As I believe I have mentioned before, it is my mother who first got me started in competitive cooking.
At the age of nine, I found myself old enough to join 4-H, which meant that besides making the obligatory triangular fringed poncho for a sewing project, I could now enter the Cake Show.
Mom always planned early for the Cake and Egg Show which was in November of each year and held at the county fairgrounds. Trying to pull off the perfect cake, get ready for the holidays and corral two adolescent girls in the kitchen created a bit of stress. The prize money was never an issue for mom. (As I recall, we might have won a whole $5 for first place.) I think for my mother, it was a matter of pride that her daughters could cook, and she wanted to show the world (or at least the county) that she had taught us well. I think that is true for us, too. We wanted to make mom proud, screw the blue ribbons.
A few year’s back, mom moved off the family farm and as we were going through thirty years of accumulated “stuff,” I ran across an old tin recipe box. I asked if I could take it. When I got home, I found a treasure trove of old recipes, including the famous “Cake Show Pound Cake.”
“Cake Show Million Dollar Pound Cake”
1 lb. margarine, softened (I now use unsalted butter.)
3 c. sugar
6 eggs
3/4 c. milk
4 c. flour
1/2 t. vanilla
1/2 t. almond extract
Cream margarine and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat well after each. Add flour alternately with milk and flavorings. Beat one minute at high speed. Pour batter into greased and floured angel food pan. (You can also use two loaf pans.) Bake at 300 degrees for 2 hours. Cool in pan and do not invert.
Note: At the bottom of the recipe, this is typed in:
Senior Division includes any 4-H boys and girls who are 13 years of age or older on January 1, 1980.
Junior Division includes any 4-H boys and girls who are 13 years of age on January 1, 1980.
It also lists the time for the “Senior Share-the-Fun Program” (which I recall really not being that fun), as well as the time that poultry, turkeys and ducks could be released from the show.
I wonder if there still is a Cake and Egg Show in the county that I grew up in and if 4-H “boys and girls” still enter “Million Dollar Pound Cakes.”
Is this self rising flour, or all purpose flour? Thanks!
All purpose.
This is so cool! So it won first place? Or was that another recipe that won? Yeah, prize money isn’t the best but it’s better now…but maybe not when you take inflation into account. First place for a cake at our fair is $15, but it is less for the junior foods contests so it may not have improved much. You asked how much I won, I got a total of $162 this year but I have to wait on $50 of it to come in the mail directly from the sponsor for the heritage recipes contest (oatmeal candy). Next year I might concentrate more on the big-paying contests b/c I spent so many hundreds on gas and ingredients and not being wealthy, I need to try to win more money if I’m going to spend so much! We have several contests that pay up to $250 for first place, but of course they’re a lot more work (like bread baskets).
That is so cool that you entered everything. We ALL had to use this same recipe to try to even the playing field. LOL. It was so long ago, I don’t remember how we placed. I would like to remember that I got a blue ribbon at some point!