LAMB'S THRIFTWAY TAKES THE CAKE AT IDDBA'S DECORATING CHALLENGE

Roseanne Harper

MINNEAPOLIS -- Cake decorator Stacy A. Wade, representing Lamb's Thriftway, Wilsonville, Ore., took top honors in the International-Dairy-Deli-Bakery Association's 10th Annual Cake Decorating Challenge.

Second place went to Gwen Kottman, representing a Fry's Marketplace unit, Phoenix, Ariz., and third place to Xiomara Urbina, representing a Publix Super Markets store in Miami, Fla.

The judges had a particularly difficult time choosing between Wade and Kottman for first place, IDDBA Executive Director Carol Christison said at the awards ceremony. The judging involves assigning points to several different facets of cake decorating and merchandising, then adding them up. This year, there was a virtual tie, and a "judge-off" was required.

"I don't know when it has been so tight," Christison said. "The judges had a very difficult time. If we'd had two first-place awards, we would have given them both out. The judging took into account variety, themes, color, uniformity, writing style, use of accessories and how the cakes would display in the store. Each one of these three women has excellent skills and is a champ. After all, they beat out more than 60 entrants just to get here to compete on the show floor."

The on-site competition takes place in a challenging environment, she said.

"Controlling the humidity and temperature in a convention center is extremely difficult," Christison said. "Also, contestants don't have access to unlimited supplies or a grocery shelf that can provide a missing item. And they're competing under time pressure."

First-place winner Wade has been decorating cakes for about eight years, but this was the first time she had ever entered a decorating contest, Wade told SN.

"It was a lot of work. Stressful, but fun. It was a good experience," she said.

The on-the-show-floor competition covered three days. On the first day of the show, contestants decorated a wedding cake. On the second day, they were required to decorate enough cakes to fill an 8-foot bakery case and then merchandise the cakes in the case. On the third day, contestants decorated three cakes of their own choosing, one from each of the following categories: special occasion, theme/event and decorator's choice. The event took place in the Show & Sell merchandising center at the IDDBA Seminar & Expo, with show attendees observing the decorators at work.

Wade's wedding cake featured bold colors, underscoring the trend away from all-white wedding cakes. Tiers, in avocado green and sea blue, were accented with bunches of tiny roses and curls of white chocolate. Her special occasion cake was a "Happy Anniversary" sheet cake with gold and white icing. Wade also crafted a "Home Sweet Home" birdhouse from cake for the decorator's choice entry. Several cakes she featured in the merchandising case were non-traditional shapes, representing other foods, including one that resembled a stack of hot cakes with a pool of syrup on top, and a large, flat cake that looked like a giant peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Luke Bender, technical sales representative, Maplehurst Bakeries, and Jim Caliendo, national training specialist, Rich Products, served as contest judges.

The three finalists were selected in a blind review process from a pool of 65 entrants who submitted photo albums.

"We reviewed more than 2,000 photographs that showed the various skills of the decorators. The caliber of all entries this year was excellent and it came down to the people who submitted the most balanced portfolio showing they had equal skills in wedding, theme and production cakes. The review committee's job is to select three finalists who will make the contest judges' job extremely difficult, and they succeeded," Christison said.