Indiana State Fair - Cakes and Clabber Girl

Today I went to the fairgrounds to compete in the Clabber Girl quick bread competition. This is a very broad category competition - basically anything goes as long as it is a quick bread that contains at least 1 teaspoon of Clabber Girl or Rumsford baking powder.

I personally find that quick breads are very difficult to compete. If you make a loaf, the judges don't want it to be too brown or have any ridges on the edges. If you make muffins, you can't make them too tall or, God forbid, have any kind of "muffin top" overhang on top like the huge bakery muffins.  A lot of times, it seems the winning entry is determined more by what the product looks like even before they taste it. As far as taste, they want it moist but not dry. Not too dense or heavy. All your ingredients need to be evenly mixed in; no fruit or add-ins sinking to the bottom, etc., etc...

Initially, I was going to compete a date walnut sour cream coffee cake. I wondered whether a coffee cake counted as a quick bread. In the regular State Fair categories, coffee cake is in the quick bread section and, I believe, last year's Clabber Girl winner made a coffee cake so I decided it was OK.

I had the vision. I had the recipe. I just didn't have the time to tweak it. I made it for the first time yesterday morning before going to work. The middle was underdone and it sunk. I didn't have time to try another one. Instead, I made cornbread muffins. I used a jalapeno cornbread recipe I had won with before and made them into muffins. I didn't think they were unique enough to stand out for a win but that was what I could get done before I had to go to work.

I got home from work at 3 am so I was dead tired this morning. Did not feel like going to the fair at all. I think the only reason I went was to find out how my cakes did.

Saturday, I dropped off two cakes...

Chocolate Espresso Stout Cake

 

Coconut Macaroon Cake

 

I had to drop the cakes off then go to work. As I was dropping them off, I found out that they were going to open judge two cake categories at 12:30 pm. There are 27 different cake categories. My Chocolate Espresso Stout was in the "Other multiple layer cake" category and my Coconut Macaroon was in the "Other single layer cake" category... and these were the two categories that were going to be open judged. Go figure! I spent the rest of the day dying to know what had been said about my cakes.

 

First thing I did today was go check on my cakes...

 



The cake that beat my Chocolate Espresso Stout cake ended up taking the Sweeps for cakes so I had some pretty stiff competition. Pretty happy with the results overall. I think though that after the Open House, pretty much everything else at this year's fair is going to be anti-climactic.

I was so tired by the time the Clabber Girl judging started at noon I almost felt sick. Then, I realized that one of the things you were suppose to write on your recipe was the source or inspiration of your recipe. Ooops. Totally forgot to do that. I printed out my recipe right before I left the house and forgot about that statement in the rules. I figured that pretty much eliminated me from the competition right away. Ugh. Needless to say, I didn't place.

So far, here's the aftermath in my kitchen...

 

My family might need some insulin...