2023 Indiana State Fair: Turn In, Round Three

 

Today was Pie Day. All pie entries were due in by 7pm.

I made one pie - French Silk. This is my favorite pie. I can make it with my eyes closed.

Anyone that has competed in subjective competitions for any length of time will tell you, most of the time it will come down to one judge's opinion on a given day. That is what it will come down to on this pie.

Technically, the pie came out perfect. It has an Oreo cookie crust made of crushed Java Chip Oreos. The crust is smooth and even. There's no chance it is soggy or uncooked. It held together just like it's supposed to. The filling is smooth and creamy with no graininess. I know, because when I make cream pies I always set aside a little bit in a small container to sample and make sure it sets up as expected. This one set up perfectly. The whipped cream is stabilized with a whiff of gelatin so it holds up for more than a couple hours. It has just enough sugar to make it sweet, but not too sweet. Now it will all be up to whether a judge likes it or not.

Our family had a lot of things going on this weekend so I have not been able to go to the fairgrounds since the Fair opened on Friday. One of my fellow competitors was gracious enough to take my entry to the Fair for me. I'm hoping to get to the fairgrounds this week and will give a full update on all my entries at that time.

2023 Johnson County Fair: Cherry Contest and Summary

First, let's talk about the Cherry Contest.

Every year at the Johnson County Fair there is a baking contest on Tuesday and every year there is a different theme. This year's theme was Cherry. There are four categories: Cookies, Breads, Pies and Miscellaneous. You can enter one item in each category.

Most years when I enter this contest I enter an item in each category. This year I just wasn't feeling it. I really couldn't find a cookie recipe that thrilled me. I felt like a cherry thumbprint cookie was too cliche. There were TONS of recipes using maraschino cherries. My opinion is that a maraschino cherry is an artificial rendition of a cherry and I couldn't bring myself to use one of those recipes. I just plain didn't feel like entering a pie.

What I was most interested in was a Bakewell tart. This is a traditional British recipe named after the town of Bakewell. It usually has a short pastry crust, followed by a layer of raspberry jam, then a layer of almond frangipane - which is ground almonds with sugar and eggs. All of this sounds delicious and the tart can also be made with cherries instead of raspberries. My concern though was that there wouldn't be enough cherry flavor to shine through as the bulk of the tart was almond frangipane. Plus, I wasn't sure which category it would go in. Pies? The scant amount of cherry jam was no comparison to a pie. Probably Miscellaneous...  however I wanted to compete a cake in this category.

I decided though that I could make the tart and cut it into bars and compete it as a bar cookie. I made a practice tart. It came out fine but tasted way too sweet and not enough cherry. I then decided I could add drained frozen tart cherries to the jam layer, thus cutting the sweetness and increasing the cherry flavor.

For the cake, I settled on a strawberry cake recipe I had made in the past - it actually won the Strawberry Contest in 2015 - but used frozen sweet cherries and cherry gelatin instead of strawberry. This was the only recipe that went according to plan.

For Breads, I became fixated on making focaccia after I came across a Cherry Prosciutto Focaccia recipe. It sounded wonderful and it would be unique because it would be savory instead of sweet. I made it with a sprinkle of goat cheese and also made a Cherry Balsamic Reduction to drizzle over the top after baking. It was freaking awesome! The only problem was... you couldn't taste the cherry. It tasted like prosciutto. I then found a Cherry Almond Focaccia recipe and decided to go with that.

I baked everything on the Monday before the contest. I made the Cherry Bakewell Bars first. When I took it out of the oven I could see that the top was jiggling all over the place on the cherry layer on the bottom. I figured things would firm up as it cooled so I set it aside and made the cake.

Cake baked without a problem.

I made the yeast dough for the focaccia. It felt super wet. The focaccia though is a high hydration no knead dough anyway so I tried not to worry about it.

I then made the whipped buttercream for the cake and started decorating the cake. It was so hot in my kitchen by now that I kept having to put everything back in the fridge every time I had to refill the icing bag because the buttercream was melting to the point where it wouldn't hold any detail. I think I fought with the buttercream for about 2 hours, then figured out I didn't have enough to finish the top. My husband was out running errands so I texted him to pick up some fresh cherries and I finished the cake with fresh cherries.

Back to the Bakewell Bars. They had cooled so I put a thin layer of icing on top and then put them in the refrigerator to set up. 

