2011 Florida ICED Cake Competition - Finally Over!

Well, it's been a long time coming, but the Florida ICED Cake Competition has finally come and gone! Lisa & I began planning the competition about a year ago so it was awesome to see it finally become a reality.

I'm posting about 200 photos taken by our Show Photographer, Elise Kersey, on Picasa so I thought for this blog post, I'd show you some behind the scenes and sometimes goofy stuff.

To give you an idea of the size of the competition, we had 111 pre-registered competition entries. Of course, a few didn't show up the day-of the event, but we also had a few extras show up with cakes to be entered! Lisa & I were expecting between 200 and 300 people to attend the show so we had 300 programs printed. The doors opened to the public at noon and we ran out of those puppies around 1:30pm! We also had over 300 chairs brought in for the awards ceremony, and there was still standing room only! Needless to say, it was a MUCH bigger event that Lisa & I ever dreamed!


Now, sure, Lisa and I had planned the event as well as we could, but there are always hiccups. Even if you've only thrown a birthday party for your kiddo, you know things always come up to throw you for a loop! So when you're dealing with 100 competition entries sometimes not so patiently waiting to be checked in, people trying to purchase demo tickets at the last second, and probably about 500 people from the public just hoping to gawk at and eat some cake...those little hurdles turn into mountains that must be conquered immediately to keep everyone happy!

That's when you turn to your right- and left-hand man/woman for help. My right-hand woman is my Mommy, who flew all the way from TX just to help with the show! Isn't she amazing?! Afterward, she said she'd never worked that hard in her life...and, believe me, she wasn't exaggerating! I had her running all over the place!


And my left-hand man is my adorable hubs, Adam. (I put him on my left because that's the side that wears the wedding ring...makes sense, right??) I had him running all over the place too, including a lunch run to Burger King. In fact, that's him, below, taking lunch orders from a few volunteers.


We had over 30 volunteers at the show, and it really wouldn't have been a success without them. Lisa & I were being pulled in so many different directions that I'd often tell someone quickly how/what to do and then run off to take care of something else. I didn't even have time to check on them to see if I'd made sense or if they were doing it correctly. And for the record, there was no need because they were all awesome!

We had 3 teams of judges. The first team was comprised of Mercedes Strachwsky of Bake Me a Cake in Orlando, FL, Edna de la Cruz of Design Me a Cake in Orlando, FL, and Rebecca Sutterby of Sugar Creations in Savonburg, KS.


The second team was Susan Clippinger of Sweet Designs Kitchens in Orlando, FL, Debbie Busser of Ms Debbie's Sugar Art in Newberry, FL (and my boss!), and Grace Jones of Frosting on the Cake in Orlando, FL.


And the 3rd team, judging the cupcakes, was Cindy Morales of Sweet Stop Bakery in Ocala, FL, Cindy Dinges of Decadence a la Carte in Ocala, FL, and Kathy Wyatt of A Wedding & Catering by Kathy in Daytona Beach, FL.


In fact, one of the cupcake entries was by one of my Wilton students, Candace Palmer!


She didn't get any awards at the competition, but I'm so proud of her for entering! Way to go! It's hard work to enter a competition! And, look, Elise captured a photo of Candy (in purple) and another student Michelle! (There was a 3rd student, Allison, next to Michelle but you can't see her from this angle.) Hello, ladies!


So anyway, the day was crazy. People were in and out all day long, and the seats we had set up for the awards ceremony filled up fast! Some people were sitting in seats as early as 11am! We kicked them out because competitors were still trying to set up their entries then...but I guess people really wanted a good seat for the awards ceremony.


In the midst of the chaos, Lisa and I were interviewed for the 11 o'clock news. What, you missed it? Yea, I was sleeping by then too. But here's the video on YouTube.


People told us all day how impressed they were with how organized the show was, but I think the look on my face in this picture captures how I was really feeling:


"YIKES!" And notice Debbie behind me just giggling away!

But when it's all said and done, it was a fun day! We raised about $4000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Central & Northern Florida so all the hard work was worth it.


Want to see more about the competition? Check out these links:
Our official website: www.floridaiced.com
Our Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/FloridaICED
Our Shutterfly online album: https://picasaweb.google.com/mjudge83/2011FloridaICEDCakeCompetition#
The Youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3_Kqlm6F3w
A blog post on The Little Kitchen: http://www.thelittlekitchen.net/2011/03/29/2011-florida-iced-cake-competition-ocala-florida/
A blog post on Love & Sugar Kisses: http://lovesugarkisses.blogspot.com/2011/03/florida-iced-cake-competition.html#comment-form
A blog post on The Cake Engineer: http://www.cakesbyroxanne.com/2011/03/wedding-gum-paste-stilettos.html
A 2nd blog post on The Cake Engineer: http://www.cakesbyroxanne.com/2011/03/romantic-wedding-dress-cake.html
A blog post by Ms Debbie's Sugar Art: http://sayitsweetly2.blogspot.com/2011/03/florida-iced-cake-competition-held-in.html