The Pains of Putting it Out There.
Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 6:23PM Today I entered my first cooking competition I have done in over two years. I called my old teacher a few months ago to ask if I could get into some kind of competition since I missed them so much. He mentioned the cold food salon, which I had done a few years ago and done petit fours, where I earned a silver medal. I was excited to enter again, this time doing a wedding cake.
I'm in a rush to blog before Derek needs to use the computer for his class. Long story short, I worked day in and day out on an over-ambitious cake for this competition. My weakness is piping, and stupidly, this cake had a LOT of piping. My mom came over to drop something off last night in the midst of my misery, and was one of the few witnesses to see the huge bags under my eyes.
This morning I had Derek take of work to help me deliver the cake that I was already feeling if-y about. Everyone was happy with the results, but me, as usual. I have high expectations for myself, and more than anything, I know what these judges are looking for: perfection.
As Derek and I were trying to lift the four tiered cake onto the stand, a catastrophe unfolded. My wedding ring got caught under the cake, on of the brooches fell onto the floor, and the fondant on the bottom layer buckled on the edge of the stand. With about twenty people watching us set it up, the nerves weren't helping. The most helpful part were the people saying in clear loud voices "wow that cake is going to just crumble to pieces, I feel bad for that girl. She's screwed."
However, after being completely discouraged, I managed to recieve a bronze medal and some strict critizism from the judges. I'll never cease to love competing, no matter how hard it hits me. Here are the pictures of the cake. Luckily after the damages we were able to make it look fairly presentable:














































