Some of you might know that Mrs. TJ has taken up the competitive Baking tack and run with it starting 4 years ago. After testing the waters in the Prince George's County Fair and the Howard County Fair, last year she targeted the Maryland State Fair and walked away with 'Best In Show' Cookie honors for her fabled Ginger Spice Cookies.

So, Mrs. TJ, due to Maryland State Fair Rules, would not be able to win Best In Show for cookies this year, so she said 'Why enter cookies if I have no chance to win the whole thing?!' So she entered a few items in the other baked goods sections....Let's see how she did ---

Double Blueberry Muffins
A variation of a recipe, this involves whole and mashed blueberries as well as a crisp top. These unfortunately did not place in her category. I swear, the Blueberry Muffin category was FILLED with competition. But her muffin recipe as entered suffered from the delay in time of coming out of the oven and the judging. The crip top becomes too moist and loses it's 'thing' -- so back to the drawing board for next year.

Applesauce Spicecake
This is another variation on a recipe. Meant to be served with caramel icing, Mrs. TJ winged it and instead poured the cake in to a decorative bundt mold and hoped for the best. This category demand NO FROSTING, to best taste the essence of the applesauce spice cake, methinks. Sadly, this also did not place. We'll either have to rethink the approach or recipe for next year or try something totally new.

Pumpkin Bread
Inspired by a Mama-of-TJ recipe, Mrs. TJ took the recipe and made a couple of minor tweaks and entered it. This has done reasonably well in prior years, placing, I think at least once. But this year we harvested an early ripening butternut squash from our garden, and used that as the primary pupkin base for the recipe and supplementing only where needed with other pumpkin mush. This may have been what tipped us over the edge, BECAUSE SHE GOT FIRST PLACE! Woo-hoo!

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Icing
This was entered in the Devil's Food Cake category. What I found interesting was that all, yes all, the other entries in this category went with 'white' icing. Bizarre. Mixing up some ingredients as if by a whim of her own, Mrs. TJ concoted a true chcolate lover's cake. Pure choclate decadence without being too sweet and too cloying. The icing sealed the victory as SHE GOT FIRST PLACE!

Unfortunately, another cake won Best In Show this year, so that only has rejuvenated Mrs. TJ's drive for next year.

Link to Maryland State Fair Photos

Congratulations, Mrs. TJ! You're an inspiration to us all!

Congratulations! Any chance of getting the punpkin bread recipe via PM?

Let me check with the boss.

A shout out to Mrs. TJ! I would think this would be intolerably nerve-wracking.

Several years ago, the WaPo Food Section featured foods which had won at State Fairs. They published a recipe for chocolate cake with chocolate icing which won the Virginia State Fair prize one year. I made it a couple of times before dumping the recipe: it was UNBELIEVABLY sweet and cloying.

Any chance she would share hers?

What kind of chocolate did you use in the recipe?

Thanks for sharing the photos. What a great day for your family!

I don't actually remember; however, the two cake layers took not only TWO cups of sugar, but also a cup or so of blackberry preserves. That should have tipped me off. The frosting was mostly powdered sugar, butter, plus more preserves. I don't the chocolate stood a chance.

Yikes! You were a brave soul to try that recipe!

I've checked with the boss, and the chocolate cake recipe and icing are off limits for now. Maybe sometime soon or maybe next year she'll be willing to share. I think she's most protective of the icing recipe. And let me tell you, this cake rocks. It is so wonderfully chocolatey and the icing is such a great counterpoint and, you guessed it, it is definitely NOT cloying at all. This cake is in balance. I wish I could share the recipe (and I will when she decides it is OK to).

Someone asked for the pumpkin bread recipe. Just PM me and I'll send it over. That was approved for sharing.

Perfectly understandable. However, what are the chances she would bring this cake to the DR.com Fall Picnic?

Hi there...I am MrsTJ. I had no idea he posted this here! I just wanted to say thanks all!

Competitive baking has become quite an addiction. I do love those blue ribbons! (Though you do win a little bit of money, too).

I do want to mention that the chocolate cake was a dark chocolate cake. I used special cocoa purchased from King Arthur Flour's site--a mix of regular dutch process cocoa and black cocoa. The icing was a chocolate sour cream icing. It gives it such a perfect tang.

Thanks again, everybody!

Today's Washington Post has an article on blue ribbon bakers from Maryland County Fairs. I find it odd that the all, but one of the folks in the article say their recipe from was a book, magazine, or the Internet. The other one combined two recipes in some fashion.

Unless the rules specify that the recipe has to be original, you can get it from any source.

I usually use a recipe I've found from a book on the internet as my jumping off point, and tweak from there. I spend the year testing and remaking until I've come up with a version that I think is damn good. TJ and my co-workers and family don't seem to mind being my taste testers!

Cool. My thoughts were along the lines of your path. Cannot see how anyone would mind being a taste tester!

Borrowing a page from eGullet…

I know there are some 4H blue-ribbon winners here; are there others?

Have you ever entered a cooking/eating contest?
If so, what was it for?
Did you win? Place?
Was there a prize?
Was it exciting?

And… are there any upcoming competitions?

Deadline May 15: Trader Joe's Recipe Showdown