The focaccia dough had risen beautifully but was still super wet. I poured it out on a baking sheet and made a series of folds for structure and set it out to rise again. I actually then repeated this whole process two more times before putting the toppings on and baking it. It baked in a 13" x 9" pan. I kept checking it and the bread part just didn't look done. I finally pulled it out after 45 minutes though because the cherries and almonds on top looked practically burnt. I thought the whole thing looked like hell. 

I then pulled the Bakewell Bars out of the refrigerator and cut them. The layer of cherry filling oozed out. There was no way you could pick this bar up and eat it like a cookie. You needed a spoon. I chucked the whole tray on the baking rack to deal with later. I decided cookies weren't happening. I'm not bringing this disaster to a competition.

Tuesday morning I got up and looked at the focaccia again. I didn't want to bring a subpar product because I wasn't competing for a ribbon; I was competing to win. I usually show the entire product in competition but there is an option to show a quarter of your product. I decided to cut the focaccia and brought the most presentable part. This is part of what I left at home...

The way the Cherry Contest is judged, there are three judges. They start by having each judge sample different entries in a category. It is open judging and each judge will comment on the item they are judging, then give it either a blue, red or white ribbon - meaning everyone will get a placement of some sort. After the category is finished, all three judges will then go over all the blue ribbon placings and decide on six Honorable Mentions, a Reserve Champion and a Champion for the category. After all the categories are judged, they will then pick a Grand Champion from the four category Champions.

Tuesday I met my friend Jennifer at the fairgrounds. Jennifer is a phenomenal baker and had an entry in each category... and she had made a Cherry Bakewell Tart exactly like you were supposed to make a Bakewell tart. She had it entered in the Miscellaneous category. And let me tell you, the minute I saw her tart, I knew she was going to win it all.

The Miscellaneous category was judged first. The judge that got my cake commented that the cake was basically perfect. She couldn't find a single thing wrong with it, but she also didn't rave about it either. She gave it a blue. Then it was time to announce the category winners. I suddenly got that pounding feeling in my chest - that feeling that had been missing for the last several years - and that was when I knew, competing, I wanted to do this again. I held my breath as they announced each honorable mention winner. I knew I would get an award; question was how high. If I didn't get an honorable mention, it would be reserve champion or champion. My name was announced as the last honorable mention. Jennifer won the category.

Breads were judged last. Quite honestly I think breads are the most difficult category and I could tell right away that many of the entries were not technically good. Mine at least was technically good... and my judge actually liked it. I ended up with a blue and another Honorable Mention.

Jennifer ended up winning it all with her Bakewell Tart. I guess the lesson here is not to over think things.

As for the rest of my items, this is how they fared...

Chocolate Espresso Stout Cake
First, Other Cakes
Class Champion Cakes
Reserve Grand Champion Baked Goods

Loaded Potato Rolls

First, Fancy Dinner Rolls

Class Champion Yeast Breads

Flower Cupcakes
First, Decorated Cupcakes
Class Champion Decorated Cakes

Brown Sugar Sweet Potato Cornbread
First, Other Quick Bread

Coconut Stuffed Fudge Brownies
First, Brownies

Sweet Potato Spice Cake
First, 2-Layer Spice Cake

Caramelized Onion and Parmesan Biscuits
Second, Baking Powder Biscuits

Coffee Toffee Cookies
Second, Cutout Cookies

Molasses Cookies
No Placing

Mandalove Shawl
First, Crochet Shawl
Reserve Champion Crochet

Cherry Pie Beret
First, Crochet Hat

Purple Jellyfish
Second, Amateur Color Animal Photo

I took a final photo of my ribbons and read every judging sheet.

Every judging sheet showed that all my items were technically "excellent" (choices are "excellent", "good" and "needs to improve") and all the comments were positive. Even those molasses cookies that didn't place were rated "excellent." This means that, at the end of the day, my overall placing depended on one judge's opinion on one day. There was nothing "wrong" with the item; it's just what the judge liked best that day.

I stopped competing years ago when I realized I was picking up my fair ribbons and chucking them in an envelope. I found several large envelopes full of ribbons with just the years written on them and realized I didn't care - because when I first started competing, I wrote down all the details - dates, item, category, etc. - on those ribbons and carefully read every judging sheet. I stopped competing when I no longer felt butterflies entering the building to see how I did or feel my heart pound during an open judging event.

