Tessa Johnson of Columbia, Missouri, tried one of instructor Karen Springen’s cookies six months before she arrived at the Medill cherub program. She was at Northwestern for a tour in December, and another student insisted they stop for cookies.
“This girl was giving me a really quick tour, and she decided that one of the things that we needed to see was Karen’s cookies,” Johnson said. “I don’t even think she showed me the Knight Lab, but she showed me Karen’s food.”
Ever since, Johnson said she has been hooked.
Springen’s homemade cookies, affectionately known as “Karen cookies,” are not simply beloved treats. They bring together the cherub community, Johnson said.
Charlie Tobin of Menlo Park, California, tried his first Karen cookie after the Fourth of July parade. After that, he said they were too much for him to resist.
“At Fourth of July, she had the big box of cookies out,” Tobin said. “I grabbed the cookie and it was just too good. I just could not not have a cookie every day.”
After morning lectures end, Tobin hurries downstairs to get a daily treat. His advice to new cherubs is to do the same.
“If you’re a cherub, the first day you get here, go get a Karen cookie,” Tobin said. “Go get one every day. It is not okay to wait. Don’t wait.”
Springen’s chocolate chip cookies are Vlada Hordiichuk’s personal favorites. She said they make her feel nostalgic about her childhood in Lutsk, Ukraine.
“It brings me back home, and I feel like I’m sitting in a kitchen with my grandmother, and she’s telling me a nice story of her childhood,” Hordiichuk said. “I’m just eating them and coming back to my childhood.”
Springen has to bake large batches of various cookies and muffins, yet she said she finds the process easy. She makes and chills the dough in advance in Ziploc bags and uses her two ovens to bake her daily batch.
Springen said she learned to bake through experimentation during childhood birthday parties with her sisters.
“I had a mom who was really nice about that kind of thing for our birthdays,” Springen said. “She would let us do whatever we wanted with our birthday cakes, so we would add our different coloring, and we’d make the cake part green or ice blue. She was very go with the flow.”
Springen said she cannot remember when she started baking for classes, however, she thinks she started bringing desserts her family could not finish at home.
Tobin was overjoyed with his first chocolate chip cookie.
“It was just a chocolate chip cookie, dark chocolate chips, just perfect,” Tobin said. “It’s one of the best cookies I’ve ever had. I genuinely will never, never forget that.”
Springen said she does not have a favorite cookie flavor. Instead, she appreciates baking whatever cookie people enjoy the most.
“My favorite to bake is what people like the most,” Springen said. “It’s the most rewarding.”
She uses her cookies as a means to get students and colleagues into her office.
“What student, really, is excited to go to office hours?” Springen said. “But if it’s homey in there, I have lights up, I have candy and cookies, that’s sort of nice. You come in, and I like it to seem homey and not scary.”
Springen stressed that baking should be fun. Her advice is not to overbake.
“It’s a fun trial-and-error thing,” Springen said. “Don’t overbake, most people overbake. The secret is take them out a minute before you think they should come out, ‘cause they could keep cooking on the tray when you take them out.”
Beyond the cookies, Johnson said she loves Springen’s positivity.
“It really brings people together, and I think that it’s just something that is a staple of Medill,” Johnson said. “But also, it really shows her kind spirit.”
