I did notice one thing that you said. You said that it was a fondant only category, but you also said that you put gumpaste butterflies on the cake. Could you have been deducted points because of this? I do agree that both your cakes are superior to the cross cake, but if you didn't follow the categories restrictions this could be why you were awarded second place. Just a thought. I would enter again. Your cakes are lovely.

Even though I have been in similar situations I still enter the county fairs. Hey, just enter w/the idea you are doing this for yourself. For the practice, &/or another album entry, to keep cake decorating ideas out there for the public to see etc.

One yr, in CA, the 'judges' were the editors of local, small town newspaper's women's page! They refused to believe my royal icing fans were icing - they were *sure* they were plastic
Another yr I made long strands (about 3-4 ft long) of gp ivy leaves that I draped from top of 3 tier cake to bottom. I happened to know the volunteer acepting the entries and asked her to tell the judges that the decorations were gp; she said "just a minute" and took off to the other side of the room, bringing a women back w/her. "Tell her" she sayes to me so I tell this women and she replies to me "NOTHING UNedible EVER goes on MY cakes!!" in a very snooty way. (the gp leaves were on floral wire to make up the long strands.) That cake placed 3rd and **there were NO other entries** LOL

"Must have been a bunch of Republicans judging". Funny!!

My daughter did competitive dance for 10 years, every major competition, same kids (dance instructors daughter, dance instructors daughters friends) would win outstanding dancer to get scholarships for another competition, baseball, coaches kid always gets to go to all star game. Unfortunately, stuff like this happens all the time, sad for the people who work so hard and dont get rewarded. Your cakes look great, the one who won knows this too, so how much can you enjoy an award when you know the others cake was far superior? As a previous poster stated, enter to give yourself exposure, everyone who looked at your cake validated your feelings, you won in their eyes!

ok, perhaps cross cakes are all the rage where you entered, lol, well it was nice, but I would very nicely speak with the judges, your painted flowers are truly beautiful, I'm not a professional, but I paint beautiful flowers, would that disqualify me? Maybe you can enter a cross cake next year, have your neighbor enter it, ha ha, and decorate it with old fashion flowers (which can be beautiful). ok, let me be quiet, Seriously, I have a problem with the second place ribbon that they gave you and I would address this with them, good luck, nice cakes, I would enter again and keep my name on them but have someone else deliver them and see what happens.

that cross has nothing on your cakes! seriously! it must have been a relative of the judges for it to get first place.

our county fair is coming so maybe I should make a cross cake. Apparently owls are taboo. They are creatures of the night, too scary!

But yours is darling! Keep your chin up, gal! Nice job!

Hmm, this isn't right. I've entered county fairs for years as I am a ribbon junkie and never have been treated as unfairly as you were.

Lodge an official complaint with the local country fair board. If you do not get satisfaction, contact your local paper as this would make an interesting story. Especially since it sounds as though there is something fishy going on.

(You know, next year you should make a protest or statement cake. A big carved hunk of Blue Cheese and a few rats. might do it.)

Or a Depends diaper cake.

Thank you everyone for your support. I know I was wronged...and yeah it's just the county fair, but it's still like a slap in the face. Anyway...I called the fair offices a little while ago and told them that I wanted to lodge a complaint about the judges. They took all of my information and said that they would give it to the lady that supervises the Home Arts section of the fair. We will see if she calls me back.

You realize that you have now inspired me to enter a cake in my local county fair now so I can see how all this works for myself...right?

The first time entering a local country fair, I made a carousel cake....... the floor of the carousel rotated...... the top had working lights.... it had nearly 1000 handmade flowers....... The only thing that was even close enough to beat it was a beautiful three tier wedding cake...... People actually took pictures of it....EVERYONE was talking about the FANTASTIC cake this year. ( Good cake, but hardly fantastic ! LOL) At any rate there was NO doubt in anyone's mind that THIS cake was the grandprize winner..... http://cakecentral.com/gallery/855143
NOPE...... a DID get a blue ribbon, but the winner was a doll cake with a first year star tip skirt....... no one could believe it...... I mean if the wedding cake had won, I would have said " GOOD JOB"...... but she didn't either !

Next year, I tried again with a Hat Box cake...... http://cakecentral.com/gallery/1248937

Another REALLY bad cake won, and I haven't gone back....... I am NOT a professional...... FAR from it...... there are flaws in both of these entries, and you can see them if you look hard......... I will say there was only ONE judge for all the cakes...... I"m thinking she was pretty tired, but COME ON !! LOL! Live and learn........

I don't understand why the cross cake beat your owl cake, that's insane.

But regarding the 2nd place ribbon, you must not have earned enough points for the first. It's not unheard of for judges not to award a ribbon at all if only one cake has been entered.

The only thing I can see which would knock off points is the fact you haven't covered your board. Judges like the board to be covered (for example in fondant) and then a ribbon to be attached. I'm not sure if that is a judging criteria for county fairs but it is for the larger competitions.

I had a similar experience at my county fair a couple of years ago, and I will not put myself through that again. It really hurts the fair in the long run, people see the same folks winning and give up trying to compete.

LisaPeps, last year I entered my own local county fair. I was the only cake, I got first place blue ribbon, division category rosette, overall creative arts award rosette and a baby blue supervisors award ribbon that I have never ever seen before on anything! Four ribbons one cake.

Truly, if you are the only entry you should not get penalized by second place if your cake merits first as that would truly be unfair.

Yes that would be unfair, but the question is does the cake merit first place?

In the UK they use Gold, Silver, Bronze, Highly Commended etc.... if there was only one cake in the competition but the skill level wasn't difficult or completed well enough for the Gold award then they would get a Silver/bronze etc... depending on the skill level. They wouldn't turn around and say 'You got Gold by default because you were the only entrant, but usually you would have won a Silver'

It would have been helpful if the judges left their judging criteria or insight into the reasoning on the comment card.