I had butterflies and a pounding heart this year. 

2023 Indiana State Fair: Turn-In, Round Two

 

Cake entries for this year's State Fair were due in by 7pm tonight, Tuesday July 25th.

I spent Sunday and Monday literally swimming in butter, eggs and chocolate... but everything was done by late Monday afternoon. Couple realizations...

- I don't have enough refrigerator space to make more than three cakes, or at least three cakes that require refrigeration.

- It's getting more and more expensive to compete at the fair.

- Things go MUCH smoother if I do all the baking on one day and all the frosting the next day, mostly because I'm not trying to use buttercream in a hot kitchen.

- I should look into getting a stand mixer again.

- I should practice recipes more.

So let's start with that last point.

I have been wanting to make this cake since 2016...

Photo from The Brick Kitchen

It's the Momofuko German Chocolate cake. Back in 2016 I found the recipe 3 days before cake turn in and discovered there was no way I could get the requisite ingredients and supplies to make it in time.

I now own the 6-inch cake ring and acetate sheets and I have corn powder in my pantry. The feuilletine I never ordered because it's outrageously expensive - we're talking $28 for an 11 oz bag on Amazon - and I decided I could use vanilla wafers instead. There are a few other problems with the recipe not being Fair legal but I figured out some substitutions for them too.

The other competition concern with this cake is that it's baked on a quarter sheet pan and then the three layers are cut out of it with the cake ring. The geometry of the pan makes it so you can stamp out two complete circles, but then the third circle/layer is made up of some of the scraps that are left over and I didn't think that would compete well.

So... Saturday I went looking for another chocolate cake recipe that I could bake in three 6" pans. I found something that I thought would work and tried it out. It was awful. That was all I had time for on Saturday.

Sunday July 23, 2023

I started the day grocery shopping for all the ingredients I thought I might possibly need in in next 48 hours. I then waited on G to come by so we could go to the Johnson County fairgrounds to pick up our County Fair exhibits. She ended up running late so by the time we got back from the fairgrounds and had dinner it was almost 5pm.

I started baking after dinner. First up was the Chocolate Espresso Stout cake. Everything went smoothly. I cooled and wrapped the layers and moved on.

Next up was a Lemon Poppyseed Cake. This was a new recipe. I had planned on competing the same cherry cake that I had competed in the Cherry Contest at the Johnson County Fair except that the cherry cake recipe I used for the competition included a box cake mix as part of the ingredients and I needed a totally scratch cake for the state fair. The category is Cherry or Other Fruit Cake so the possibilities were endless. Almost everything I found that sounded interesting though had fillings that were not completely Fair legal and I would have to alter them. I felt like I was succumbing to decision fatigue so I finally decided to keep it simple. Lemon Poppyseed with a Lemon Buttercream. No fancy fillings. No fancy or multiple flavors. Don't overthink it. Keep it simple.

The cake baked up beautifully. I had a little bit of left over batter so I made two cupcakes to taste. The texture was great. The flavor was a bit mild but the completed cake would be brushed with lemon syrup so hopefully that will amp up the flavor. I got those layers cooled and wrapped.

Back to the German Chocolate Cake. I looked around for more recipes...

Another cake that I've been wanting to make for quite some time is a French Opera Cake. This cake is usually a rectangular cake with multiple layers including a chocolate ganache layer. 

Opera Cake
Photo from Evil Twin Kitchen

I had not considered this as a Fair cake in the past because ganache is traditionally made with heavy cream, thus not allowed in a Fair cake. I was looking at the Opera Cake recipe because I was thinking about using the Opera Cake sponge as my cake, then adding the German Chocolate Cake fillings as a sort of a fusion cake recipe. However, it then occurred to me that I could make the ganache with coconut cream instead of heavy cream. Opera Cake it is.

I had the Lemon Poppyseed Cake all done and wrapped up shortly before midnight. I considered going to bed but all the eggs I needed for the Opera Cake were already out on the counter and at room temperature. How long could another cake take?

The sponge for the Opera Cake took 8 eggs - 4 whole and 4 whites. It took me almost 20 minutes to beat the whole eggs into pale thick ribbons with a hand mixer. It took me another 10 minutes to beat the egg whites into stiff peaks. My hand mixer has been doing triple duty this week. Hopefully I don't burn the motor up! 

