My Favorite Recipes: Melt in Your Mouth Chocolate Contest, Palouse Empire Fair

Clockwise from upper left: Chocolate cookie dough cheesecake bars, mint chocolate brownies, celebrity fudge, chocolate marble cookies and chocolate cookies. Missing from the photo: black bowtie brownies.

After several years of treating judges to wonderful chocolate treats, the contest has no trouble finding judges. A former judge who now lives in Chicago called to bemoan her inability to judge this year.

This is an open class contest, meaning that anyone can enter, and there are youth and adult divisions. Entries were judged individually by a panel of judges, and scores were sorted out by the...