{"id":11461,"date":"2026-07-21T20:10:23","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11461"},"modified":"2026-08-02T17:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T22:39:11","slug":"hitting-the-sweet-spot-karen-cookies-kindle-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/hitting-the-sweet-spot-karen-cookies-kindle-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Hitting the sweet spot: \u2018Karen cookies\u2019 kindle community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tessa Johnson of Columbia, Missouri, tried one of instructor Karen Springen\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis girl was giving me a really quick tour, and she decided that one of the things that we needed to see was Karen\u2019s cookies,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI don\u2019t even think she showed me the Knight Lab, but she showed me Karen\u2019s food.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ever since, Johnson said she has been hooked.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Springen\u2019s homemade cookies, affectionately known as \u201cKaren cookies,\u201d are not simply beloved treats. They bring together the cherub community, Johnson said.<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt Fourth of July, she had the big box of cookies out,\u201d Tobin said. \u201cI grabbed the cookie and it was just too good. I just could not not have a cookie every day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

After morning lectures end, Tobin hurries downstairs to get a daily treat. His advice to new cherubs is to do the same.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re a cherub, the first day you get here, go get a Karen cookie,\u201d Tobin said. \u201cGo get one every day. It is not okay to wait. Don\u2019t wait.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Springen\u2019s chocolate chip cookies are <\/span>Vlada Hordiichuk\u2019s personal favorites. She said they make her feel nostalgic about her childhood in Lutsk, Ukraine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt brings me back home, and I feel like I\u2019m sitting in a kitchen with my grandmother, and she\u2019s telling me a nice story of her childhood,\u201d Hordiichuk said. \u201cI\u2019m just eating them and coming back to my childhood.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Springen said she learned to bake through experimentation during childhood birthday parties with her sisters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI had a mom who was really nice about that kind of thing for our birthdays,\u201d Springen said. \u201cShe would let us do whatever we wanted with our birthday cakes, so we would add our different coloring, and we\u2019d make the cake part green or ice blue. She was very go with the flow.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Tobin was overjoyed with his first chocolate chip cookie.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just a chocolate chip cookie, dark chocolate chips, just perfect,\u201d Tobin said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the best cookies I\u2019ve ever had. I genuinely will never, never forget that.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Springen said she does not have a favorite cookie flavor. Instead, she appreciates baking whatever cookie people enjoy the most.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite to bake is what people like the most,\u201d Springen said. \u201cIt\u2019s the most rewarding.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She uses her cookies as a means to get students and colleagues into her office.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat student, really, is excited to go to office hours?\u201d Springen said. \u201cBut if it\u2019s homey in there, I have lights up, I have candy and cookies, that\u2019s sort of nice. You come in, and I like it to seem homey and not scary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Springen stressed that baking should be fun. Her advice is not to overbake.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a fun trial-and-error thing,\u201d Springen said. \u201cDon\u2019t overbake, most people overbake. The secret is take them out a minute before you think they should come out, \u2018cause they could keep cooking on the tray when you take them out.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond the cookies, Johnson said she loves Springen\u2019s positivity.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt really brings people together, and I think that it\u2019s just something that is a staple of Medill,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cBut also, it really shows her kind spirit.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cookie runs to Karen Springen\u2019s office brought cherubs closer together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":356,"featured_media":12676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[662],"class_list":["post-11461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":662,"user_id":356,"is_guest":0,"slug":"smith26","display_name":"Declan Smith","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/25e9b05da75404f9c8f2b81868ef276a070b1e311dbf5141f7ce7686c2bc2778?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Smith","first_name":"Declan","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/356"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11461"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12939,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11461\/revisions\/12939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11461"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}