2010 Colorado State Fair

So, we're now up to my second time entering the cake decorating contest at the Colorado State Fair. This was last September. The theme of the fair was "Wild About Flowers" and the contest theme was "Earth Laughs in Flowers". I had a really hard time coming up with a design, in fact I even considered not entering at all. Finally, inspiration struck...why not a flower joke, where the cake is the punchline? I Googled "flower jokes". Who knew there were so many? Here's the joke I settled on...

"What do you call a country where everyone drives pink cars?"

Get it? A PINK CAR NATION!

My cake was a basket of gumpaste carnations. I think I made 50 of them!

In progress...pre-dusting

The basket was an inverted 1/2 ball and a 6" round covered in royal icing basketweave piping. If you look back at my first venture in this particular competition, I mentioned that the judges don't like fondant too much. That piped basket was for them!

My basket of carnations sat upon a 12" x 16" slab cake with the joke written on it. Around the sides of the cake were cars in varying shades of pink. Here's the finished product...

Not my best work, but I thought it was a pretty fun cake and a clever interpretation of the theme. Not to mention, pink and green are among my favorite color combinations.

Once again, the judges do their thing. Once again, the judges discuss their preference for buttercream. They announce the 3rd place cake. It's this one...


 They announce the 2nd place cake. It's this one...



And in first place...

Fabulous cake!

The winner was, hands down, the best cake there.

Lessons learned? PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU'VE ALREADY LEARNED!! I knew, from last year, that this contest doesn't favor creativity and thinking outside the box. Remember all those barns? No matter, I still liked my cake and my concept and I'll wow 'em next year!

As always, thanks for allowing me to share. Next up, another Wilton/Michael's Challenge in October, 2010.