The recipe for the sponge cake was for a 10" x 15" sheet pan so the bake time was 5-10 minutes. Since I had it in 6"pans I parked myself in front of the oven and watched it like a hawk. My bake time ended up being 12 minutes. Then I had to cool the cakes and wrap them. And clean the kitchen.

I went to bed at 2:30 am.

Monday July 24, 2023

I started the day on Monday by making the chocolate ganache as it would need to sit for a while to cool down and thicken. This was the theme of the day. All my cake components needed to be the same temperature for them to play well together so I was either waiting for things to cool down or waiting for things to warm up to room temperature.

Next was coffee buttercream. I needed room temperature butter and eggs. I had 240 degree syrup going into eggs and then whipping them until everything cooled back down to room temperature to add the butter...

Coffee syrup was next. Simmer then wait for it to get to room temperature.

I finally got out the cake ring, then had to rip my kitchen apart looking for my acetate film. Finally found everything and put the Opera Cake together and put it in the fridge to set up.

Next up was chocolate buttercream.

Melt chocolate and set it aside to get to room temperature but still stay liquid.

Same drill with the butter, eggs and boiling sugar syrup.

Got the cake frosted and decorated.

Next was whipped lemon buttercream.

This time I remembered to make the milk flour paste completely smooth before heating it up so I didn't end up with little balls of cooked flour.

Made the lemon syrup.

Got the lemon poppyseed cake frosted.

Finally, I made the chocolate glaze for the Opera Cake. The glaze has to cool to 88-90 degrees before pouring to get that nice smooth finish. Done!

It was 5pm. I was immensely pleased with myself for finishing everything at a reasonable hour and almost didn't know what to do with myself.

Tuesday July 25, 2023

I got all my recipes typed up and cleaned out coolers to transport the cakes.

The last decision was whether to take the acetate film off the Opera Cake before entry or to leave it in place to be removed at judging. What sealed the deal was the fact that I only had two disposable cake boxes and I had three cakes. I decided to put the chocolate cake and the lemon cake in cake boxes and leave the acetate film on the Opera Cake as it's "container". I did go ahead and remove the original film to make sure it came off easily, then replaced it with a clean film.

Opera cake without the film

My friend Jennifer was also bringing cakes for entry so I drove over to her house and we rode up to the fairgrounds together. We had everything dropped off before 2pm.

Wish us luck!

2023 Indiana State Fair: Turn-in, Round One

This weekend was Round One of turn-ins for the Indiana State Fair and it was definitely a much less hectic affair than county fair turn-in!

My items due in by Saturday July 22, 2023 at 7pm were Brownies, Dietary Restrictions, Breads, American Dairy and my crochet items. The Dietary Restriction category is food for people with dietary restrictions such as gluten free, vegan, etc. The American Dairy category requires that you use at least two dairy products in your item. I had a total of six food items and two crochet items due in. 

I worked on finishing my crochet items as soon as I was done with Johnson County Fair baking so they were done by Thursday. I'm entering my Lost in Time shawl in the Adult Crochet Accessories category and my Advent Wreath in the Crochet Household Items category. I love how the shawl turned out. I really like my wreath too but I'm worried it might be too busy. All the stuff is what attracted me to the wreath pattern in the first place but now that it's done, well wow, it's a lot...

I entered two Classes in the Dietary Restrictions Category - "Cookies" and "Other than Above", meaning something other than cookies or cakes. I actually didn't have any recipes until Thursday night. I finished my crochet wreath on Thursday then went scrolling around the internet for ideas.

Friday July 21, 2023

For the "Other than Above" Class I settled on No Bake Coconut Lime Balls.

These were the first things I made on Friday. The balls hardened in the freezer while I melted the chocolate coating. I then dipped the balls and put them in the fridge to set up. I am really happy with how they look. My biggest concern is that they get super soft at room temperature, and they will be judged at room temperature.

Next I made Oatmeal Date Sandwich Cookies for the Dietary Restrictions Cookie Class. These are gluten free, vegan, diabetic friendly and heart healthy. The recipe made exactly nine sandwich cookies. My experience is that gluten free cookies tend to be very dry - like sawdust dry - and these looked dry to me. The date filling though is suppose to offset the dryness. Once you make the sandwich cookie they are suppose to sit for a day so the flavors can meld and the filling is suppose to soften the cookie. Since I only had 9 cookies and I have to show 6, I decided to wait until Saturday to actually taste the cookie so there will be no second chances with this one!

