Hello- I want to enter a cake in our local county fair. I am fairly new at all this cake decorating and I love it but still learning. I know that if you use butter cream and if you attache royal icing flowers, they will eventually start ot disentegrate from the grease. Will they last long enough to get to the judging and the run of fair? Should I use the marshmallow fondant? Or do I try to make a dummy cake? Thank you for your help
Hey anoldhippy, the royal icing flowers will soften over time, but can stay on there at least 3 days as far as I know. The cakes I have had with them don't last longer than that. Of course, I haven't been doing this very long either. Hope it goes well for you. Good luck.
If the cake is not for tasting, don't use butter, use all shortening. It will be stronger and crust a bit. that will prevent the royal from melting.
Also, many competitions REQUIRE dummy cakes. In that case you definitely want an all shortening icing- much better results and more stable.
Most competitions require that you use all dummy supplies which must be edible.Example...anything you use on the cake for embelishmnet must be edible but the styrofoam dummies are not required to be.If the cake is going to be on display for any lenghth of time,you can't have perishable product on them for safety of the public and health.
If you are allowed a dummy cake....go with that. It will give you more time to work on your cake. If you feel comfortable covering your cake in fondant....that would give you even more time...and remember that the fondant does not have to be as thin as it would on a regular cake. I entered my first contest last April and I worked on my cake for a couple of weeks prior which definitely took some of the pressure off.
Good luck and let us know if we can help!
Hi,
I wanted to add that depending on how long the cake has to be on display, the colors made fade quite a lot. I did one for my State Fair last year on a dummy cake with all Crisco buttercream. It was stored in a glass cabinet the run of the fair ( 3+ wks) but after just one week the colors had faded so much it was almost pale. Some people did use real cakes and sadly they were a disaster within a week and had to be taken out of the display cases. Be sure to check if the rules specify real or dummy cakes. Go with the dummy if you can.
Some of the cakes were covered in fondant and those were fine as were those with royal icing. It was obvious which ones were real cakes because like I mentioned, they were falling apart, had cracks and looked awful after about a week. Now that could have happened for reasons other than sitting out like lack of skill or falling, dropping or something like that too.
Another thing I thought I'd mention from my own experience was that I had no idea what kind of calibur of decorators would even enter their cakes at the State Fair. I personally never looked at those exhibits before last year and boy was I surprised. Not because I was blown away by the competiton either. More so because of lack of competition. I was thinking mine wouldn't be near as good as anyone elses because I was thinking of all the awesome decorators I see here at CC and how I so wish I was that good. Plus I figured if you even enter, you "must" know something about cake decorating to want to have you work out for literally thousands of people to see. Guess not everyone thinks like me.
Frankly, and not to be rude but I'd venture to say that 90% of the cakes entered were awful looking. I would have been totally embarrassed to enter anything like that in any competition. Granted, I have no idea who entered what , their age or skill level but it wasn't hard to tell that most of them looked like a child did them. ( sorry if that sounds mean but I was just so shocked) Later I found out there was a children's category and some of those were actually quite a lot better than some of the ones entered by adults.
One last thing, and again from my own experience. I didn't know how the judging worked until after it was over. Turns out everyone who entered got a ribbon of some color but I have no idea what the criteria was. There were categories though. I did end up winning in my category which of course thrilled me beyond belief! ( my first ever competition) And at the risk of sounding snobby, it wasn't hard to see why I won. There just wasn't any competiton.
Sorry to write a novel on that but I hope that give you some insight on what to expect.
KimAZ
Hi Arnoldhippy,
County and State Fairs are so exciting.. I entered the State Fair Cake Show last year for the very first time, and I got Blue Ribbon, Best of Show, Best of Class and Best of Division. My entry was a real cake. Since it was judged on taste.
Last month I entered in the County Fair Cake Show and I got second. This time it was a dummy since it was judged on looks.
This August I will again be entering in the State Fair. I hope I will win again. But we'll see. Both of my entries were Fondant.. Fondant really is a survivor besides that it's beautiful, esp. now that summer is upon us.
We got specific instructions as to what time of the day we should deliver them. Real cakes will not be returned, for health reasons.
Some judgments are not open to the public. People can only see them after they are judged and are on display 'til whenever. I wish you all the luck in the world. Please let us know how you did. Win or loose, you are a winner to us. It takes courage to be in a competitions. It motivates me to be more creative. Good luck 
You all are so nice to offer your help. I am excited about entering my cake in the Fair (I've entered my homemade wine in the L.A. County Fair and won bronze twice). I only took up to class 2 thru Wilton but my instructor told 2 of us that we should enter a cake in the fair, that there aren't that many entries and we both did well. So...........if I can learn about Fondant before Sept, then I will make a dummy cake, with fondant and royal icing flowesr. Again, thank you so much for your help and like the Governer of my State says..."I'll be back"...with more questions
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