As you recall, the first sponsored contest I was in - Domino Sugar's Bicentennial Cupcake Bakeoff - I withdrew because I was too tired. I simply did not have the energy to be creative. That was Sunday August 7th.
The next sponsored contest was the Little Red Door Cancer Agency's Eat Well, Live Well Contest. This was one that I had won last year. Again, I was too tired to be creative. I didn't expect to do well and thus, I didn't place. That was Wednesday August 10th.
Next up was Gold Medal Flour's Cookie Contest. Make your best original cookie recipe. I really tried with this one. I was dreaming up cookie recipes even before the Fair started. Originally I was going to do some type of pistachio cardamom shortbread cookie with either a chocolate filling or coating. I tried multiple variations and the chocolate wouldn't work. Then I tried coconut shortbread. Then I went off on a tangent and tried a couple different butter pecan cookies. Nothing quite had that oh-so-good mouth-feel of a cookie. They were all either too flour-y or cake-y or just too plain.
No
No
All no!
It finally came down to the night before the contest and I decided to go with a pistachio coconut shortbread type cookie. I personally liked the cookie but had reservations about how well it would compete. Was it too plain? I dressed it up by sprinkling chopped pistachios and coconut on top of the cookie. Would it stay crisp? In order to get a crunchy cookie, no matter what oven temperature or length of time I baked it, the cookie always came out rather brown on the edges. Depending on how picky the judge was, generally you get docked for having too brown of a cookie. With the butter, sugar, and nut content of the cookie, this was going to turn out brown no matter what. The other issue was that it was a rather thin cookie and I didn't know how long it would stay crisp sitting out on a plate on a rainy or humid day waiting to get judged. In the end, I even left the word "shortbread" out of my cookie description because I didn't want to categorize my cookie as such in case it didn't stay crisp. Pistachio Coconut Medallions is what I called my cookie. I made my cookies on Thursday night and put them in an airtight container.
Unlike all the thought and experimentation that went on with the cookies, I made up my recipe for the Gold Medal Pie Contest on Thursday night. I seized the fact that this pie didn't have to abide by the usual food safety rules at the Fair, meaning I could make a cream or custard pie. Basically anything goes as long as it uses a cup of Gold Medal Flour. I brainstormed and came up with a Tiramisu Pie. My favorite tiramisu recipe in a pie crust. How could you go wrong with Tiramisu?
I had the filling down. I just had to figure out a pie crust as that is where the requisite cup of Gold Medal Flour would be. It's no secret by now. I can't roll a pie crust. Every year I tell myself THIS will be the year! I will master pie crusts. Then, every year I get too busy and go with my stand by press-in oil crust. Quite honestly, this crust has served me well. However, the crust will only work for a single crust filled pie...
Since the Tiramisu Pie was a cream pie, I needed a pre-baked pie crust. First I tried making an oil crust and baking it by itself. Even with using foil and pie weights, the crust came out doughy and poofy and altogether plain BAD. I wasn't even going to TRY to master a rolled crust at this juncture so I brainstormed some more. Ah ha! A shortbread crust. That would go perfectly with the filling too. However, I had tried using shortbread cookie dough to make little tart-like pies in muffin pans before and I knew from prior experience that the dough on the sides of the pan tended to slide down into the bottom of the pan so you always ended up with a thick bottom and little misshapen sides. But... I found a shortbread pie crust recipe on line and the photo of the finished product looked perfect...
So... against my better judgement, I made the shortbread crust as directed...and, as I suspected, all the dough on the sides shrank to the bottom of the pan. ARGHHH. Out of frustration I flipped the failed pie crust out on a cookie sheet so at least the thick bottom would bake all the way through...
,,, and then I had another brainstorm. I have made graham cracker crust pies before where I'd crushed graham cracker crumbs and the mixed them with butter to press into a pan. Why not shortbread crumbs? I took out my frustrations on the failed shortbread crust and crushed them into crumbs.
