Competitions and tears.

What a hectic morning!  First thing we (M & I - K wasn't up!) went to deliver our church's Autumn Fayre Bake Off entries, which we'd spent the majority of yesterday working on.  Then it was back home for a short while, before heading back for the Autumn Fayre, which opened at 10am, via the farmers' market because we wanted to give a piece of my entry (these chocolate brownies) to Barry, because he was bemoaning the fact that nobody ever bakes for him and he's been very helpful with advice )as well as having *very* good chocolates!).  It was his wife there though this time, instead of him, but she promised to try to resist eating it herself and pass it on to him and did say that it's true nobody ever bakes for him because he's just so good at it himself!

It was packed at church but fun and the girls and I all spent some money on various tombolas and other bits and pieces and then started getting a little bit stressed.  The cause of our stress was that the judging for the bake off was happening upstairs and was due to be completed by 10.30am when we could go and see the entries, which would then be up for sale, but by 10.45 we still weren't allowed upstairs and M had a ballet lesson at 11 a 10 minute walk away!  Finally at about 10.50 we were allowed in and found that all three of us had a rosette by our entries, K & I with a 'Well done' and M with 'Highly Commended'.  I quickly, at the insistence of K & M, bought their entries back again before dashing off with M to get her to ballet just a little bit late, leaving K at the fayre with a friend's mum keeping an eye on her.

Once I'd returned and located K, she and I went back upstairs to have another look at the bake off entries and K noticed that although all of the adults' entries had a small piece cut out of them, the children's ones didn't and so realised that the children's entries had been judged on appearance alone.  She got extremely upset at this, pointing out (quite correctly in my view, and the view of some of the judges of the adult categories who we spoke to, who had pointed that out to those judging the children's competition) that you can't fairly judge a cake competition without tasting them!  A couple of the judges were still around fortunately and were happy to taste some of K's creation and they also filled out a judging form, giving her a score that would have given her a 'highly commended' had it been in the adult competition.  The making of the gingerbread was a bit of a team effort, but the cutting out, assembling and decorating was done with very little help.  Next year, I am going to suggest they chose something to do that they can do completely on their own, I think their choice will probably depend on whether we watch The Great British Bake Off and if so what they do on there!

K's gingerbread thatched cottage with it's bear owner and his toy rabbit

M's gingerbread thatched cottage with it's triceratops owner

This afternoon, I am baking again, as it's A's birthday tomorrow and he's requested a lemon meringue pie, since I mentioned that I made one once while at school and it was rather good!