State Fair 2011: entries and results

For those of you who have asked me about pictures of my State Fair entries, thank you for your interest (and your patience) :o) If you've visited my blog a few times, you know I like to tweak recipes. I've done so in all of my State Fair entries as well. So whenever you see a link to the source of the recipe, keep in mind that I made some changes.

Without further ado, here they are:

Vegetable Bread (3rd place - ribbon): Carrot Zucchini Banana Oatmeal Bread with Walnuts (aka Many-Splendored Quick Bread from Rose's Heavenly Cakes). The bread I entered has walnuts in it but I forgot to take pictures of it.

Dark Bundt Cake (4th place - ribbon): Minty Chocolate Bundt Cake (adapted from CookiePie's recipe via Epicurious).

Plain brownies (4th place - ribbon): Fudgy Brownies, unfrosted, no nuts (adapted from Nick Malgieri's SuperNatural Brownies).

Layered Bars (5th place - ribbon): Double Decker Walnut Bars (adapted from Flo Braker's Congo Brownies). This entry evoked the most "emotions" in my husband when I told him the results: "What?? Fifth place?? Those are really really good!" Ha ha.

Banana Bread (no ribbon): No Nuts Banana Bread (adapted from The Cake Bible). I baked this a couple of times but forgot to take a picture of the loaf I entered. The above picture is that of Banana Bread Revision 1 :o)

Chocolate Chip Cookies (no ribbon): Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from America's Test Kitchen).

Dark cookies, flattened before baking (no ribbon): Molasses Cookies (adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Molasses Cookies).

State Fair 2010 Baking Contest Results

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since my last post. What can I say? Life happens (the good and the bad, but more on that in a future post).

Right now I would like to share with you the baked goods I made for this year's State Fair Baking Contest and how they fared at the Fair :o) I've been participating in this contest for the last 6 years or so. The very first time I entered this contest, I made an Almond Upside Down Cardamom Cake. I won 4th place and got a pink ribbon. I was ecstatic as I had just started getting my feet wet in this thing called "Baking" and this sure was a lot of encouragement to continue and get better. I'm lucky in that I inherited a good gene pool as my mom is an excellent baker (and so was my maternal grandmother) :o)

During this time of year, I receive lots of well wishes and support from not only my immediate family but also from my friends and coworkers. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of them. Especially my husband for always providing me with honest and invaluable feedback.

Without further ado, here are the results. Drum roll please...