Now for some moisture to hold it all together. Butter? Naw... half the shortbread was already butter. Liquor? I put in a tablespoon of Kahlua but realized I'd need a heck more than a tablespoon and the liquor wasn't going to cook off. Chocolate? Of course! I melted some chocolate chips. Physics tells me the chocolate would have to regain its solid form as it cools and it should hold the shortbread crumbs together.
Chocolate Shortbread Cookie Crust
Then I filled the pie. It turned out lovely. We tried it with dinner Thursday night. By now my family was burned out on trying sweet things every day but they loved the pie and ate the whole thing. I was incredibly pleased with myself for this brainstorm. My husband's only suggestion was to punch up
the coffee flavor a little bit more.
filling the pie
The Gold Medal Cookie Contest was Friday August 12th. Judging started at 3 pm. All my pies as well as the pie for the Gold Medal Pie Contest were due in by 11:30 am the next morning. Friday morning I started making pies as soon as the kids left for school.
First up was my blueberry, pineapple, and coconut pie. I called it Blueberries in Paradise and entered it in the "other" pie category. This was the same pie I had won with in the Johnson County Fair this year. By now I had made this one several times so I was just throwing ingredients together in a casual fashion. The pie takes a can of drained crushed pineapple. It was 7 am. I hadn't had my coffee yet. I was slugging ingredients around. I opened what I thought was a can of crushed pineapple and set it to drain in a large mesh strainer. Then I picked it up to dump in with the rest of my fruit. As the strainer passed by face, I caught a whiff of the contents... Oh crap, it was creamed corn!
Luckily, I caught myself before I dumped all the creamed corn into my blueberry filling. Just sayin'... creamed corn and crushed pineapple look pretty much alike when you're not awake! I threw out the corn and opened a can of crushed pineapple. The pie was then made without incident.
Blueberries in Paradise
Next up was the Tiramisu Pie. I recreated the pie I had made the night before without any problems. The only thing I did different was add another teaspoon of instant coffee to the filling.
Tiramisu Pie
After that, it was off to the Fair for the Cookie Contest.
Pistachio Coconut Medallions
There were two judges for the cookie contest. Two judges none of us were familiar with. Both were 4H judges with a long fair history. In fact, one of the judges got introduced as being a judge for 72 years! I thought I mis-heard but then everyone around concurred that that was what was said! Anyhoos... they were THE pickiest judges I have ever encountered. They studied every entry for 5-10 minutes. NOT kidding! They looked at all the bottoms, every edge, and every nut. They made comments that so-and-so's nuts were chopped unevenly, that one cookie edge was too dark, too much flavor, not enough flavor, too much icing, not enough icing, and on and on and on... They spent so much time on each cookie that one of my friends had time to leave the building, get a corn dog and drink, finish her corn dog, and come back inside and while they judged one cookie.
I really appreciate the fact that they studied each entry so closely. However, they took so much time we all got bored... and antsy... and then a bit catty. Towards the end they started commenting about taking a "small deduction" for this and a "small deduction" for that and we all mumbled that we felt like this was the all-around Olympic gymnastic competition with the "small deductions" and all.
The judging took two and a half hours! I lost track of how many cookies but I think there were around 20. They liked the flavor of my cookies but thought they were too brown - suggested I check my oven temperature - and I had a nut that looked too dark. Comments like that are a bit frustrating when you know you've tried baking these cookies at four different oven temperatures from everything from 10 to15 to 20 minutes at a time and they STILL turned out the same color but I suppose that's the nature of the game. I knew they were too dark. I just hoped they wouldn't care but these judges did care. It was like that for pretty much everyone... hence we got catty.
Needless to say, I didn't place.
I got home around 7 pm and felt exhausted. One more pie to bake. I know some of my competitors had 5 or 6 pies to do yet tonight so I was thankful I only had one. It was my Dutch Apple Pie. I went back to my traditional oil crust and apple pie filling. Added oats to my usual topping, then drizzled caramel and tossed chopped pecans over the baked pie. I was very happy with the result.
