2011 Annual Bakeoff–White Wedding Cake!

Well, for the third year in a row, we held our annual bakeoff contest! Bobbi, Ali and I started it three years ago, and unfortunately, my sister-in-law Kelly is always ringing in her new year in Sanibel Island, Florida.  Funny, I don’t think she misses out on much when she’s laying out in the sun!   And, this year, we invited Kyle’s girlfriend, Emily to participate!

2009’s theme was cinnamon rolls; 2010’s theme was pie; and 2011 theme was white wedding cake.  The night before the competition, I was at the Bruggeman family Christmas and we were discussing the town “cake lady” (I think every small town has a cake lady!) – ours was named Lois Hensel.  My Aunt Kelly piped up and said that her mom had Lois’ recipe! Woo hoo! I knew this would give me the added advantage I needed.

Ali was crowned the 2009 bakeoff queen and Bobbi was crowned the 2010 bakeoff queen….I was hoping to take the crown this year!

As always, there were some memorable moments of the day, including:

* We thought that perhaps Emily was making mashed potatoes there for awhile…the consistency of her dough was….um….interesting.

* Joe’s Grandma (a.k.a. GG) hates butter and hates alcohol (both of which could actually explain some of her grumpiness sometimes now that I think about it…)…so there were multiple jokes made about that since Ali’s recipe included Amaretto.

* Emily learned that Amaretto was not cherry flavor.  I learned that lemon extract is not the same as lemon flavoring. Ali learned that almond flour costs like $10 a pound.  Bobbi learned to read the entire coconut frosting recipe before making it (as she mistakenly made German Chocolate coconut frosting instead of fluffy white coconut frosting).  None of us know how big a “glob” is.  We all learned that buttermilk will make your cake more yellow, than white. But, in the end, the biggest blunder was my own: I cut off the edges of my cake to make the cakes the exact same size, as my frosting would not stick to the sides.  People, this cost me the competition in the end (in my opinion).

* Making from-scratch white cake is actually pretty easy and fairly inexpensive.  It actually inspired me to keep trying to perfect my recipe and not be scared to make my own cake for birthdays and other special events.

* As usual, we each had our own “special” ingredients: Holly – lemon flavoring; Ali- Amaretto; Emily- buttermilk; and Bobbi – coconut.  So, each cake and frosting was just a little bit different.

We had a great time!  Ali ended up reigning as Bakeoff Bitch Queen AGAIN!  I think I came closer than I have in years past, but I just couldn’t pull it off! I’m guessing I lost nearly all of my points in the “Appearance” column! Ali and Emily’s cakes were very pretty – and mine actually fell down at one point! Oh well! We still had a great time – and I am not giving up on my recipe – I LOVED it and can’t wait to give it another shot!

Congrats, Ali! Don’t feel bad – next year has got to be “my” year!