Yay for us!

So, this weekend was very fun for us at the Chocolate Lovers Festival in Fairfax. As you may have read previously, we entered a cake in the Chocolate Challenge to be judged by famed cakers Norman Davis and Zane Beg (check them out at http://www.thesweetlife.com/). It was so neat to meet them because I have watched them compete on the Food Network in many challenges and win! It was intimidating to know our work would be judged by people who really know all about cake and are stars in the field!We sketched our design about a month ago and began working on some of the details on Monday night of last week. We worked a marathon 10 hours Thursday night to finishe the cake and took it to City Hall in Fairfax Friday night. We also had to include a tasting cake for the judges as this was not only a decorating contast but a taste one as well. When we finished our cake, we knew we had a solid entry and felt that no matter what happened, we put our best foot forward. We also did not know how stiff the competition would be. We arrived Saturday morning for the judging and waiting with anticipation for them to announce the winners. We were competing in the amateur category and we had 9 other cakes in the category with us. There were only 3 in the professional category. Well, we were so excited when we saw them place the first place Best in Show ribbon beside our cake. A few minutes later they placed a second ribbon by our cake for Best in Taste! We were so elated!

Lorne asked Norman Davis what the judging criteria was and how we won. Norman said that we had more techniques on our cake and that we had executed them well and that was what helped us win. So yay for us!