Day 3: And the winner is…

Rebecca Woodard from Harp's Food Stores in Lincoln, Ark.

I thought about drawing out the suspense a bit more, but figured you'd just scroll down to see who won first anyway. Tina Lofthus from Town & Country Markets in Poulsbo, Wash. placed second and Sara Vanderheyden finished third. Now that the competition is over, I guess I can reveal that I was secretly rooting for Sara and it was for purely non-decorating reasons. She's from my home state and I spent several years in high school and college working for Hy-Vee. (I was one of the helpful smiles in every aisle. I'm not even sure the company uses that tagline anymore. I may have just dated myself.)

Anyway, back to the cakes. All three decorators can be very proud of the high caliber of cakes they created. Every year the competition seems to produce better and better cakes. I'm sure plenty of the attendees went home with new ideas to incorporate into their decorating line up. I would describe some of Rebecca's award-winning cakes, but like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, and you can see them better than I could ever describe them. And, I've got a plane to catch!