Baking Contest

Our hometown held it's 32nd fall festival this past weekend.  It's a 3 day event that dominates our downtown square with food booths, a beer garden, craft and jewelry tents, and a stage for entertainment. 

One of the "events" this year was a baking contest and I decided to bake a few things to enter.  They awarded a winner and an honorable mention in each of about 5 different categories.  I love to bake and often daydream about opening my own bakery with cutesy displays of goodies throughout a quaint, natural-light flooded, pastel accented shop and selling cookies, muffins, cream-filled cupcakes, cake pops, brownies, homemade granola, etc., etc., etc., in cute packages with brightly colored matching bows.  A bakery boutique, if you will!  I've even tried to get my mom on board to take over the cake baking and decorating department, but no dice.

Hey, a girl can dream, right?

Anyway, for the baking contest, I baked this applie pie, blueberry muffins and pumpkin spice cookies with maple cream cheese glaze.  I thought I had a real shot at winning in the pie category.  I don't like to brag or anything, but I make a mean caramel apple crumble pie.  If I didn't win the pie category, I thought my muffins were pretty good, so maybe they'd have a shot.  I didn't think my cookies would stand a chance, though.  They tasted ok, but the recipe was too simple and I just figured they'd get overlooked.

Well, guess what.  I won honorable mention in the cookie category!

I thought I'd share the love/recipe!  Are you ready for this?  Because it's a pretty complicated and lengthy recipe.

Pumpkin Spice Cookies

1 box spice cake mix

1 (15 oz.) can of real pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1 c. white chocolate chips

That's it!  Mix it up in a bowl, plop 'em on a baking sheet and bake 'em at 350 for about 15-18 minutes.  I added a maple cream cheese glaze, but these cookies are really good on their own.  For the icing, I just threw some things in a bowl and kept adding stuff until it was the consistency I wanted.  I didn't even kind of measure anything.  If I had to guess, I'd say it was about 4 T. milk, 2 T. maple syrup, 1/2 c. cream cheese and 1 c. or so of powdered sugar.  The result should be pretty runny and you just drizzle it over the cookies after they've cooled a little.   I'll warn you, though, the measurements of those ingredients is a total guesstimate.

The muffin recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

2 eggs

1/2 c. vegetable oil

3/4 c. sugar

3/4 c. brown sugar

1/2 t. vanilla

1 T. lemon juice

1/2 c. vanilla yogurt

1/2 c. sour cream

1/2 t. salt

1/2 t. baking soda

2 c. flour

1 c. fresh blueberries

Topping:

½ c. melted butter

1 c. brown sugar

1 t. lemon zest

1/2 c. flour

1/2 c. quick oats

1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and oil while slowly adding the white sugar and brown sugar.

2. Mix in vanilla, lemon juice, yogurt and sour cream.    Gradually add the flour, salt and baking soda. Mix well.
3. Gently fold in blueberries.
4. Fill the muffin cups to the top.
5. In a small bowl, combine the topping ingredients and then sprinkle the topping mixture over the muffins.
6. Bake for 20 -25 minutes in a 400 F oven.

To make apple cinnamon muffins instead, add about 1 t. cinnamon and substitute 1 c. peeled, chopped apple for the blueberries. 

Have fun and enjoy!