For the roughly 250 attendees at this year’s Girl Scout Cookie Crunch, which took place on National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend March 6, there were trays of mouth-watering desserts and appetizers waiting to be sampled.

The event, at the ArtsQuest Center SteelStacks, originated in 2015 when Mark Demko, senior director of Communications for ArtsQuest, conceived the idea of pairing a Girl Scout troop with a restaurant to produce a taste treat that incorporated one of the nine kinds of Girl Scout cookies.

The purpose was to provide the Scouts with vocational training experience in the culinary arts.

This year, 14 restaurants from across the Lehigh Valley each partnered with a Scout troop.

Attendees, many of whom were Scouts and their family members, sampled the products of this collaboration and voted for the ones they liked best among the eighteen entries.

There were two categories of winners: Savory and Sweet.

The Savory category winner was 29 Cooks Catering and Culinary Center, Emmaus, for its Sweet and Sassy Pulled Pork Sliders using Girl Scout Cranberry Citrus Crisps.

Runner-up in the Savory category was last year’s winner, Iron Lakes Country Club, North Whitehall, for its Thai Coconut Lemon Chicken incorporating Girl Scout Lemonades cookies.

The Sweet category winner was 29 Cooks Catering and Culinary Center for Key Lime Crunch Parfait using Girl Scout Lemonades and Shortbreads cookies.

Runners-up were the Bethlehem Dairy Store for its Mint Madness Ice Cream, which paired mint ice cream with fudge and crushed Girl Scout Thin Mints cookies, and Sagra Bistro for its Twisted Trios “Cookies and Milk.”

The event benefits the ArtsQuest Education Fund and Girl Scouts of Eastern Pennsylvania.