One Aha! moment that awakened my passion for cake decoration dealt with an episode involving my sixth grade friend, Sharon, whose cake decorator mom made a “Forget-Me-Not” cake for our classmate who was about to move. That gesture profoundly influenced my creativity and career path. There is more to this story.

Fast-forward three years to the summer before my second year in high school. By this time I was baking, decorating cakes, and sewing like mad. I decided to enter the local fair in the sewing, baked goods, and cake decoration competitions. I remember two of the items that I entered: a teal blue wool suit and a two layer round cake decorated with deep purple and yellow flowers with deep green leaves on white buttercream ; I sewed a very straight seam and any topstitching was perfect and the decorated cake represented my best effort to date.

So, with confidence, my mom and I brought all of the entries to the appropriate spot. Upon arrival I looked into the display case and my spirits immediately diminished. Placed prominently on the bottom of the glass bakery display case was a perfectly decorated quarter sheet cake: perfect shell bottom border , perfectly smooth icing, perfectly square edges of the side and top icing, perfect pink rose buds on delicate pale green stems, and perfect pale green pointed leaves. Who decorated this cake??

Shortly after our arrival, my sixth grade friend, Sharon, and her “Forget-Me-Not” cake decorator mom arrived. Oh- my-gosh! The perfect cake was Sharon’s entry! Sharon’s mom complimented me on the colors on my cake and I just wanted the whole day to end right then and there because I knew that my entry was not going to win. I could not go home though because I was a volunteer that was going to help the judges.

Assisting the judges turned out to be a revelation and an education in itself. Many of the entrants in all of the contests belonged to the 4H Club. (Is it still in existence today?) These people were taught how to do things. I was completely self- taught. So the judges became my teachers for that day! For example, the clothing was turned inside-out for judging! The inside work had to be as perfect as the outside! New concept!

I learned how to evaluate quality as well as appearance. And so on.

Needless to say, I did not win any prizes that day; but actually “won” in many ways just –the- same. I received the prize, if you will, of knowledge and some definitions: quality standards by which to evaluate my own work.

With determination and new awareness I made up my mind that the next year’s results would be different! The next year I entered twenty items divided among the three categories. Included among the entries that I can remember were Sugar Peek-A- Boo Eggs decorated with royal icing roses and pansies and leaves. Inside the eggs were animal scenes including water, chicks, rabbits, and fences with greenery all around.(Mary Kimbraugh, a cake decorator who owned a small shop in town came to my home economics class and demonstrated how to make and decorate the sugar eggs!) My drop cookie entry, Oatmeal Spice Cookies, won first competing against all of the 4Hers!  Recipes

I won nineteen blue ribbon first prizes and one second. I kept all of the blue and the one red ribbon for many years and each time I came across them in the shoe box where they were stored in my bedroom, I was reminded of that special competition.

In retrospect I really did not know any of the people who entered those contests. So I think that I was not after personal victory over any of them. What I achieved were my own private victories:

1. To do better than the year before.
2. To win first prizes.

Darn satisfying!

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