There are no losers in baking contests, especially when the entries all come from food bloggers. The Manitoba food bloggers held the Get Your Goodies bake sale on May 18 in support of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. To add to the fun, the Manitoba Canola Growers hosted a bake-off. And add-to-the-fun it did; it even created some friendly competition amongst the group of food bloggers.
The amount of talent in bake sale and contest entries was impressive. Shoppers had a hard time making their selections, some gave up and purchased everything they wanted (“extras” for their coworkers they said).
At the end of the day, the baked goods were judged by Shel Zolkewich, self proclaimed “mother hen” of the Manitoba food bloggers, and Ellen Pruden, the Canola Queen. The goodies were judged anonymously, the judges had no idea whose treats they were tasting. Selecting the winners was not an easy task, but after careful deliberations, Claudine Gervais came in first place for her Ginger Thumbprint Cookies with Dark and White Chocolate.
Check out Claudine’s post on her blog, Ginger and chocolate for the win!
Here, she shares with and how her winning recipe came to be.
Claudine has always enjoyed cooking and baking. She believes in the philosophy of “you are what eat”. ”You can really tell a lot about someone by the way they eat and the foods they eat” she says.
She describes her love of cooking and baking as “more than a science and more about family and relationships.” “When you cook for someone it shows you care about them” she explains. It’s safe to say she cares a lot for her family. Her teenage daughter keeps very busy as a gymnast Claudine tells us proudly. “So she is more the beneficiary of my cooking”. She does cherish memories of her daughter helping out in the kitchen when she was younger. “It was good one-on-one time”. “Kids love to help and it gives them a chance to explore and experiment”.
Claudine says her winning recipe came from a combination of two things: her recipe for her Christmas gingersnap cookies and her recent fixation on ginger. The base for her cookie is from an old church cookbook- tried, tested and true. The original recipe calls for oil and she found it easy to use canola oil, and is conscious of the fact it’s healthier and you use less when baking. As for the ginger, part of the delight of this recipe was in making the homemade candied ginger. She wanted to try it because she never had, and she says it was super easy and didn’t require any special equipment. It even encouraged her to keep experimenting with her love of ginger. She tells me the by-product of the candied ginger is ginger syrup, and it is good in tea, drizzled on fruit or even pound cake.
A delicious treat and its creation backed up by a good story – Claudine is in her element cooking, baking and blogging about it!
Second place in the bake-off went to Pamela Wankling for her Orange Rosemary Cupcakes and Rebecca Hadfield received an Honourable mention for her Orange Polenta Cake.
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