The final item I made on Friday was the Coconut Stuffed Fudge Brownies; the same brownies I had made for the County Fair. Once these were cooled I took the whole thing out of the pan in one piece and wrapped it in wax paper, then put it in the refrigerator to cut on Saturday just prior to bringing them to the fair. The food won't be judged until Sunday and I want it to taste as fresh as possible.

I decided not to make my Loaded Potato Rolls, Caramelized Onion and Parmesan Biscuits, and Brown Sugar Sweet Potato Cornbread until Saturday. Again, I wanted them to be as fresh as possible for judging. I felt pretty confident I could bake all three items and get them turned in on time on Saturday.

I did go ahead and bake and puree the sweet potatoes on Friday and slice all the onions for the biscuits on Friday. I also typed and printed all the required recipes and tagged my crochet items on Friday night. I even had time Friday evening to grill burgers and hang out with my older daughter and her boyfriend. Definitely a different Friday night compared to a week ago!

Saturday July 22, 2023

Up at 7am. Made coffee and fried bacon.

I need two tablespoons of bacon grease and a cup of chopped bacon for my rolls. For some reason I was barely getting any grease to drain off the bacon. In retrospect I think I didn't cook my bacon long enough to render enough fat off of it. Usually I cook the bacon very crisp. Once things cooled down I could see that my bacon was not as crispy as usual. I actually got out my backup bag of frozen bacon grease but ended up having exactly two tablespoons of fresh bacon grease.

Made my yeast roll dough. This is my go to recipe and I know EXACTLY how it should feel as I knead it. Today the dough was unusually sticky. Humidity has a lot to do with how moist the dough but this dough also has a lot of stuff in it, including bacon and mashed potatoes that could be affecting the moistness. Maybe my bacon wasn't crisp enough? Maybe my mashed potatoes weren't dry enough? All these thoughts crossed my mind as I continued to knead the dough. I added a couple handfuls of flour but didn't dare add too much more because too much flour will make it tough... so I kept kneading, and kneading, and kneading. I think I kneaded for over 10 minutes. The dough was springy and I could stretch it window-pane thin, but it still felt sticky. Nothing to do now though but put it in the proofing box and see how it rises. In the back of my head though, I was calculating whether I had enough time and ingredients to make this again...

Next I started caramelizing all the onions I had sliced the night before. I need room temperature caramelized onions for my biscuits. I tried making them ahead of time in the past and storing them in the refrigerator but the butter hardens up and it changes the consistency of how I want my onions when I put them in my dough so now I make them the day I need them and plan enough time to let them cool down to room temperature.

While the onions were cooking I started making the cornbread. I got to whisking the dry ingredients together when I suddenly realized I didn't have enough cornmeal. UGH!!! How could I have overlooked that? I looked at the clock... 9:15am. I needed to shape my rolls at 9:30 am, then let them rise for another hour. Ok, I'd run to the store while my rolls were rising.

9:30 am. The yeast dough had risen beautifully. Phew!. I turned it out on my mat to shape and noticed the edges had stuck to the bowl. I made the first cut with my dough scraper and the dough stuck. I had a slight moment of panic and grabbed the flour to dust, then remembered it was better to dust with rice flour at this point and grabbed it instead. I sprinkled a little teeny weeny dusting on the dough and the mat and everything was fine again. Big sigh of relief. I put the trays in the back of my SUV to rise, then drove it to the grocery store to get more cornmeal.

Home by 10am. I finished making the cornbread by 10:15 am and put it in the oven to bake for 30 minutes. The rolls were suppose to be finished rising at 10:45 am.

Cornbread out. First tray of rolls in.

First tray of rolls out. They looked good. I anxiously bit into one. 

Perfect!

Got all the rolls baked and then picked my six best.

By now it was noon. One bake to go.

I started grating frozen butter for my biscuits but by the time I got done it was so hot in my kitchen that I noticed all the butter was starting to stick all back together so back into the freezer it all went.

Fifteen minutes later I got everything back out and finished making the biscuits.

As soon as the biscuits cooled I loaded up the car and was on my way.

I left the house at 1:45pm. Pulled into the state fairgrounds at 2:35pm.

Got everything turned in and was back on the road at 2:50pm.