I was trying to provide some insight into maybe why the cake didn't win the 1st place.

Sorry didn't have time to read all the posts. I have a question... Were all 3 cakes in the professional category? or was the cross in the Adult Amateur? In some state fairs they do NOT give ribbons to Professional category only to Junior and Adult Amateur. Last year i was totaly upset because mine did not get the Grand champion but the ugly one next to mine did... Well it was not in the same category.... This year they changed it and i got Both grand champion and reserve
There are so many classes and sections etc. that its a bit hard to tell which belongs in which. I definitely think that could have happen in your case because your cakes are AWSOME!

Noone has talking about the fact that one of your cakes was a dummy cake. All fair exhibits that I have entered judged on the cake as well as creativity and appearance for an award placement.

Most will also not award 1st simply because you are the only entry.

@grama_j and others, I have never entered a cake contest, but Im a repaint artist and used to belong to a doll group, I entered my gorgeous doll (yes, it was artist quality-i GOT ZILCH, 0, NADA, A NEGATIVE TO THE FAAAR LEFT, well, although entries were anonymous, even I , a newbie could tell who entered what, most were atrocious, yet members said, over and over, "gorgeous, breathtaking, well, I stopped entering, even on their blog the only members who obtained responses were the same ones over and over, enough said, in all fairness judjing is very subjective, grama_j, your cakes are very nice, I wish we could see the ones that won,
I say if you are thick skinned keep entering, if not just be a bystader,

I'm expecting to enter my local fair for the first time (for cakes). There are two main categories: cakes to be eaten and judged on their flavor, texture, etc. You enter half a Bundt cake or half an 8-inch 2 layer with no filling and no or minimal frosting (which they explain).

The other main category is cake decorating. This is limited to three tiers and 16 inches in greatest dimension. The "cake" can be made out of anything, so long as it could be made as a real cake--styrofoam, cardboard boxes, etc. You could use spackle for spreading and piping or whatever you could come up with that looks like a real cake and *could* be done with edible materials.

There are several categories such as youth, adult amateur, semi-pro, pro, etc. and all of those are precisely defined.

There were only two cakes entered in decorating last year and I thought they were fairly judged. It will be interesting to see how the judging goes this year.

I've decided on my cake (edible) and I have two ideas for decorating that are rattling around in my head. I must decide by Saturday morning....... If I actually get them accomplished and entered by the deadline, I'll let you know how I did.

One of the fairs I enter has questionable judging. Last year the 2nd and 3rd place winners were appalling (although the first place was truly deserving of the win). The judges are very vocal about their dislike of fondant and so a poorly done buttercream cake will win over a beautifully executed fondant cake. It just is what it is. This will be my third and final (regardless of outcome) year of entering.

Oh, and BTW, I'm an "older" woman who makes modern cakes; the judges at this particular fair are one "older" woman and two in their thirties. And I'm a Democrat. Just saying.

From my own experience in local fairs, the judges are NOT even cake decorators, don't know diddley squat about decorating and have no judging criteria to go by whatsoever. I was told outright one year that the lady who who was in charge of the sewing entries judged the cakes. WHAT?!?

At our county and state fairs, there is no judging criteria at all. Knowing that " Betty the sewing lady" or " Joe the farmer" was a judge makes me mad! The lady in charge of the whole culinary arts dept literally made up stuff as she went along when I questioned how the judging was done.

Don't expect anything fair or even remotely right at fairs. I will admit that I've won every time I've entered but knowing that it's not "real" judges and knowing that most other entries were "slap some frosting on a sheet cake and add sprinkles", it doesn't make me feel as good as if I'd had real competition and actual critiques that were relevant.

Having said that, I've also entered cake shows and had completely insane judging with actual cake decorators as judges. It's a shame. I actually did volunteer to judge the last local show simply because I am sick of it being so unfair.

Don't let this discourage you! Keep going!

KimAZ

I haven't read all the comments but I had something like this happen to me a year ago. I entered a Sputnik cake contest (one that I had won the previous year). They have the cakes numbered so the judges didn't "know" who's was who's but I think they knew. There was one of our city officials on the board of judges and we had gone to him about opening a cake bakery out of our home... he told us we couldn't without even listening to our reasons and blah blah, really ticked me off. Well, great the jerk was on the board of judges and sure enough... I got 3rd place! I made an R2D2 cake with rice krispie legs & even a working led tilting light in his head. The cake that won was all buttercream, sloppily done and very 2D. It had STARS all over it (like with the star tip)... serious elementary cake decorating skills there. The 2nd place cake was a fondant covered 3 tier cake, it was nice but definitely not as difficult as mine either. It's just not fair.

I'm entering our county fair in less than a week and I made an Alice in Wonderland 5 tier topsy turvy cake. I swear, if I don't get first place I will let them know what I think. It's been too much work to get a measly ribbon

Tea42 - In two different counties that I have entered they did not want real cakes in the decorated cake entries. They list Styrofoam or box. So dummies work in my neck of the woods.

Elcee - ME TOO! I'm an "older" woman who makes modern cakes; and I'm also a Democrat. LOL
Edited to add: This is just a funny statement and I love Republicans as I am married to one ......don't want to offend any CCer's out there.

Anyway after reading all the posts, I am thinking what it really gets down to is many of us are all looking at getting honest judging and a true competition perhaps with divisions. And judges notes for improvement or compliments. Too bad many of us live so far away from many of the cake club contests. And in my neck of the woods the ICES competition is for employees of bakerys only, and many of us would not fit that category