State fair sushi cupcakes

Here I go with another post. I still have not learned to spell check, so I will have to be careful. I am in the writing mood so just have to get started.
I practice baking for the fair all year long. Before I practice I dream up things I want to do. Years ago we could have our plates returned after our entries were judged, but they do not do that any more. I love presentation and during the year I would find cute dishes in thrift stores to put my food on.
One year I was inspired by Clare Crespo's book, The Life of Food. It is full of creative fun food. I decided to make the sushi cupcakes. I searched to find cute little black plates about 3 inches across and a bamboo tray to put them on. At our fair if you do individual things you have to do 8 of them. Since the cakes were an oriental theme I decided to buy matcha a powdered tea used for tea ceromonies. I had to look all over this town to find some. Clare's recipe calls for fruit roll ups to wrap around the cupcakes. I bought one to try out before baking day. I did not want really big cakes so I bought 10 cans of tomato paste, emptied them froze the paste for later, and baked my cakes in them.
It was late at night, as usual when I was baking. I took the cooled cakes and started to roll out the fruit roll ups like I had done before. They would not roll. I evedently had bought another brand, and they were too thick. I decided to coat the cakes with dark green frosting instead of the fruit roll ups. I was not into fondant then or I might have tried that.

I finished all 8 cakes, I had made 10 and practiced with one before deciding on the 8 I was going to present. I took one of the cakes into the living room in order to be able to see it in a brighter light.
To my horror the dark green cake was dark navy blue. I must have put the wrong lid on the paste food coloring the last time I had used it, and used blue instead of green. I was out of powdered sugar to make more frosting. It was about 3 AM and no stores were open. Frantically I remembered from grade school that if you added yellow to blue it will make green. It worked.
The next morning I loaded up all my entries, about 8 of them that day and was on my way to the fair. I started smelling this really powerful scent of the matrcha. The further I drove it seemed stronger and stronger. I thought I could not enter that. It did not smell good to me. It was surly not the sweet scent of vanila, or the perky smell of lemon.

I entered them in anyway, really nervous about the judging. I did not want to sit in my chair when they came before the judge. I wanted to move away as far as I could from the stage, AS I explained before, the judges are up on a stage and you are in the audience.

I saw the assistant put the tray beforre the judge. I could not watch. There was a lady with big, big hair right in front of me. I scrunched down so all I could see was the judge picking up the fork and get a bite of the cupcake, tht terrible pungent matcha tea cupcake. I waited for the fork to go down, and to be able to see from behind the big, big hair the judge pick up the micophone and tell me my fate. I could see him pick up the fork again, I sneeked a peek from around the curly processed blonde head. He was not frowning. He was almost smiling, and he took a third bite. Well, I can realize a judge taking a second small bite to make sure he tasted what he thought he did in order to chose the right negative words to describe the item, but 3 bites do not add up to negative. I straightened up, put on my poker face and faced the judge with a different attitude. He picked up the microphone then, and with a smile,said, "What I have here is a beautiful inovative sushi cupcake. It gets a 98, a blue ribbon! "

Thanks to Clare and her book, another great day at the fair.

Fairs are coming up

The county and state fair hand books are on the internet now. It is almost like opening a Christmas present when I click on bigfun.org to see what is going to happen at the state fair and sacfair.com to see what I am going to to at the county fair.

The county fair used to be the weedkend of mothers' day but it has changed to be memorial day weekend. In the past I have baked with a teenager who is like a grand daughter to me, but she is in college now so may not have time. I have only been doing the county fair for about five years. I find it is a good way to practice what I am going to do at the state fair.

They do not have refrieration at the county fair so I can not do my favorite thing, the refrigerated pastries. I love to do fancy things with chocolate. The 2nd year I was to do the couonty fair my oven control broke and I could not turn it on. I looked on the internet and found things I could bake in my microwave. What an adventure.

I have a of printing my state fair entries, filling them out and taking them to the fair office a couple of days before they are do. I do not like doing it by computer, and I do not trust the mail. I like to know rthat they are there.

I will say I enjoy the look of the clerk when I turn in 20 or so entries. I really do not know what I am going to do this year because I am saving all my money for my trip to Florida. The deadline is May 7th the day before I get back.

Because of budget problems they are having fewer days to present our food. The cakes, bread, pies and pastries are all due on the same day. Confections and cookes are on one day. Special things like the $500 Chocolate Passion are on separate days.

I live in an older home that does not have very good air conditioning. It is hard to do chocolate and cream pies etc when it is 110 degrees out side. Once I emptied the top of my freezer and put my mixer in there to do whipped cream.

Two years ago I started renting a motel 2 miles from the fair that has a full kitchen. I got that idea from remembering a lady named Alberta Dunbar who used to travel from southern California and stay 2 weeks and bake for the fair. She used to win a lot of ribbons. I was sorry when she stopped coming because was an inspiration.
Every year I google her name to see what she is up to. She is still baking and was on Jay Leno because she won the Spam contest. She made a spam cheesecake.

I e-mailed my grand kids in Florida to tell them I have a blog. It will be a way to let them know a little bit about what goes on in my life. I really miss them and will be glad to see them when I get to Florida.

Well, this is my second blog. In thinking about doing a blog I was reminded of whn I was a young girl and I wrote in a green diary with a key. It was really exciting. Well things have changed. Now I am writing for the whole world to see. I hope I did not make too many spelling errors. I cannot see how to do spell check. I tried something and this diappeared, can not take a chance on doing that and have this disappear for good. So I am just going to push publish and hope for the best.

Learning to blog.

Well, here I go my first blog. I have been wanting to start one for a long time. Actually I have been encouraged to start a blog. I do not know if the people I e-mail really like my writing, or think I write e-mails that are too long!

Why the name Blue Ribbons and Chocolate Ganache? My passions are entering baked goods in the California State fair and volunteering at pastry competitions. I wake up thinking of chocolate creations to make. I would start talking about them at my work and I would see me co-workers rolling their eyes as if to say, "There she goes again." So I would tell them I did not have a significant other or prince charming to dream about, I dream about chocolate ganache.

I have been entering baked goods in the state and county fairs for about 20 years. I try to find blogs of other people who like to enter things in the fairs and have not been able to find one. So maybe this blog will put me in touch with some people who like to do that also.

I have been a volunteer twice at chocolate competitions put on by Michael Schneider of Chocolatier Magazine. I first saw the contest on tv and then went to see it in Las Vegas. It is thrilling to be with people who have the same passions that I do..
When I was there I saw lots of people in white chefs coats. I learned that some of them were students at a 5 day forum held before the contest. The others were volunteers helping set up the contest and assisting the instructors for the classes. Two years later I was helping at the forum and contest in Phoenix. I had never driven that far befoe by my self and I was really proud of myself.

Then two years later I volunteered again. This time they moved to Nashville Tennessee. I drove there also. That was quite an achevement for me since I did it alone and I am in my seventies.

I hope to share my thoughts about doing things at the fair, and my upcoming train trip to Florida to help out at the National Pie Contest. I intend to write while I am on the way. It will take me 5 days to get to Florida from California.

I am also a student in the pastry program at my local community college. I hope to post about that also. If anyone reading this would like to comment on their experiences in baking please comment. Jennine