- Use a high-quality cocoa powder for a rich chocolate flavor to the cupcake. We used a combo of Dutch cocoa powder and black cocoa and loved the results.
- Stock up on Terry’s Chocolate Oranges when you find them. They’re seasonal and can be hard to find
- Because the orange extract goes in both the batter and the frosting, use a high-quality brand for a natural tasting citrus flavor. We like these citrus oils from the King Arthur Baking Company. Fresh juice and zest is key also.
Tag: winning recipe
State Fair of Texas Best Sugar-Free Pie
State Fair of Texas Best Sugar-Free Pie: This recipe earned its “best sugar-free pie” at the 2022 State Fair of Texas. It’s a blueberry apple pie that’s packed with 6 cups of blueberries and a sliced apple.
The recipe is from Robert Cook, who has won MANY times at the State Fair of Texas. Learn how to make this “sweetened with Splenda” award-winning pie with Robert’s detailed recipe below.
My family raved about this pie when my niece re-created it for a special occasion. They especially liked how it wasn’t overly sweet.
The filling cooks up perfectly and the pie sliced just how you want it to.
If you love fruit pies, this is the recipe for YOU! And if you want more blue ribbon winning pie recipes, simply search for “fruit pie” on our site and you’ll find a huge collection of drool-worthy delights.
Enjoy!
-Cyndi
Best Sourdough Croissants (Cachitos)
Are you seeking the best sourdough croissants recipe? How about one that features chocolate and almond flavors? And one that has a great story behind them? Look no further. This best sourdough croissants recipe won our “best sourdough bread contest” at the 2022 Minnesota State Fair.
They come from Guillermo Guardia, who tells us that in his home country of Peru, croissants are known as cachitos. Guillermo is a ceramics artist, art teacher and now, a blue ribbon winning sourdough baker.
By his own admission, Guillermo is not really into cooking but loved baking bread in a bread making machine. When it suddenly broke one day, with dough in it. He took it out and worked with the dough for the first time and loved the experience.
It was fascinating to see the dough change and rise. It was magical. Since then, baking has become a stimulating and rewarding activity.
At some point I was baking almost every weekend, especially Sundays. I even named my sourdough starter Dominga, a Spanish female name for Sunday.
Baking and ceramics are somehow similar. Both use raw materials/ingredients that are mixed together with water and shaped by hand into something that is transformed by heat into something new. Because of my art clay training, kneading and shaping the dough came naturally to me.
Guillermo started with sourdough baguettes, because they were his father’s favorite. Soon he was ready to tackle croissants. He noted, “I could use my clay skills with every key step, from laminating and rolling the dough to cutting and shaping it for the oven.”
His efforts paid off. The deciding judge on contest day said his croissants were “unbelievably good, beautiful, and perfect in every way.”
Congratulations Guillermo!
*Check back on this post as we hope to catch up with Guillermo in-person at some point and add some helpful technique photos. In the meantime, if you’re a fan of sourdough bread baking, give this recipe a try!
Blue Ribbon Blueberry Bread
This Blue Ribbon Blueberry Bread has a delightful streusel topping and in its batter: poppyseeds and lemon zest. The flavors are perfectly balanced, making every bite taste fantastic. It’s a tender, yet firm bread that bakes beautifully through the entire loaf (with no part under or over baked).
Sheila Mullen won best quick bread at the 2021 Minnesota State Fair with this recipe. She won out of 49 entries. Wow!
Sheila says: This is a family and friends favorite. The original recipe came from a bed and breakfast our family stayed at in Iowa after my sister’s wedding. It’s so popular that I freeze blueberries in the summer specially so I can bake up a fresh loaf all year long. I’ve made a few changes to the recipe to make it easier to mix up.
Key Ingredients/Tools/Tips
Sheila uses a Danish whisk with this recipe.
She thinks one of her secrets to winning was choosing small, equally sized blueberries and not overmixing the batter. The Danish whisk helps with this.
The streusel is key, adding a richness with just a few ingredients.
You can make the batter in a variety of pans. Sheila favors 4 mini loaves.
