The sweet smell of cake-decorating success

Sugary, sweet scents filled the kitchen of the Menard Center last week as homeschool students and their parents put their best cake forward in the 2nd annual Student and Parent Cake Decorating Contest.

Sponsored by Aurora’s Cakery and Bakery, owner Tiffiny Copeland said this year’s contest theme was “Medieval Times” and just like the cake decorating contests on TV, this was also filled with surprises. The 4 teams had just 2 ½ hours to work together to design and create a Medieval Times themed birthday cake. If that weren’t enough, the teams had to create a matching treat table with two different types of treats and designs.

And, for more drama, there was one more twist—they also had a surprise required design element to incorporate into their cakes.

“We both hoping for something to do with princesses, so when we opened up our surprise element, which was rescuing an animal or person in distress, we knew right away it was going to be Rapunzel,” said Kari and Hannah, the Candy Queens team who submitted a replica of the tower Rapunzel lived in until she was rescued.

Once the amateur baking teams planned out their medieval creations, they had the opportunity to use materials such as treats, fillings, molds, fondant, colors, melting chocolate.

“When we were researching, we wanted to do something more girly, so we were thinking royal, and our surprise element was a treasure trove, which worked since we talked about crowns and gold and jewels,” explained mom Katie, who entered with her daughter Olivia Amberson, creating a crown-inspired cake who was quick to add that she got to teach her mom some things about baking and how to pipe frosting.

The only father-son team, dad Jonathan and son Jaxon Copeland, aka “The Jedi Knights,” suffered a minor injury, but quickly overcame it to present a pre-medieval bailey-inspired cake replicating a man-made hill with a palisade around it, and a rough-hewn fence to keep marauders out.

While he loved the history behind the cake, Jaxon said it was also fun. “My mom asked if I wanted to do this with my dad, and I said ‘heck, yeah!’ and it was a lot of fun to just hang out with him,” said Jaxon, who felt theirs was the most historically accurate of all the cakes.

Judge RaeAnne Swanson, who has a background culinary arts education and has worked in food services, said she was looking at communication and teamwork between the teams. “I think the parent-child aspect is really fun. Everybody’s doing pretty well.” She said that she was also looking at whether the entries sacrificed taste for the design when it came to the tasting portion.

Fellow judge Ainsley Emmert, who has her own baking business, said she was most looking forward to the cake pairings and how the teams would incorporate the surprise elements.

“I am really excited to see how they can come up with something on the spot like that.”

“It’s a good way to have them learn and have a new experience,” said Janet, who thought the idea was fun and interesting and agreed to help out.

The final cakes were judged on teamwork, technical difficulty, aesthetics, and consistency of the creations and flavor choices.

When Copeland isn’t baking and decorating desserts and treats, she is busy teaching homeschool kids culinary art baking, caking, and decorating classes at the Menard Center Commercial Kitchen.

“I was so impressed with the diversity in the designs of the creations. Having the required element for each team really forced the cakes into different, unique directions.”

The judges said that deciding a winner was tough and only 1 point separated the teams. In the end, the mother-daughter duo Kim and Kinley Breeden, aka “The Dessert Duo” took this year’s top award with their Dragon-inspired design, a 3-layer iced cake decorated to look like the skin of a dragon, complete with rice-krispy dragon eggs, dragon scale marshmallows, and chocolate sprinkled, double-dipped Oreos.

“She wanted to do only dragons, and it worked out that our surprise element was to include a large dragon,” explained mom Kim about the inspiration behind their cake.

They received a $50 Gift card to Allen and Petersons and a free future class.

“This was a fun girls’ day,” said Kim, adding that her daughter, Kinley was all in after she suggested it. “She said absolutely, let’s do it, then went into the kitchen and started making everything.”

“The range of techniques used by the teams was impressive. It was obvious that everyone in that room, youth and adult, had an idea of how to work with the materials in a variety of ways to create. From chocolate work, to carving cake and crispy, to rolling and molding with fondant,” said Copeland of all the entries.

Plans are in the works for next year’s competition, and Copeland says she might even make the parent-involved competitions 3 hours to allow for more complexity and creativity.

“The complexity of the designs was impressive since each team was a student and a parent. It hurt my soul that each team only had 2 hours because had they all had one more hour, the designs would have been so much more detailed!”

All of the teams said if they could compete next year, they would. And for Copeland, she said it was joyful to watch the students work together with their parent in such a creative way.

“To have overheard so many interactions where the student was teaching the parent a technique they’ve learned in our classes, or, where the student was expressing their ideas for the design and seeing those come to fruition with their parent’s help!”