Show Time

We were late getting up to the show. By the time we arrived it was pouring with rain and many (people, tractors, animals!) were heading home early. We made straight for the Industrial Tent to escape the weather, and, of course, to see how our entries had fared.

On entering the tent the first things I noticed were the vegetable animals. Not a category any of us had entered, perhaps we'll have a go next year...

Next I spotted the photos...

There were two categories. I'd entered two photos in the landscape/flora section, and three in the people/animals section.

I was pretty gobsmacked to see I'd won 1st & 2nd, and 1st, 2nd & 3rd! The judge must have the same eye for a picture as I do.

Next up, the scones. I did get up early to make a new batch, and as far as I was concerned they were fine, but they were beaten by at least five other offerings and so didn't win anything. They're centre top in the above photo.

Now to my favourtite:- chocolate cake. I tweaked the recipe I'd used the previous year, iced it with a butter icing instead of a chocolate bar based one, used a square tin and...

 ...got first prize! Hurrah, my first ever baking win at the show.

The next category I'd entered was a new one for this year and involved some fancy decorating as well as just good baking. Normally I'm not too fussed about cake decoration - I'd rather have a plain looking but good tasting cake than one that looks great but disappoints on taste. I decided to try for a natural but elegant look and didn't want to just buy decorations so I sugar coated some (edible) flowers and leaves from the garden (viola flowers and mint leaves).

 Tada! I was ridiculously chuffed with how these looked.

 They also won first prize.

 Moving along...

My next entry involved using up more of the rhubarb glut from the garden...

...to make rhubarb shortbread earlier in the week which I'd then frozen. It didn't defrost terribly well - the topping became very sticky and gooey. It got a commended ticket (ie 5th place)

Next a fruit loaf. I always double up the recipe to make two loaves, one to keep. I forgot to double the number of eggs I used this time. I don't think that was the problem here though. My loaf (top centre) is too pale, I need a richer, fruitier recipe. No placing.

Tablet, first prize! I tweaked my trusty old recipe, it seemed to make a difference. Of course, the judging is all subjective and different people like different things. The judges seemed to be on my side this year.

More of the rhubarb I'd mentioned earlier.

 Jamming.

Highly commended (4th) for the rhubarb and ginger jam, and 1st prize for last September's bramble jelly.

When I saw these beautiful butterfly cushions for the canvas work category I reckoned they'd beat my orange tree cushion, but the judges seemed to think otherwise. Another 1st prize.

I had high hopes though for my turtle blanket and crescent moon shawl. There is no specific crochet category so they ended up in the "all other crafts" category. A third for the blanket and nothing for the shawl.

Tent interior view.

It was such a shame the weather was so bad. We had literally just arrived when the organisers started announcing the prizes so that everybody could get home early. I didn't really get a good look at all the other goodies in the tent, not to mention seeing a single sheep/cow/tractor/horse (or ice cream!). There's always next year...

So five baking/jam firsts, a few other mentions, plus all the photo prizes.

The first prizes are donated by various people, second prize is £2, and third is £1. The children like to win 2nd & 3rd as they like winning money. Talking of which...

A got 2nd prize for her owl which she made during our felt owl frenzy last December. Here it is with her ticket given pride of place on her noticebeard.

She also got a highly commended for her Olympic themed drawing.

This morning we had some left over scones with the newly opened rhubarb and ginger jam. Well, the other jams must have been fabulous because this jam is lovely, I think!

Something I didn't mention: each competitor's points are tallied up and the person with the most points wins the Challenge Cup...

Much to my surprise, this year it was me! I was only trying to beat my friends who'd also entered, I didn't think I'd end up winning the whole thing.

I had some chocolate cake to celebrate!

By the way, in taking baking photos in a messy kitchen and trying not to capture the mess, I've discovered that holding up the item and photographing it in macro mode with a flash makes the background nice and black which is good for highlighting the object.

And another thing... I'd not been looking forward to the bag-packing we were involved with on Saturday morning, but it turned out to be good fun. I had a great checkout operator, he was very popular with his customers and had an excellent line of patter. Over the whole day we raised over £700 thanks to the generous shoppers of M&S Braehead.