When North Iowa blogger Val of Corn, Bean, Pigs & Kids asked me if I wanted to team-up and compete in the Franklin County “Cake Wars” decorating contest, of course I had to say yes.
I warned her that my cake decorating abilities were very limited.
In culinary school in Moorhead, MN, Mrs. Kraft patiently tried to teach me how to pipe little rosettes and shell patterns with a piping bag with mixed success. And I can put sprinkles on things. Basically, sprinkling sprinkles was what I was bringing to the cake decorating table. Fortunately, the competition was not cutthroat, but focused on cultivating fun.
On Saturday afternoon, the fair was extremely busy. We enjoyed grilled pork tenderloin sandwiches and apple pie at the 4-H food stand.
The first part of the cake contest sent us on a scavenger hunt around the Franklin County Fair to earn points to purchase cake decorating supplies. Every team was given a small cake, white frosting, funfetti sprinkles and a single knife.
I let Val take the lead. She knew her way around the fair and I’d seen her amazing Curious George banana cake she made for her son’s third birthday. We were also excited that Donna of Donnahup.com joined us for the afternoon. She cheered us on and took some fantastic photos.
We based our cake design on the 4-H theme. It’s a good thing Val piped the letters because if I had tried, they would have looked like blogs. I was so impressed with the cake decorating skills of our competition, too. Some teams thought outside of the box and cut their cake into shapes.
In the end we won our snazzy green participation ribbons which were the perfect icing on the cake of my first county fair experience.
I like to call us Green Ribbon Winning Cake Decorators.
