It’s early fall, and slowly but surely, cooking outdoors is fading as the leaves begin to fall. Soon, the grills will be gone, along with the brats, dogs, and burgers. Eventually, we’ll crave those foods that warm us during the cold winter months. This change is already starting to happen as evident by the numerous baking and cooking contests taking place.
For example, the International Chili Society, ICS, held its World’s Championship Chili Cookoff in Charleston, West Virginia on October 5-7. During this three day contest on Magic Island, three chef awards were given. Congratulations to Bob Plager for winning the Red Chili competition and pocketing a hot $25,000! In the Verde (green) chili division, another Bob won. Bob Hall walked away with a first place chef trophy and four thousand in cash! The final winner was Jerry Buma, who took home a smaller chunk of cash, $1000. Buma collected his check and chef accolades for creating the best salsa at the 46th Annual WCCC. For recipes and chili cookoffs in your area, visit www.chilicookoff.com.
Pillsbury will be sponsoring its own 46th annual bakeoff soon. Last year’s Grand Prize winner, Christina Verrelli, earned top chef award with her recipe for pumpkin ravioli with salted caramel whipped cream. More importantly, Verrelli received one million dollars! “I won a million dollars!!” exclaimed Verrelli. “I think anyone can be a bakeoff winner.” Martha Stewart announced the winner, and she said, served with the whipped cream, it is really tasty.” Verrelli created ravioli using Pillsbury crescent roll dough and stuffed it with the mixture of pumpkin cheesecake filling. To get the entire recipe and information on how to enter the 46th bakeoff, check out www.pillsbury.com.
Caramel Snickerdoodle Cake took the top honors in the Gold Medal Flour Baker’s Club Baking Contest. Niki Plourde created the mouth watering bake good, and for her efforts, she won $1,000 and a gift basket worth up to $150. Eight other recipes took runners-up awards, and those recipes with the winning one appear at www.bettycrocker.com.
Finally, the Kansas City Barbeque society (www.kcbs.us) refuses to put away the grills just yet. These hardy chefs will be winning trophies and cash all through the month of October and beyond. One recent contest was the Chillin and Grillin event at Sand Springs, Oklahoma. Prize money was a total of $6050!
If your organization is holding a baking contest or cookoff, Hit Trophy can help your organization. We offer this fantastic RFB066 Chef Statue. This whimsical statue stands almost a foot tall and portrays a rotund chef in his toque and apron. For those who aren’t chefs and wonder what a toque is, it’s his hat that he’s wearing. He is giving thumbs up to his latest culinary creation which he holds in his other hand. The bronze chef trophy stands on a black base which may be engraved with the winning chef or baker’s name. Because you have three lines of type available, why not include the name of the group and/or the name of the contest? Have a company or contest logo that you’d like to add to this award? No problem, we include free engraving and personalization on all orders! To find pricing, exact measurements and other details about this great item, just click this link and there you’ll be able to learn even more about this popular item.
Bon appétit!