By Valerie Milano
Pasadena, CA (The Hollywood Times) 1/29/20 – The beginning of a brand new year means resolutions are being set, fresh perspectives are being pondered upon, and Girl Scout Cookie season is just around the corner! Food Network teams up with Girl Scouts USA for the sweetest baking competition yet. In the 2 part series, bakers from around the country compete against each other with their baked masterpieces. The catch? Each creation must include America’s favorite: Girl Scout Cookies!
Award winning Actress Alyson Hannigan is the host of this sweet bake off, and while American Pie won’t be on the menu, viewers should be prepared to see incredible creations, and to fall in lust with these sweet treats as much as Hannigan herself has. She explains, “ I was so incredibly impressed with everything that these bakers made. It was so creative and so inspiring, and I also think that the Girl Scout Cookie is just the perfect cookie anyway. So, I’m like, how can you make it better? And then, I mean the things that they came up with. And then the decorator in me was just thrilled because they are so creative and just — my mouth was just open and drooling most of the time.”
The contestants will be judged based on creativity, taste, presentation, and usage of the actual cookie; this all seems a bit complicated, considering the complexities of texture and taste. Judge Nacho Aguirre enlightens, “Remember that now in baking it’s all about the experience that you get on your palate. So, you’re looking for that fluffiness of the cake, you’re looking for that texture of a crunchy item, and then something a little bit sour to give you a different level of flavor. So, those bakers were — I mean were amazing at incorporating the basic ones and also the ones that have more ingredients.”
More than America’s annual favorite dessert snack, the Girl Scouts are so much more than the cookies they sell at the top of each year. Hannigan discloses that, “The Girl Scouts that I talked to weren’t really –- like, they didn’t focus on the selling the cookies part. I would ask them about their badges and their pins, and they would tell me how they earned them, and it’s phenomenal. One Girl Scout had a pin that she — it’s how you can help your neighborhood, and she made kits for homeless women with toothbrushes, and soap, hand sanitizer, and things that she thought would benefit them. And she made them into purses, like she handmade purses, and then she handed them out to homeless women in her neighborhood and then went to homeless shelters. And so that’s how she earned the badge. And it was just like, “Can you stop talking, because I’m about to cry and I have to go on camera.” It was just so — and that’s a 14-year-old girl who decided, like, “I see these women that probably need a toothbrush,” and she went and did something. And so those were the stories I was talking to them about.”
Do-si-dos, Lemonades and more! Grab the family and tune in to the Food Network 8pm|7c, on February 3rd!