The Golden Beater

A slightly less blue movie title would be ‘The Golden Whisk’ I suppose. But, call it what you will, I won it! It is not the best picture, but that is me in the middle, flanked by the managing director of Dufflets and someone from CityTVs breakfast television.

Their names are not important, although Daniele from Dufflets was charming. What matters is what is in my hand and that my gingery pear pie won the 2011 Beach Bake Off! And I don’t mean in just the pie category either. My perfectly flaky, still warm, amazingly browned crusted treasure walked all over the cakes, cookies and loaves!

While I will need to have my own plaque made to attach to the base, the golden whisk of happiness is mine! Encouragement from IronMan saw me rise at 7:00 to enter my first baking competition. An hour to make, an hour to bake, two hours to cool, one quick trip up the street to the Corpus Christi Church and it was game on.

Admittedly I was nervous. I envisioned an army of Stepford Wives arriving in hummers and high-end SUVs with goods baked by their live in Mary Poppins’. Oh how I sighed when I saw a ragtag band of mothers, each with at least two, remora like parasitic children sucking the life out of them.

My panic then became one of the pinched nose variety, what if pear and ginger was too much for this crowd? Had I gone too far? Luckily I had vetoed the green tomato pie and opted for what I thought was a beach area appropriate entry.

Dufflet Daniele said she was concerned that the ginger would overpower the pears but that I had achieved “the perfect balance”. BAM! That was all I needed. When Jonathan reached for the trophy, my nails dug into the arm of IronMan, my pulse quickened and then I heard my name, announced by the Triangle Area’s event MC, MadDog from Virgin Radio!

Snaps for me! The rest of the pie was sliced up and sold to raise money for the crohn’s foundation. For a little taste test of my own, I bought an oatmeal raisin cookie (great taste, still soft ~ my biggest competition), a slice of vanilla (from a box) cake and a piece of banana loaf (a stitch too dry).

Like ‘The Event’ from earlier in the summer, I mustn’t let this go to my head and I won’t be speaking of it again for one needs to keep an eye on the real prize. The Beach Bake Off was just a precursor, a warm-up if you will, to next weekend’s Beeton Fall Fair.

If all goes well, the Fall Fair circuit will fill my retirement days when they arrive ~ come on lotto 6/49! I will start slowly over the next few years and, hopefully, build a ‘best in show’ reputation for my blue ribbon creations. Look out Beeton, here I come!