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Cake Contest Travel Leads To An Honest Eatery

Photo by JADEN HAIR

A small Gainesville eatery serves simply good, honest food, including this popular blue cheese salad.

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By JADEN HAIR

Tribune correspondent

Published: February 24, 2009

The wedding cake adventure started more than a year ago, when Melissa of Masterpiece Weddings e-mailed and asked, "Will you pretty please come and be a judge for our wedding cake competition?"

Me? Wedding cakes?

I don't even remember what my own wedding cake looked like. (Though I do very much remember how it tasted! Yum!) But when Melissa said it was a fundraiser to benefit St Jude Children's Research Hospital, of course I said yes.

So a couple of weeks ago, I drove up to Gainesville for the competition. I was not at all prepared for the world of food competitions. I wore a pretty dress, 3-inch heels and a nametag that said "JUDGE." I should have brought dark glasses and camouflage — and maybe a shield. Wow, are those bakers fierce!

And who I was judging with? The queen of wedding cake judging, Kerry Vincent of "Food Network Challenge." You know, the woman who with one glance, sentence or stroke of her pen can bring joy or fear to a contestant.

There were 35 cakes, and I was in the group that judged the professional bakers. Each cake was set up on its own table. Some towered more than 4 feet; others were so elaborately decorated, you wondered whether a team of 20 hovered over them for three days straight.

Kerry and the other judges went around each cake, examining every detail — every swirl, swoop, flower and frill. Just like on TV! Because it was my first time judging, I just mimicked what they did.

There was one cake that took my heart away. It was a fairytale wedding cake, sort of "Little Mermaid"-ish. It was adorned with flawless candy shells and sea critters that looked real. The miniature sea anemones glittered with a fantastical rainbow of colors. I was in love. This was my No. 1 cake. The mermaid cake just had to win!

"Honey, it's all mold," Kerry said.

Oh. Bummer.

Apparently molds are easy. Plop your colored Play-Doh in, squeeze, and out plops a perfect sea creature. No flaws.

Well, anyway, it was a very fun experience.

The highlight of the evening was tasting contestant No. 23's moist, light, spongy cake with butter-cream frosting and bits of fruit jelly and homemade marshmallows. I wanted to grab the cake, crawl under the tablecloth and devour the whole thing.

It turned out No. 23 was the lovely chef Katie Codney from The Ritz-Carlton, Naples.

Then there was the moist carrot cake with just-right-sweet cream-cheese frosting from Jaycel Adkins of Etiquette of Chocolate. Oh, baby, I'm gonna try to get a recipe for you guys from Jaycel.

You can see the list of winners and photos of the cakes at Melissa's Web site, www.masterpieceweddings.net.

As fierce as the Food Network makes Kerry seem, she's straightforward and sincere. After the competition, she made the rounds to each table, stopping to coach and critique any of the bakers who wanted to know why they didn't win and what they needed to improve. She's respected not because she's a TV celebrity, but because she stands by what she says and took that extra two hours after the event was over.

Yeah, we disagreed on some stuff — such as the cake that won Best of Show. It was beautiful and flawlessly decorated, but it tasted like rough cake mix. In the world of wedding cake contests, technical design trumps taste. But for me, as a lover of all things delicious, taste always trumps pretty.

The morning after the competition, all I wanted was not-cake. So, I headed over to a little restaurant in Gainesville called Mildred's Big City Food for an early lunch. It serves simply good, honest food. In fact, I think the name is misleading, because this place was all about local, organic and sustainable — qualities I associate with small-town food. I know it sounds cliché; every restaurant uses those buzzwords. But this one little restaurant purchases more local ingredients than 50 of the largest restaurants in Gainesville combined. Mildred's is one of the rare gems that stand for taking care of the community, even teaching kids how to cook from the ground up. Literally.

Their food is all made from scratch, even the velvety potato-parsnip soup that I wanted seconds and thirds of.

Chef Bert Gill was gracious enough to provide the recipe for one of the most popular salads on the menu.

Mildred's Big City Food can be reached at (352) 371-1711, or go online to www.mildredsbigcityfood.com.

MAYTAG BLUE CHEESE SALAD WITH SPICED PECANS AND BALSAMIC VINAIGRETTE (from Mildred's Big City Food)

6-8 cups mixed field greens

4-6 slices bacon, crumbled

4 ounces Maytag Blue Cheese, crumbled

1/2 cup dried fruit (currants, raisins, apricots)

1 cup Spiced Pecans (recipe follows)

Balsamic Vinaigrette (recipe follows)

In a mixing bowl combine mixed greens with bacon, blue cheese, dried fruit and spiced pecans.

Toss with dressing and enjoy!

Balsamic Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon dijon-style mustard

1 shallot, chopped

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Seasonal fresh herbs, chopped

6 tablespoons olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Using a food processor or blender, combine all ingredients except olive oil. Mix well and slowly incorporate the oil to emulsify the dressing. Season with salt and pepper as desired.

Spiced Pecans

1 cup pecans

1 egg white

3 tablespoons sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Pinch cayenne pepper

Whip egg white and sugar until soft peaks form. Fold in salt, pepper and cayenne pepper. Fold in pecans and spread on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 10-15 minutes. Let cool before serving.

Serves 4

For more food adventures, visit Jaden's Web site at www.steamykitchen.com.

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