Indiana State Fair - Opening Day

I love opening day at the Fair. There is so much anticipation before setting foot inside the Home and Family Arts building where all the Open Class exhibits that I compete in are housed. I guess I really am an adrenaline junkie and I like that pounding clammy butterflies in your stomach feeling right before you find out whether or not you won something.

Opening Day is also High School Band Day. Typically, it is crazy and crowded because of this. Today I left the house as soon as kid #2 got on the bus. It took me about 40 minutes to get to within half a mile of the entrance, then another 40 minutes to get through the gates. Getting to the Fair and parking on competition days really stress me out. I always leave early but the wait outside the gates still stresses me out.

Anyways... I got in and all was calm inside.

I did not win the Cake Sweepstakes. The German Chocolate cake and the Aztec cake both placed - it was either third and fourth, respectively, or maybe the other way around, and the Honey Applesauce won it's category but no overall win this year. The cupcakes did not place.

But...

my Loaded Potato Rolls took the Sweepstakes in the Yeast Roll Class!

With that, I felt like the monkey was off my back this year and I didn't need to win another thing. Of course I'd be happy to win more, but it's also a relief to know I've got an overall award in the bag this year. Yes, this probably sounds petty but I'm just wired that way. Sometimes I can't stand to live with my competitive self either!

Which brings me to last night. The Buttered Popcorn and Malted Milk Ball Cookies were a huge success.

They came out looking beautiful and they tasted great. It was exactly what I was looking for for the Popcorn Contest. There are two categories in the Popcorn Contest - seasoned popcorn OR popcorn as a recipe ingredient. I entered the latter category.

Then, I tried making the original recipe cookie for Gold Medal Flour. I had a great "base" cookie recipe and I wanted to make Salted Caramel Cookies. My vision was a chewy oat-based cookie with chunks of caramel and a bit of sea salt on top. I stirred up the cookie base, chopped up a cup of caramel candies (that took me FOREVER to unwrap) and this is what ensued...

Ummm, OK then, I guess that's not going to work. Since my wonderful cookie based needed to be refrigerated for 2 hours before baking and it was, oh 10 pm, I had to pick out all the caramel chunks I had mixed in and try another plan. So, I baked the plain cookies for 8 minutes and put the caramel on top for 2 more minutes. That didn't work any better. I ran to CVS and got a bag of Rolos. I tried baking a cookie with a Rolo on top and then squishing it down. That didn't work either. Finally, I resorted to just drizzling the caramel on top of the cookies.

Not what I had envisioned, but it was now 1 am and I was done messing with this. Needless to say, I did not place in Gold Medal.

However...

I won !

I'd like to give a great shout out to Maria at www.siftandwhisk.com for creating this wonderful Buttered Popcorn and Malted Milk Ball Cookie recipe!

All in all, it was a good day. I had so much fun catching up with all my competitors that I hadn't seen in a year. Darl Collins won the Cake Sweepstakes this year. I peeked over his shoulder because he had pictures on his tablet of his kitchen table loaded with cakes to take to the fair (sound familiar?) He couldn't tell me exactly how many cakes he brought this year but it was over 20. Michael Weaver

told me he created his Gold Medal contest cookies at midnight last night (ahem...) Fancheon Resler, who is 76 years old and will tell you that in a heartbeat, showed me pictures of herself from last week when she won the title of "Senior Fair Queen" at the Elkhart County Fair. Fancheon's daughter Kenda Friend and her kids Klaine and Kaden entered the Popcorn Contest too. It was almost a Friend family sweep in the seasoned popcorn category as Kaden took third and Kenda took second. Like I said before, kindred spirits all!