Bakers’ creativity put to the test in Saturday competition

WASHINGTON - Washington's bakers had their skills put to the test Saturday during a baking competition held over Zoom.

The Washington Free Public Library hosted its first 'bake-off,” where participants competed to see who could design the best-looking cake. Due to the ongoing pandemic, the event was held online, with bakers logging into Zoom to get their assignment and see cakes from other teams.

Washington School Age Librarian Jenisa Harris spearheaded the event. She told participants that they would need to bake two round cake layers ahead of time and let them cool before they received their assignment at 2:30 p.m. Saturday. That's when Harris revealed the bakers needed to decorate their cake in the image of a hedgehog.

The bakers had 45 minutes to complete the task. They had to rely on whatever ingredients they had in their pantry, and all features of the hedgehog had to be edible. Thirty minutes into the contest, Harris dropped another assignment on the bakers: Use their leftover ingredients to make a baby hedgehog.

When time expired, Harris was tasked with picking the best cake. She said all the cakes were so good that it was impossible to choose. Instead, she put the names of every team in a hat and drew one out. The winning team, called 'Cutie Cakes,” received a trophy made of cookie cutters and a goodie bag containing the Pioneer Woman Cookbook as well as ingredients and directions for making a dessert known as 'hot chocolate bombs.”

Harris said she got the idea of doing a baking competition from the immense popularity of television programs such as 'Nailed It!” and 'The Great British Baking Show.” One day, she and her husband brainstormed ideas for a creative date night, and she suggested performing one of the challenges she had seen on one of these shows.

'While we were doing the challenge, I thought, ‘This is a fun program we could do at the library over Zoom,'” Harris said. 'I'm so thrilled how it turned out. Everyone who participated enjoyed themselves. It was a fun afternoon.”

Harris looked through 'Nailed It!” challenges on Pinterest and came upon a hedgehog cake. She thought that would be a funny challenge to give to her bake-off contestants.

'All of the cakes were amazing,” she said. 'I was so impressed with how they turned out.”

Twenty-six people on nine teams competed in Saturday's bake-off. Harris was pleased with the turnout, especially considering it was a new program for the library, and it was conducted over Zoom. She said it went so well that she's looking forward to doing it again, and possibly in-person next time depending on the status of the pandemic.

Jean Frazer loves to bake in her free time, so she was thrilled to learn the library was hosting a baking competition. She even earned the nickname 'Becky Home Ecky” in high school since home economics was her favorite class and she felt so at home in the kitchen. Frazer especially enjoys baking cookies, and she's fond of decorating cakes. She's participated in the cookie-baking contest at Brighton's Whoopee Days several years.

Frazer said she was looking forward to the competition because she likes watching baking shows on TV, and she needed something 'a little unusual” to do. She liked the challenge of having to design a hedgehog. She used pretzels for the spines and peppermint lozenges for the eyes. She cut up a flour tortilla and used that for the snout, then put a Hershey's kiss at the end of it for the little critter's nose.

'I wouldn't say I'm super proud of it,” she said. 'I know it was kind of messy.”

Frazer said that if she does this kind of competition again, she'll either freeze the cake or put a crumb coating on it so that it won't flake so much during frosting. Frazer lives in a cottage at the United Presbyterian Home in Washington, and she plans to share the cake with her neighbors.

For Cris Gaughan, Saturday's competition was a family affair. Her husband, Tom, their two daughters, Anna and Katie, Katie's husband Dylan, and their granddaughters Nora and Amaya all had a hand in crafting their hedgehog.

'It was a group effort, and we had a ball,” Gaughan said. 'As soon as I saw the library was doing this, I called both my girls and said, ‘Let's do this. It sounds like fun.'”

Gaughan and her daughters have taken cake decorating classes before, so this challenge was right up their alley. Plus, they're used to cooking together. They get together once a month to make big dishes and then split them between the families.

Gaughan said the family was pleased with how their hedgehog turned out, though she wishes they had done a double batch to make the cake thicker.

'Considering it was our first time, we were happy with the finished product,” Gaughan said.

The Gaughans used frosted veggie straws for the hedgehog's spines, marshmallows with a walnut in the middle for the nose, and licorice for eyebrows. For the baby hedgehog, they used chocolate chips to depict its tiny spines. A nice touch the family added to their hedgehogs was adding green coloring to coconut to simulate grass they were lying on.

'We would absolutely do this again,” Gaughan said.