Week 33: It's a marathon, not a sprint

Queuing up for dropping off

I don't know if you've heard, but the Minnesota State Fair is kinda a big deal. Ok, it's a really big deal. There is a whole part of town that is essentially a ghost town for the majority of the year, but magically transforms into a reasonably sized city for about two weeks in late August and early September. The crowds are intense. The audiovisual and olfactory stimuli are insane. And the foods! So many options and so many fried things. The first year up here, we made a half-day trip to the fair and needed to take a nap afterwards for recovery.

One of my absolutely favorite things at the fair is the Crop Art. I can't explain it and you just need to see it to understand it. Not far behind is the Creative Activities building. There you can see a vast array of various handmade/homemade goods. Sure the quilts are nice, as are many of the carvings, but the real reason that I go is the baking competition. Hundreds of home bakers test their mettle by submitting baked goods in a vast array of categories to be judged by the officials, and then further judged and picked apart by the general public. If their wares are deemed good enough for display, at any rate.

Well, after some gentle prodding, I had been considering entering a few things into the competition this year. I hemmed, I hawed, and essentially was my typical indecisive self. But luckily, I logged into the registration website about 45 minutes before the deadline. I picked a few options and spent an entire Friday working on my submissions. Out of the 7 options, I was able to complete 5 in time for drop-off. Below is the list of what I made, categorized as the would on the GBBS.

Signature Bake 1: Classic chocolate brownies, a la Baked.
These turned out a bit gooey and I had seriously considered making my more favorite stout brownies instead.

Baked Brownies

Signature Bake 2: Chocolate pudding bundt cake.
This was a new recipe and the bundt itself was humongous. A little lighter in color than the rest of the field and a couple spots where the flour didn't fully incorporate. Looks like it may have needed 5 more minutes in the oven.

Chocolate pudding bundt

Signature Bake 3: Chinese bo lo buns, adapted from the Cooks Science recipe.
I would have preferred filling with BBQ pork or the pudding filling, but those are not allowed for the competition, for obvious food safety reasons. these turned out way better than the previous attempt. Very light and fluffy.

Chinese sweet buns

Technical challenge: Sugar cookies.
This was the annual recipe competition in which all entries are made following a specific recipe as published by the state fair committee. You are judged by age group. This years' recipe allowed for a little personalization - you could top the cookies with colored sugar if you wished. Ooooooh. I chose some with plain/white sugar and some with purple sugar. The only issue I had with the recipe is that it called for "lightly salted butter." I mean, seriously, what does that mean?!

Sugar cookies. Only four needed for submission.

Showstopper: Green tea genoise with white chocolate ganache and honey buttercream.
This one was tough on a number of levels. I was initially itching to make my trusty blueberry lemon layer cake since I thought it would be a crowd pleaser, but I couldn't decide on a good frosting for it (my go-to is a cream cheese based frosting - also verboten.) I also really wanted to decorate with some chocolate ganache bees, but couldn't get the flavors to match well enough. The genoise was also extra finicky and I had to re-do the sponge. My guess is that the green tea somehow reacts with the egg whites and causes some sort of deflating effect. When decorating, I tried a new technique of using some dried cake crumbs and that looked lovely. I probably should have piped some embellishments on the top, too.

Now that's a showstopper. Too bad I couldn't see the inside.

Unfortunately, none of the submissions won a ribbon, but all 5 made it into the display cases. I am eagerly awaiting my score cards to see just how well (or poorly) I did.

Chocolate sour cream cake

In addition to the marathon day of baking, I had one more project to complete - another birthday cake! Some friends were having a joint birthday party and I insisted on bringing a creation. The request was for something chocolate and I had just the thing: chocolate sour cream cake. This is another well-tested recipe that I hadn't had a chance to make in quite some time. I drizzled some Koval coffee liquor into the cake layers for some extra moisture and, of course, used some good quality chocolate in the sponge and in the frosting. I also took some extra time in frosting which helped to maintain the structural integrity of the lofty layers. Finally, I tried my cake crumb technique again with relative success. That cross-section is simply dreamy.

'Nuff said