From a Mother's Perspective...

(The following is a narrative composed by my mom about this past week's exciting events that started in the kitchen and culminated last night with the auction of the top five cakes from the contest)

Skippy's Goshen Country Fair Hershey's Cocoa Cake won first place on Thursday night.  She was all by herself in our kitchen and could actually focus without interruption.  The entry had to be an original cake, with recipe submitted... and it needed a name, so before she delivered it to the judges, one of the kids suggested Raspberry Patch (there were two round layers, split in half - one layer I think had raspberries and cream filling, the others were a ganache frosting)....but the top was covered with fresh raspberries, with fresh mint leaves from out front around the edge of the top.  The whole effect was really cool.
And the Lord blessed.

We found out that the five top cakes from Thursday night are put out to Auction on Friday night as a fund raiser for the Goshen Fire Company, starting with fifth place.  The crowd began to grow as the auctioneer on the bandstand held up the cake and called out, "Who will give me ten?  Ten Dollars for this fine cake."  I mean it could have been right out of a movie.  One of the kids looked around at all the rides, the hub-bub, and oodles of dogs, with owners, there to vie for first place in the second annual Dog Show.... and said it reminded them of Charlotte's Web when Templeton overdid at the fair.

Anyway, the first cake was a hit and went for $18.50.  The second cake looked great, too, also some kind of chocolate and raspberry combination, the auctioneer said... It got over twenty dollars.  Now the third cake was a mix of chocolate and peanut butter and the crowd suddenly grew and really came alive - there was actually a bidding war - and the cake went for $35.  The fourth cake had white icing over chocolate cake, but I was only thinking about how was I going to be able to try and bid for Skip's cake, where I should be standing, etc... that I never heard the final amount. 



Suddenly, the auctioneer had the foil covered cardboard with Skip's raspberry, mint, and chocolate cake up to start.... I think the guy was on a roll, so he took a chance and started the bidding at twenty dollars.  I thought that that's asking a lot for a cake.  But suddenly, twenty was a distant memory and another bidding war was in full swing.... over thirty, to forty, fifty, sixty, even seventy... when I heard the auctioneer shout, 'Now who will give me Seventy five dollars?'  I was so out of the competition and Skip had assured me that she could always bake another one... good thing because not only did someone bid $75, but the bids kept coming fast & furiously.  At the very end, Skip's cake took in $127 for the Fire Company... one man bought it for cash.  I got to say Hi and when I asked him about the huge bid, he simply said that he likes raspberries and that the auctioneer had made a mistake - that the other cake was not raspberries, but strawberries.  :-)

So Skip will now officially represent Goshen Country Fair at the PA State Farm Show Hershey's Bake Off in January in Harrisburg.

Yes, I am her proud mother.  :-)