My first cake decorating contest…

My entry in the contest. Click on image to see detailed images.

I entered my first cake decorating contest this past weekend… and I didn’t win.

The contest was held in conjunction with the celebration of the 40th birthday of the Special Olympics’ involvement in Indiana. My sister Valerie volunteers for the Special Olympics and suggested I enter the contest… which sounded like a great idea… and a great way to promote myself a little. After a long couple of days, prepping, baking… more prepping… decorating… which I might add that I have a strong love/hate relationship with right now. If it is going well, I LOVE IT! If it isn’t’ going well… I HATE IT! But in the end I made a really awesome cake… and I’m really pleased with myself for sticking with it and getting it finished.

So… I set my cake with the other entries, which there were about 10 total… and at this time I’m feeling really confident in my chances of winning the contest. After a trip to Walmart to kill some time and find a jacket… it was warmer outside than it was in this building… and eating some pulled pork… they had the judging… which consisted of the Mayor of Warsaw and some of his cabinet members and a lady affiliated with Special Olympics… which by her body language really liked my cake… I was so winning… for some reason I was really nervous…

And the winner is?!

Not mine! But wait... there's plastic balls and cut out paper on it!

WHAT?! The cake that was picked was different then the others… and not chosen for quality of work… I actually mentioned that it would win because the other entries, including mine, were more based on the logo…. Men… what do the know about cakes… pfff… the only woman on the judging panel LOVED my cake… more about her later.

They auctioned off the winning cake and the top bid was $110. The original plan was to auction off the winner and we’d eat the others… but there was such an interest in mine that they decided to auction it off also… much to the disappointment of the winning bidder of the first cake, she said she would rather have had my cake.. so mine goes up for auction and I was thinking ‘Oh, please let it go for more’ … almost, it went for $100.

During all this the woman that was on the judging panel comes over to me and tells me that she put my cake first and that she really liked it… and she goes on and tells me that she is getting married and wanted to know if I made wedding cakes… Really? So I give her my info and she tells me she’ll get a hold of me… sweet.

So at the end of the day… I didn’t win my first cake decorating contest… but I did make the Special Olympics an extra $100 and scored a possible job… oh, and we won a free oil change from where I actually take the car in… nice…

…but I really wanted to win.