A look back at my first competition

The 2009 Colorado State Fair, the theme is "Birds, Bugs and Barnyard Friends". I immediately have visions of an homage to Charlotte's Web...turns out so did a good half of the entrants...so much for originality! But I'm getting ahead of myself.



Bumblebee



Bluebird


                                                  

Butterfly, worm, ants

The cake is comprised of 2 14" round layers, 3 8" square layers, 1 8 " round and a 1/2 ball. That's a lot of cake. I made it all out of pound cake. Pound cake is heavy cake (at least my pound cake is, apparently pound cake is not my forte). It's all covered in fondant.

Here's the finished product on display in the fairgrounds' creative arts kitchen:



All done!

I start looking around at the other cakes. Hmmm...lots of barns, lots of critters, lots of spiders. There are a few interesting cakes mixed in though. A stunning 3 tiered blue cake covered in butterflies; a carousel. I'm starting to wish I had thought a little outside the box on this. Creativity matters, right? Unique is good.

The judges are introduced and do their thing. Once they're done and before they announce the winners, the head judge makes a little speech which basically says, in a nice way, "Fondant? That don't impress me much." Okay...I haven't got a prayer here...my cake is all decked out in fondant, and it's design is the same as half the others there. Oh, well, it was fun making it and going to the fair.

But wait...they start to announce the winners...in 3rd place...is...me! Yay!

3rd place-mine!

 Second place is another barn cake...

2nd place

and so is first...

1st place-cute, huh?

I'm still sad that the beautiful butterfly cake didn't place. It was easily the best cake there...

Robbed!

Lesson learned? Give the judges what they want!

Now, to get this behemoth home! My husband, who's the best cake husband ever, carried what must have been at least 50 pounds of cake, fondant, and plywood base through the fairgrounds, across the street and to the opposite end of the parking lot, all the while being stopped by people asking "Ooh, is that a cake? Did it win?" etc. I bought him lunch.

Next up...Sweet Times in the Rockies, 2010!