Help Please?? Want To Enter Cake In Fair
Decorating By janicemarie Updated 9 Oct 2006 , 2:23pm by janicemarie
I have been searching, drawing looking at books pics etc...I'm going crossed eyed. I want to enter a cake in our county fair and I can't make any decision...I can't decide what category cake to do...or if I want to incorporate the theme into the cake I need to get started on practicing my ideas but I can't make a decision 
the theme is clowning around in a textile town. I can't even decide how big to make the cake since I've never done this before. any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks to all.
What are the catagories you an choose from?
And do you give out samples at the fair?
I just want to enter the decorating division. no tasting. anniversary, birthday, childrens birthday, holiday, miscellaneous, novelty, wedding(don't want to do this one) then Best cake that represents theme of Fair....we're mostly in cotton mill, fabric, carpet textiles
Based on my experience, the fair does not allow handing out of
food samples . When I entered in the State Fair in the past two years, one strict rule was no one is allowed to taste any of the entries except the judges.
You are going to be there as a participant and not to sell. They do not return any entries, except bottled food. All the baked goods entries that have been in their possesion will be thrown out, if they return it and you eat it and you get sick, they can be sued.
If this is strictly decorating or tasting ? if it's decorating and no tasting, then a dummy is the best one to do. 
Hope this doesn't sound too weird....lol. What I am picturing is a stacked cake...3 tiers....on the top ...a cotton field and a clown picking cotton...sitting in the middle of the field etc....then on the next tier those big wire cage like things that the picked cotton goes in before it goes to the mill or gin...or whatever it goes to next.....clowns around them...either made out of fondant or butter cream....and then on the bottom tier, clowns staning around the edge of the 2nd tier with bolts of fabric unrolling over the sides of the bottom tier....bolts of fabric are made out of fondant and hand painted or dyed. Dont' know if that is more involved than you wanted....you could pipe or paing a kind of fair theme around that bottom tier.....balloons, tents etc...just an idea.
One suggestion would be to make a cake that looks like a bed, with a nice quilt on it, and maybe a childs clown like doll. That should incorporate the theme of the fair. This could may be a sheet cake with some smaller rectangle cakes on top to form the bed, and you could turn it into a childs room, complete with carpeting.
Or maybe a big top with small fondant clowns outside pulling different type handkerchief out of their pockets.
I really do not know how you would "clown around in a textile town", OOOH maybe you could do a lot of clowns parading in different types of clothes.
Hope I have been helpful.
I was wondering about using cake dummies...there isn't anything in the book AT ALL so is it just assumed that you can use the dummies in the decoration division?
I know in our competition at the fair in Tulsa - the Oklahoma Sugar Arts show that you can use a dummy, but everything that you do has to be able to recreated using cake. May be a quick call to the coordinators would be help ful.
LOL I've lived here all my life and I'm having trouble with the theme...
I had been thinking about a 3 layered "scene" cake too representing different things....a cotton plant is not a very pretty thing....maybe whimsical since it's clowns???? keep the ideas coming .....
If you are unsure, you can make a fruit cake inside (they last for EVER, scary) and no filling. You can glue fondant on with apricot glaze.
As far as the theme goes, if you make a fruit cake, you will have loads of time to work on the cake - you can make a cotton field with little gumpaste guys/gals working the field!
Or make lots of fondant fabrics (use impression matts or anything you can find) and drape them onto your cake!
so a whimsical cake with all the decorations looking like textile...then have clowns hanging all around it ...and maybe the "hat" be the top tier?
this is why I am so addicted to this site...
it's the people. you guys are so great the creative juices on this site are amazing! and eveyone shares so freely thank you so much...I think I will definately try the theme...would you believe I've never made a fruit cake (ON PURPOSE) that's a great idea I found a number to call but I like working with real cake better so maybe I will try the fruit cake....
so a whimsical cake with all the decorations looking like textile...then have clowns hanging all around it ...and maybe the "hat" be the top tier?
you can have clown feet "peeking" from the bottoms of some tiers..lol
Got a question.... At our county fair (San Diego), the food arts building is not air conditioned! only the novices enter just to find out their decorations and frostings have slide right off their cakes into a collective puddle of goo on the floor and tables because of the heat. I'd find this out first before committing! I'd hate to put a lot of effort into even thinking of an idea for a cake just to find this out! Good luck.
I was thinking of bolts of fabric, rolls of carpets.... and stacking them in fun shapes to make a clown playground out of those things.
The carpet roll would be cute to have it unrolling and a clown tumbling down the length of it like he was doing handsprings. And then have that "roll of carpet" rolling down the side of the cake.
This way you wouldn't have to do a stacked cake - but something a bit more untraditional in construction.
Thanks to everyone who replied to my post. I took my cake to the fair today.....I'll find out tomorrow. when I was trying to do a kids birthday cake while trying to incorporate the fair's theme....
The cake is awesome!! I hope it does wow the judges!!!
The ONLY thing missing was the "TEXTILE" theme..you could've made the clowns clothing with a pattern that comes from the factory...or thrown some blankets on the wagons to incorporate the "textile theme" but aside from that small..little bitty detail...
The cake kicks....BUTT!
you probably can't tell from the picture but the little bear is holding a blanket, the whole thing is on a rug (which is several of our local textile plants product) and on the clowns hat is a tag that says "Made in USA" when I took it in one of the ladies said "this is a theme cake isn't it?" so I di a little anyway. it was a very hard theme to incorporate....thanks for the comments...I'm trying not to worry about it (ha ha)
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