For the fair though, she uses pan 7-inches x 3 1/2-inches in size. The bread bakes perfectly, making for perfect slices to enjoy.
Add this to your best recipe pile and bake it soon!
And try more Minnesota winning recipes from our collection, like this one.
-Cyndi
Maple Cream Cheese Monkey Bread
Maple Cream Cheese Monkey Bread – Mini Size: If you want a yummy, buttery, gooey pull-apart bread that you can have all to yourself, bake this best-ever recipe. All you need is milk, instant yeast, cream cheese, an egg, and a few other pantry staples. You bake them in cupcake or muffin tins…so you get single servings… and no sharing required. Ha! Now is when you can hear my hushed, evil voice saying: mine mine mine! All mine!
Recipe credit goes to Kaitlyn Wiener who created these for a best-ever bread baking contest at the Minnesota State Fair (Fleischmann’s Yeast, 2013).
Monkey Bread Made Easy
To get rolling on this maple cream cheese monkey bread recipe, you make a quick-rise, plump dough, cut it into squares, then wrap a cream cheese/maple syrup filling inside. Do a quick toss in a bowl of cinnamon and sugar. Drop them into muffin tins, top them with a butter/maple syrup sauce, and pop them in the oven! So darn simple, and so completely delish.
I really love the ease of working with instant yeast like Fleischmann’s RapidRise yeast. It’s fast acting and consistent (always reliable.) RapidRise yeast also works great in coffee cakes. Watch for one of those, another state fair winner, coming in the next couple weeks.
My niece Crystal and fellow Blue Ribbon Foodie was the lucky one to recreate these mini maple cream cheese monkey breads. She gave it two thumbs up and had this to say:
- This recipe was fun to make and a great chance to get kids involved because of the simplicity of the steps.
- The cream cheese filling adds a nice tang, especially when paired with the frosting and the sauce.
- If by chance they don’t all disappear, the mini monkey breads do reheat well, however I recommend eating them right away when the bread most soft and light, fresh out of the oven. Enjoy!
By the way, if you’re looking for a great full size monkey bread to make, try this pumpkin pull apart bread.
Crystal and Cyndi
Bali Hai Tropical Pie
Bali Hai Tropical Pie is a show-stopping, mic-dropping, tropical-themed award-winning best pie recipe you don’t want to miss.
Shredded coconut, fresh mango, fresh lime, cream cheese, and Malibou coconut rum are just a few of the ingredients comprising this marvelous masterpiece. It features a prominent citrusy creaminess, thanks to the heavy whipping cream you combine with cream cheese. You’ll be tempted to eat this mixture/filling by the spoonful. Macadamia nuts give it a nice texture contrast on top.
Recipe Inspiration
Recipe credit goes to Peggy Linberg. The Californian won first place with it at the San Diego County Fair (2014). Peggy’s Bali Hai Tropical Pie was inspired by her favorite musical, South Pacific. With a strong love of passionfruit, she made her pie a combination of the fruit she grew up with in Hawaii and other favorite Polynesian flavors. From the coconut in the pie crust, to the mango, rum and lime flavors infused into its layers, everything about this pie was a hit with the judges. Peggy wanted to transport herself to Hawaii when making and tasting it. Mission accomplished! We were too!
Extra Effort, Ingredients for the Win
Heads up: This pie isn’t for a first time pie baker. It is one of the more involved recipes we’ve tested, but after tasting it, you’ll be convinced…totally worth the extra effort and ingredients! Plan for several hours, start to finish, mainly because of the chill time once you’re done.
Special Recipe Tips & Tricks
- For the tropical fruit juice concentrate, Peggy, used an orange peach, mango combination. We used a variation on that. Choose your favorite.
- Peggy’s preferred whipped topping mix is Rich’s Bettercreme. It gives the top decoration more stability, i.e. holds up well while moved or carried.
More like this
If you like unique and creative recipes like this pie, check out these other original recipes:
- Bourbon Molasses Sandwich Cookies (These ooze boozy deliciousness)
- Boston Cream Pie (Like the classic dessert, but deconstructed)
- Mounds of Joy Cake (This dessert will bring you lots of joy)