I got back home and realized I was STARVING! Had leftovers from dinner, then sampled the oatmeal date sandwich cookies - pretty good. Cookies are crumbly and dry but the date filling makes up for it. I'm happy with it. Had another loaded potato roll. Ate some brownie scraps. Had a coconut lime ball...

So happy everything went relatively smoothly today!

2023 Johnson County Fair

Seven years. 

It's hard to believe that it's been seven years since I last competed multiple baked goods entries in the Johnson County Fair. Where did the time go?

I started competing in county fairs in 1990. It took me 17 years to win my first Grand Champion ribbon. I won that in 2007 with a decorated cake. That was also the first year I entered the Indiana State Fair and that same decorated cake won the Sweepstakes (now called Best of Show) for non-professional decorated cakes. After that, it was like I had broke the dam, figured out the game, and I started winning... alot. But with that winning also came alot of pressure to do it again, and again, and again... until it wasn't fun any more... because once you win it all there's no where to go but down.

I won both the Grand Champion and Reserve Grand Champion placings in Baked Goods in both 2015 and 2016 at the Johnson County Fair. In 2017 I decided I didn't want to do it anymore. I had swept the placings for two years in a row and it seemed a good time as any to stop. So, for the first time in 27 summers I did not enter the county fair. I didn't miss it so I didn't participate in 2018 either. In 2019 I had a beautiful crochet afghan I wanted to enter but I would be in Europe during the duration of the fair. Since items have to be entered within a year of completion I went ahead and dropped it off for entry and then had a friend pick it up and drop it off at the state fair. That afghan won Class Champion in Crochet at the Johnson County Fair and Best of Show at the Indiana State Fair. There was no fair in 2020. In 2021 I spent the summer revenge traveling like everyone else. In 2022 I entered one Baked Goods item. It was supposed to be peanut butter fudge but something went wrong with the consistency and it turned out more praline-like than fudge-like, so I pivoted and called it a peanut praline bonbon... and won Class Champion in candy... because I know how to play this game.

This year though, I got the itch. I wanted to enter a couple things. Just a couple... but you know how that goes! Three turns into five, then five turns into eight, etc.

So here was my original plan. I had a couple categories I entered for the state fair. County fair was going to be a dry run of sorts for the state fair. In reality, baking multiple items for the county fair is actually more difficult than baking multiple items for the state fair because for state the drop off days are spread out over the course of days to weeks. For county though, everything is due in on the Friday and Saturday before the fair starts on Sunday. I know some people bake things ahead of time and freeze them but I can't do that. I think things taste best within 24-48 hours of it being made so I always bake the day before the drop off deadline. I needed to practice my timimg.

Here is how my Friday went...

Up at 7am. Put my sourdough starter out on the counter. Made coffee... LOTS of coffee, and had breakfast.

Put four sweet potatoes in the small upper oven to bake.

Cooked a pound of bacon and reserved the grease.

Made the yeast dough for my Loaded Potato Rolls using the bacon and bacon grease and set it in the proofing box to rise for an hour. This is also a State Fair entry and I hadn't made it in a couple years.

Divided and fed my sourdough.

Made the Chocolate Espresso Stout cake batter and put it in the lower oven to bake. This is also a possible State Fair entry. I've made it before as a 9" 3-layer cake. Baking has gotten alot more expensive though so I wanted to make 6" cakes instead and I halved the original recipe. I wanted to make sure the cake baked the way I thought it should, plus I wanted to see if I needed to adjust the baking time.

Once I start using the oven I like to keep things going in and out so I don't have to repeatedly heat up the oven. I made the dough for my molasses cookies and had 8 cookies ready to go as soon as the cakes were done. The molasses cookies are my husband's favorite cookies but again, I hadn't made them in several years. I bake my cookies 8 at a time. You have to show 6. I make 8 and taste the jankiest looking one. If it tastes fine and the others are all uniform in shape I pick the 6 best ones and move on. The rest of the dough gets put back in the fridge or freezer for later. If I need to make any adjustments this also leaves me dough to do that. The other thing I discovered is that if you bake an entire recipe's worth of cookies while baking multiple items you will eventually run out of space and flat surfaces are a premium on baking day!

Sweet potatoes were also done by now so I pulled them out to cool and shut the upper oven off.

