Last year, after many years of talking about entering baking contests of various types, I finally jumped into the high-risk-high-reward (er...not really, though) world of competition baking. I entered two things in the 2015 Minnesota State Fair Creative Activities-Baking contests: an angel food cake using Grandma's recipe and a snickerdoodle for the State Fair competition where everyone uses the same recipe. Neither won a ribbon, but both were scored, so I was pretty happy (the rules state that in large lots all entries will be evaluated but only the top 25 will get a score). Also, the snickerdoodles were amazingly delicious and mine were truly beautiful to behold. I'll have to blog that recipe at some point.
For this year's State Fair, I submitted 3 things to the Creative Activities-Baking:
- Grandma's angel food (in the angel food category)
- Peanut butter quickbread (in the non-traditional quickbread category)
- Dundee cake (in Ethnic Baking-cakes)
After a co-worker mentioned that the competition for baking with honey--for the Honey and Bees Horticulture/Agriculture categories--was not as intense, I also submitted a honey chiffon cake.
I was very happy to have all my entries on display at the fair and to win two--two!--ribbons for my efforts. My angel food won 5th place and my honey chiffon won 1st place (YAY! BLUE RIBBON!!)
For anyone who is interested in trying something new, submitting to the MN State Fair is remarkably easy. No need to enter at the county level, just follow directions, register online on time, and drop off your entry on the correct day.
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| Here's me, really late on Friday night, with my 3 entries (peanut butter in the foreground, Dundee cake in the middle, and angel food cake cooling in the pan). |
This year, the Saturday morning drop off for Creative Activities was complicated by rain. Everything was covered in plastic, though, so it stayed dry. I borrowed a friend's wagon for transport and made my way to the Education Building, where the drop-off entrance was located.
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| Seats in the wagon made it easier to keep my items separated. |
OK. I'll be honest: I actually made my way to the Creative Activities Building, which is connected to the Education Building and where the instructions said to go. With the rain, though, they moved the entrance so the line would be mostly inside.. It was nice of them to do that, but their signage was a little lacking. I walked right by the door and its tiny sign:
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| Here's the close-up of the sign. Umm....that's really small. |
When I was almost to the door, other competitors in front of me were turning around and we all went back to the correct entrance. The sign from this direction was much more evident:
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| Much harder to miss the sign that was in this direction. |
Inside, the line wound around. Hilariously, there were stanchion posts but no ropes between them, and PEOPLE STILL LINED UP AND WOUND AROUND THEM PROPERLY. It was one of the most midwestern things that I've seen in a really, really long time.
After winding around for a while, we ended up in the Creative Activities annex, where nice people officially took in our baked goods. Everyone was very professional and super-efficient, and I even had to sign for what I was dropping off. (I also had a whole conversation about how to blanch almonds with the ladies who helped me. I encouraged them to do it themselves because it is so easy!)
After waiting in line for about 40 minutes and then dropping everything off, I got a packet of yeast and the world's tiniest bag of Gold Medal flour for participating. Honestly, why do they even make a 2 lbs. bag of flour? It looked so cute and fit in my not-empty-at-all purse (a good thing, with the rain outside). But it was sort of silly, too.
On the subject of cute-but-silly, I was carrying a giant Mickey Mouse umbrella with ears on it. It used to be my Mom's but she recently gave it to me. It is spectacularly cute. And, apparently, when I carry it I bring a smile to everyone's face. Everyone that passed me--as I carried that umbrella and pulled that wagon--started smiling or smirking when they saw me. Every. Single. Person. One woman even stopped her car in the middle of the road, rolled down her window, and yelled out at me "Your umbrella has ears!" Needless to say, I felt pretty good about bringing some joy to an otherwise gloomy day.
After the 3 regular baking items were dropped off the Saturday before the start of the Fair, the cake for the honey category needed to be dropped off on Tuesday morning at the Agriculture-Horticulture building. I was working the late shift at work, so this was just fine. Even better, there was no line. OK, there was one guy in front of me, but when I walked up another Fair person came up to help me. It was awesome. Plus, the lady was very complimentary about my cake, which made me beam like a proud mama whose kid just won a race or got all As on a report card.
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| Here's the line. The entire line. |
All in all, the Fair entering and competing experience was a good experience, and one that I will likely repeat. And the ribbons make it all the more worth while!
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| Look at that shiny, yellow ribbon! |
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| WE'RE #1 !!!!! |
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| My Dundee cake wasn't a winner, but it was winner-adjacent. |
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| Peanut Butter Quickbread. That pink 4th place ribbon wasn't mine...but maybe some day! |
Fun fact: I ran spell-check on this blog entry. Words that Blogger apparently doesn't know: "wagon" and "snickerdoodle." Blogger's childhood must've been so sad!
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