Marley Young, left, and Jase Thompson display their award-winning cakes in the youth baking competition Wednesday (EXAMINER PHOTO | Mandy Loehr)
Grandmotherly advice and know-how fared well for contestants in Wednesday’s Logan County Fair open class youth baking competition, where each of the top award-winners noted they baked at least some of their fair entries alongside their grandmothers.
Jase Thompson, an incoming third-grader at Indian Lake Elementary, received Best of Show rosettes both for cakes and for candies. He made his cake and cookie entires under the watchful eye of his grandmother, Sharon Thompson.
The Miami Valley Producers’ 4-H Club member’s yellow layer cake with a “secret recipe icing” received the top honor, with judge Sheridon Storm calling the texture and flavor “phenomenal.”
Storm related that Jase’s cake and Reserve Best of Show winner Marley Young’s cake were also beautifully decorated.
“I’d love to have you working for me at my bakery once you’re old enough,” she said to the youngsters.
A candy cake entry made by Marley, a Calvary Christian School eighth-grader, received the Reserve award. She decorated it with a Reese’s Pieces for a topping, “to look a little like a geode that had been cracked open.”
Marley’s grandmother, Shirley Haynes, was part of the big baking days in preparation for the fair, alongside her mother, Kristy, and sister, Raina, 8, who received a Best of Show award for her oatmeal cookies.
Her mother noted that one of the biggest challenges of the was keeping little sister, Graysen, 3, out of all of fair entries.
“We started baking on Sunday,” she said. “It’s a commitment, but we enjoy it.”
Raina, who will be a third-grader at CCS, said “mixing it up and eating it” were some of the best parts of her first time entering the fair.
Claire Tidwell, 11, received the Reserve cookie award for her peanut butter cookies. The Indian Lake Middle School sixth-grader said she tried a new recipe for the cookies and baked with her grandmother, Sharon Pequignot.
In the candy competition, the cake contenders also took the top spots. Jase receiving Best of Show for his buckeyes and Marley won Reserve Best of Show for her peanut butter fudge.
In another tasty contest in the Grange Building Wednesday morning, the open class pie competition took place, with Karla Johnson receiving a big win on her birthday — Best of Show for single-crusted pies for a key lime entry.
“I actually don’t like lime at all,” she said with a chuckle. “I only entered that class because my mom was going to enter it as well.” The double layer key lime pie on a graham cracker crust was inspired by a Pinterest recipe as well, she said.
Anita Green also had a very successful run in the pie contest, garnering the top two awards in the double-crusted pies. Her peach pie won Best of Show, and her blackberry pie won the Reserve Best of Show.
“The peach pie is made with white peaches, which I bought a few years ago for pies by mistake, but I found out they have even better flavor than yellow peaches,” said Green, who has been entering the contest for about 18 years.
During those almost two decades of entering the contest, the Bellefontaine resident said this was her first time entering a blackberry pie.
Similarly, Terri Mees said it was her first time making a Dutch apple pie, which won the Reserve Best of Show for single-crusted pies. Since a number of people in her family aren’t fond of nuts, she substituted oatmeal for the walnuts in the recipe.
She was pleased to receive first place with about half of her eight pies entered in the contest. “It’s been a good day,” she said.
Raina Young, left, and Claire Tidwell won the top awards in the cookie class of the youth baking competition Wednesday. (EXAMINER PHOTO | Mandy Loehr)
Winners in the open class pie competition Wednesday included, from the left, Anita Green, Karla Johnson and Terri Mees. (EXAMINER PHOTO | Mandy Loehr)