I have a range with 2 ovens - a smaller upper oven and a full size lower oven. In years past I've run both ovens at the same time but that makes for total madness with the timing and I wasn't up for that this year, nor did I think I needed to do that. Some years I've had so many entries that "oven time" itself was a premium and I've had to run both ovens - i.e. put a pie to bake for an hour in the lower oven and bake cookies in the upper oven - but not this year.

Cakes came out, cookies went in. 8 minutes. They came out looking a bit flat so I but the dough in the refrigerator to try again later and moved on. 

By now my yeast dough was blowing the top off its container so I got that out and shaped my rolls. The recipe makes 24 rolls and I put them on 3 baking trays. The trays don't fit in the proofing box but on a hot summer day the back of my SUV makes the perfect proofing oven so out to the car they went.

Next I made Coffee Toffee cookies. This is a new recipe. It sounded good. It's a shortbread cookie so I planned to enter it in the shaped/molded/cut-out cookie category. I initially used a flower shaped cookie cutter but the sharp edges didn't hold up while baking and the toffee bits oozed out of the edges. I tried again with a circle cutter. Still not what I wanted but I didn't have time to deal with it so I shoved the rest of the dough in the fridge and moved on.

I peeled and pureed the sweet potatoes while the cookies were baking.

Next up was Brown Sugar Sweet Potato Cornbread. This is a new recipe I want to enter in the State Fair. I was super super happy with how it looked when it came out of the oven and I couldn't wait to try it. For the County Fair I only need to show half the product. That means I can taste the other half.

Tried the molasses cookies again. They still looked flat but tasted fine so I decided I was done playing with them.

By now the rolls were done rising so I baked them next. Each tray took 15 minutes. I try my best to clean as I go so I mainly spent the baking time washing and drying bowls and the blender. I then had a small heart attack when I found this on the counter top...

Because it looks very similar to this...

The cheddar cheese powder is used in the Loaded Potato Rolls and was already in my cabinet. Surely to Christ I would have smelled the difference when I used it!?? Ugh. I anxiously waited for the rolls to bake so I could taste one. Plus, it was mid-afternoon by now and I was starving.

Rolls came out. I tasted one. It was fine. Phew!! Had a roll and a salad for lunch.

Next was the Sweet Potato Spice Cake. I made this once before for the State Fair in 2015 and won the Any Other Cake category. The recipe makes a 3-layer cake and you have to enter the whole cake at the State Fair so I've never tasted this cake. The Johnson County Fair though specifies a 2-layer cake for the Spice Cake category so I wanted to make this and taste the layer I didn't enter.

I made the batter for Strawberry Cardamon cupcakes while the spice cake was baking. I entered the Strawberry Cupcake Contest at the State Fair so this was a new recipe I was trying out. Spice cakes came out of the oven looking great and cupcakes went in. 6 cupcakes. 30 minute bake time. I make 6 cupcakes at a time for the same reason I bake 8 cookies at a time. I need to show 3 cupcakes.

Cupcakes came out looking beautiful. Perfectly domed but not overflowing and thoroughly baked. And then I tasted one. Dense, dry, doughy, basically inedible. I tried to fix the remaining batter by adding some oil for the dryness and some whipped egg whites for the denseness. 6 more cupcakes, another 30 minutes. Still inedible. I poured the rest of the batter down the drain. Strawberry cupcakes are not happening this weekend. I did keep the inedible cupcakes though because there is a decorated cupcake category and I figured I could salvage them for that.

Coconut Stuffed Fudge Brownies were next. I've made this recipe quite a few times recently but never competed it. They baked without a problem.

By now it was almost 8pm and time to feed and divide the sourdough again. I'm making Caramelized Onion and Parmesan Biscuits for the biscuit category but it requires sourdough discard as one of the ingredients. I also am of the opinion that biscuits only taste good when freshly made so I planned to make them first thing Saturday morning, however I needed the discard.

I don't remember eating dinner. I might have had another roll and a piece of cornbread. I cut that cornbread and tried it. It was delicious!

I started checking off the things I had left to do and it seemed like all I had left was to ice both cakes and decorate the inedible cupcakes... plus I had to make sure I had a recipe typed and printed for each item, and everything had to be plated and packaged for transport.

