Minnesota State Fair 2012

I told myself I wasn't going to enter anything in the fair this year. I entered a few things last year and completely struck out. Not even an honorable mention. Then this year came around and I caved in. BUT, I only entered one item. It was all or nothing. It was the special contest sponsored by King Arthur Flour. I love King Arthur and after having visited them earlier this year, I felt it only right to submit an entry and try to win even more money to spend with them.


I decided to combine two of my favorite cake options. For the interior, I'd use a stunning Red Velvet cake recipe, a family tradition from my wife's side. Then for the outside I thought I'd use my chocolate ribbons from one of my post popular cakes. The combination of the bright red interior with the stunning chocolate ribbons would be sure to win something, right??

I dropped off the cake at the fairgrounds early on a Sunday morning before the fair opened. Surprisingly I got a voice mail from someone the next day telling me that I needed to call them back as soon as possible. Sure that I had messed something up, I reluctantly called them back and was told that my cake had won third place among all the entries! Although I was sure this was a first place cake, I knew how competitive this fair was and was pretty excited to take a ribbon!

She told me that they loved the cake and in particular the chocolate ribbons. She asked if I would be willing to do a couple news segments showing off the cake and demonstrating how to make the chocolate ribbons. So we headed back to the fairgrounds for two segments with local news stations. It was a blast hanging out with them and being able to show off the cakes.

Here's a link to one of the segments where I did a short demonstration of the ribbons:

KARE 11 News

And here are the original recipes:

Red Velvet Cake

Chocolate Ribbons

It was also fun to see the pictures that people took of the cake on display as they visited the fair!

Thanks everyone and I look forward to next year!