said there might be a second career in store for his friend.

"He's not much of a baker," said Michener.  "But if people like this, maybe he's got a future!"

The Bake-Off wasn't just a way for Capitol City Cheesecake to add another cookie to their roster, it was their way of giving back.

"We were hoping through the contest, we would inspire bakers to pursue their dreams, or people who weren't bakers to take a recipe and see how a simple recipe can go so far," said Meaghan. "And we wanted to be that vehicle that drives it."

Capitol City Cheesecake not only bakes and sells their own line of cheesecakes; it also provides workspace and acts as a retail outlet to local bakers and confectioners looking to get a start in the industry.  They sell a line of locally-made brownies and hand-made chocolates out of their shop, and are open to the idea of providing a place for more vendors to get their start.

"When we first started, we needed a facility that would help us launch our careers, because you can't financially afford to have a full bakery when you start off," said Meaghan. "We found a kitchen that lended their hand and their kitchen space to make our product and we always said that when we feel like we've made it, and we had our own location, we would reach out to other bakers and say, 'Hey, we could take your idea from a couch idea to a storefront.'"

After tallying up a healthy-sized vote, the contestants awaited anxiously as the sisters read aloud the winning cookie.

And the Capitol City Cheesecake's First Annual Bake-Off winner was Lucy McMurrer's Red Ginger Gingers.

"I'm very excited, I've never won a food contest before in my life," said McMurrer.

So does this stay-at-home mom of two foresee more contests or possibly a second career in her future?

 "I have to say, I don't need inspiration to keep baking," she said.  "I need more friends to hoist [the cookies] onto. But it would be fun to enter more contests."

Lucy McMurrer's Red Ginger Gingers will be available for sale at Capitol City Cheesecake for the entire month of November.  Be sure to try them before the month is out. And start getting your own recipe together for the second bake-off next year.