The chocolate buttercream icing was next. I absolutely love this icing but it's hard to make. I think cakes should be beautiful but tasty at the same time. Icing and decorations should be just as tasty as the cake. I don't decorate with fondant or royal icing because no one likes it. Seriously, who eats fondant? It all gets peeled or scraped off, right? This chocolate buttercream on the other hand... you can eat it plain by the spoonful. It's hard though because you have to boil a sugar water syrup to 242 degrees F. Then you have to whip some eggs in a bowl and pour that boiling hot syrup into the eggs, all while continuing to whip the eggs so they cook but don't scramble. It's especially hard for me because I no longer have a stand mixer. That means I'm holding a hand mixer with my right hand and pouring boiling hot syrup with my left hand... and trust me, hot syrup spatters when you pour it into a bowl with the mixer going. Anyhoos, icing got made, but by the time it was made, my kitchen was HOT due to the oven being on all day so I had to put it in the fridge so it wouldn't ooze off the cake as I spread it.

I have a love hate relationship with buttercream. It's my preferred frosting but the temperature has to be JUST right to spread or pipe properly. Get it too cold and it's a solid chunk. Too warm and it won't hold its shape. It is mostly butter after all.

Fifteen minutes in the fridge, then I was able to ice half the cake before I had to put everything back in the fridge again. I had to do this a couple more times before I got everything smooth and looking how I wanted. I didn't even bother with piping anything decorative because it was just too warm.

Whipped frosting for the spice cake was next. This is another favorite frosting recipe. It's not too sweet and actually looks and tastes quite a bit like whipped cream but is fair legal - meaning allowed. Food safety regulations at the fair state you cannot use any uncooked milk, cream, cream cheese, heavy cream or eggs in your frostings and fillings. The chocolate buttercream is legal because you are cooking those eggs with the 242 degree syrup as you are whipping them. On the other hand, if you make your buttercream with confectioners' sugar and butter and then thin it with a little milk, that is not fair legal.

My whipped frosting recipe starts with boiling milk and flour together until it looks like mashed potatoes, then adding it to a whipped butter sugar mixture. You have to constantly stir the flour milk mixture on the stovetop as it cooks so it doesn't scorch or get lumpy. By now, my feet were absolutely KILLING me! I actually had to go get a bar stool to sit on while I stirred. Plus, since I hadn't made this in awhile, I forgot to slowly add the milk to the flour to make it perfectly smooth before heating so I ended up with tiny lumps in my mixture. I thought maybe those little lumps would beat out when I added them to the butter sugar mixture but they didn't. Arghhh! The frosting tasted fine; it's just you could see little balls of cooked flour suspended in the frosting when you spread it. Crap. It was nearing midnight, I was tired, and I did not want to make the frosting again. Think, think, think. I needed to disguise those little lumps. They kinda looked like chopped nuts...

I stacked two layers of cake and but only masked the sides with frosting. This would be a "naked" cake. I frosted the top but then covered it with chopped walnuts. DONE.

I wanted everything pretty much ready to go in the morning so I went ahead and sliced onions and cooked them on the stovetop to caramelize them next. This took another 15 minutes and I started typing up recipes while doing this.

Now it was way past 1am. I thought about blowing off decorating the cupcakes and going to bed... but I just couldn't. How long could this take, really? I grabbed some confectioners' sugar with a couple tablespoons of pasteurized egg whites in bowl and started stirring... adding water and confectioners' sugar until I got the right consistency... which turned out to be alot easier said then done because it was freakin' HOT in the kitchen. I FINALLY got it right and piped icing on five cupcakes, then picked the three prettiest ones to show.

Took a shower and went to bed... at 4 am.

Rolled out of bed at 7am and made my biscuits.

Finished printing out all my recipes and packaging the items while they cooled, then packed the car and left for the fairgrounds at 9am.

Turn in was from 6-8pm on Friday night and 9-11am on Saturday morning.

I always go early Saturday morning because the temperature is cooler in the morning. I got all my entries dropped off and back home by 10:30 am. However, while driving back, I suddenly became worried because I didn't drop off a recipe with my decorated cupcakes entry. I knew for a fact that the cupcake recipe was not required because you could decorate a styrofoam dummy if you wanted, however I didn't know if they wanted the icing recipe or not. Ultimately decisions like these always come down to who is judging and how strictly they adhere to the rules... and the rules did not seem to make any exceptions in the recipe requirements for the decorated cakes class. I would be upset if my entry got disqualified for not having a recipe... so, so I could sleep at night, I quickly typed up the royal icing recipe and drove it back to the fairgrounds.

Now I was really DONE.