Rosalia: A Recipe for Connection

September 26, 2026

Sometimes, a Girl Scout story starts in the most unexpected place: the kitchen.

When Rosalia entered the first-ever National Girl Scout Cookie Recipe Contest by Taste of Home, she wasn’t just trying to create a winning recipe. She had recently moved to Lincoln and closed the at-home baking business she had built in California. She was looking for a way to create something again.

She started with Thin Mints and a no-bake cheesecake. But then she thought of Lemonades and her mom’s lemon curd, made for lemon meringue pies. She began experimenting.

The result was a no-bake Lemonade Shortbread Cheesecake with lemon curd topping and pieces of Girl Scout Cookies throughout.

And it won the top prize in the cakes, pies, and cupcakes category.

For Rosalia, the recognition meant something far beyond winning a contest. The recipe was inspired in part by things she had learned from her mom and grandmother, both of whom had passed away. Every time she makes that cheesecake, she remembers them and remembers what she is capable of creating.

But the story didn’t end in the kitchen.

Girl Scouts became a community for Rosalia and her daughters in their new home of Lincoln. She became a troop leader, shared what she knew with girls, traveled with her daughter’s troop to QuestFest in Savannah, visited Juliette Gordon Low’s birthplace and Girl Scout headquarters, and watched her daughters serve in the Girl Scout Honor Guard.

Her family found friendships, leadership opportunities, and experiences they never imagined when they first moved to Nebraska.

Eventually, her daughters’ Girl Scout journey came to an end after her eldest earned her Gold Award. But Rosalia looks back and sees how much grew from that first year in Lincoln.

A recipe. A memory. A family. A community.

And one very delicious reminder that sometimes, creating something new can reconnect us with where we came from—and show us where we can go next.

100 years. Countless stories. One lasting legacy.