Caramel Pecan Dutch Apple Pie
Saturday morning I dropped off the Blueberry and Apple pies for the regular pie competition then sat through about an hour of the Gold Medal Pie judging. They did all the cream pies first so mine was the third pie judged. Not sure if this was a good thing or not as the two judges were giving all the pies a numerical score as they were judging them so they could go back and just pick the highest scoring pies in the end. I felt mine was original in that it didn't have a traditional crust. I didn't know how that was going to go over with the judges though.
So... comments were that the cookie crust complimented the pie well but it might be a bit too thick, and, the coffee flavor was too strong. Oh well. I knew I didn't place at that point. I had to leave to go to a wedding before the pie judging was over. My friend Rebecca stayed all afternoon and sent me photos of my other Fair pies after they had been judged.
The Blueberries in Paradise did not place. I thought the pie was overfilled when it came out of the oven as the fruit didn't cook down quite as much as I expected but I didn't feel like remaking the pie so I turned it in that way. I haven't seen the judging sheet yet so I don't know if that was a factor or not.
Blueberries in Paradise
The Caramel Pecan Dutch Apple placed Second. I was pretty happy with that. It's the highest I have ever placed with a Dutch Apple Pie so I guess switching up the topping this year helped me out. Truthfully though I was disappointed I didn't win as I felt like this was the best pie I've made in a long time.
Caramel Pecan Dutch Apple
All in all, the whole first week of competition was a bit of a let down. I had told myself before that I had already won Best of Show with my layer cake and that I should be happy no matter how my other items did...but still... I'm too competitive. I was feeling a bit down.
Next up on Monday August 15th was Burton's Maple Syrup. I won this contest last year with perhaps my most creative endeavor EVER. Maple Bacon S'mores. Maple syrup marshmallows, toasted and rolled in bacon bits, then sandwiched between two maple shortbread cookies.
Maple Bacon S'mores
I don't know how I'm EVER going to top that! This year I found a Maple Pear Cake recipe that I really liked. I trialed it with my family about a week ago and they like it too so that was what I went with. I didn't think that it was terribly original, but it was tasty and pretty. I topped it with a maple syrup frosting, decorated it with maple syrup coated toasted pecans, then drizzled more maple syrup over the pecans and called it Magnificent Maple Cake. I used Burton's Bourbon Maple Syrup in all of it's components. This is my favorite maple syrup. If King Arthur Flour was the most expensive recipe contest I'd ever won, this has got to be a close second - expensive in that, in both contests, I ended up hooked on their products.
Magnificent Maple Cake
It ended up being the last item judged in the contest. I was dying by then. I was worried the extra maple syrup I had poured over the cake was pooling and running off the serving board or had made the cake soggy. I think it looked good but was it good enough? Could I possibly repeat?
My competitors thought my cake looked like a winner. Patrick Burton wanted a picture of it while he was judging it. Did he really like it or was it because it was the last item and the contest was finally over?
Yes!!! I won!
Redemption! It's amazing how you can feel so low when you feel like you're not doing well and then suddenly everything feels great and fine again because you've won.
My friend Robin took Second with her Maple Apple Cake. We finished 1-2 last year too.
Rita made a Brussel sprout dish that placed Third. Other than two spreads, hers was the only non-dessert dish in the contest. It looked and smelled like something from heaven. I thought it was going to win. Jennifer got an Honorable Mention with her pie and someone else got the other Honorable Mention with baklava. I made baklava three years ago when this contest first started and got an Honorable Mention with it too. The tough part about this contest is to make the maple flavor really come through without making the dish too sweet. I remember with my baklava that I had even poured maple syrup over the top of everything but you still couldn't taste the maple flavor very well.
So... my bipolar self is back to being happy and content with the world again. I have one more Fair contest left - Indiana Grown on Friday August 19th. I'll be happy no matter what... really!
I seriously never knew how much went into the baking and judging! Wow!
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