Kendall College and the Chicago Tribune present the best holiday cookies

12/01/2014

This year's contest, in its 28th year, came with a first: Readers helped pick the finalists, casting some 4,200 votes online and sending the top 25 vote-getters into the finals. Those cookies were then baked by culinary students at Kendall College before the winners were chosen by a panel of Tribune food writers and other staff members, along with guest judges, James P. DeWan, a culinary instructor at Kendall and writer of the monthly Prep School column for Good Eating, and confectioner Ginna Haravon, owner of Chicago-based Salted Caramel (saltedcaramel.net). Here are the winners' recipes and their stories.