At the Great State Fair of Texas, both the Cake Baking and Pie Contests are two of the most popular as well as the most competitive contests every year. To win a ribbon at either of these two contests, the judges must absolutely love your entry and score it accordingly on their judging sheets.

This year the Cake Baking Contest is scheduled for Saturday, October 20, 2012. Pre-registration is not required. There are nine classes of cakes and contestants may enter five of these, but only one entry per class. No mixes or sauces are allowed. In addition cakes cannot be cut before judging. Entries will be judged on taste, texture, and moistness.

The nine classes are divided into two groups: Layered Cake; and Loaf, Bundt or Sheet Cake. Classes in the Layered Cake group are Carrot, Spice, White (no yolks), and Yellow. In the Loaf, Bundt or Sheet Cake group, the classes are Angel Food, Carrot, Nut, Pound and Spice.

Check-in for contestants is from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Judging begins promptly at 10:30 a.m. and late entries are not acceptable. So if you’re coming in from a long distance or from a short distance with a lot of traffic, you need to plan accordingly.

After parking or getting off DART, contestants must transport their entries to the Creative Arts Building on the State Fair grounds. Thus, the term for the “wagon brigade“, those contestants who get to the Creative Arts Building pulling their entries and any other necessities in wagons. My husband got me one after I got hooked on entering the State Fair cooking contests four years ago. And as the wonderfully thoughtful husband he is, Frank checks out my wagon every year the month before the State Fair begins and takes care of any possible problems.

A typed recipe must also be turned in with each cake when you register. By the way, the entry fee is only $2.00 per entry. For more rules information please see the State Fair Creative Arts Contests website at www.bigtex.com.

In 2010 the Best of Show Purple Ribbon for the Cake Baking Contest was awarded to Lillian Greenslade of Fort Worth, Texas. This is how the judging process works to arrive at the Best of Show Winner.

Each class is judged strictly on its own. Winners are selected based on tabulations from the scoring sheets for 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd Places, plus any Honorable Mention Places. After judging for all the classes has been completed, all the 1^st Place Winners’s entries are pulled from the individual class tables and combined on a separate table. The contestants all anxiously watch to see if any of their entries are pulled for this next round.

Then, all the judges of each class judge samples from each of the 1^st Place winning entries. Their scores are tabulated and the Best of Show Winner is finalized.

Winning contestants for each class are announced in order by the rules class list. The Best of Show Winner is announced last and is very much anticipated by those contestants who saw their entry pulled from the class table to the Best of Show judging table.

As the Best of Show Winner in 2010, the rules prohibited Lillian Greenslade from competing in the Cake Baking Contest in 2011. No telling what she would have created last year. However, this rule applies to all cooking contests in the State Fair. No Best of Show Winner in any contest is allowed to compete in that contest the following year.

Here’s Lillian’s Prize Winning Best of Show entry in the Cake Baking Contest in 2010 at the Great State Fair of Texas.

Date Cake with Caramel Toffee Sauce

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 ½ tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

¾ cup brown sugar

¾ cup granulated sugar

1 ¼ cup oil

4 eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 TB Myers dark rum

2 cup chopped dates

1 cup grated carrots

8 oz crushed pineapple, drained

1 ½ cup chopped, toasted pecans

Grease and flour or spray with non-stick cooking spray 10 inch Bundt pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first 5 ingredients. Add remaining ingredients in order given, stirring well after each addition. Bake for 35-40 minutes.

¼ cup butter

½ cup sugar

¾ tsp baking soda

¼ cup buttermilk

½ TB light corn syrup

½ tsp vanilla

Bring to boil, cook stirring constantly for 4 minutes. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla.

Run knife around edge of cake. Punch holes in cake with wooden pick. Drizzle glaze over warm cake. Cool in pan on rack. Turn out of pan.

1 cup firmly backed brown sugar

1 cup heavy whipping cream

4 TB butter

1 tsp light corn syrup

½ tsp vanilla

1 tsp dark rum

Combine first 4 ingredients. Cook and stir over low heat until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla and rum. Slowly pour toffee sauce over top of cake. Refrigerate to set toffee sauce.

Another prize winning recipe from the 2010 Great State Fair of Texas Cooking Contests is on the chalkboard menu for Kathryn’s Texas Kitchen.

Until next time…

Bon appétit!

frankandkath@hotmail.com