Minnesota State Fair-goers love the Great Minnesota Get-Together. They especially love leaving with goodie bags and bellies full. Some Edina residents leave the Minnesota State Fair with ribbons in hand, thanks to their contest-placing baked goods and arts and crafts. A few previous place winners share some (but not all!) of the secrets to their success. Read about them here and then be sure to search for their entries at the fair.
Kathleen Cleary tweaked her butter pecan chocolate-chip cookie recipe eight times before the sugars (white and brown) and nuts performed their very best. This second-place winner draws from inspiration far and wide, traveling to other cities’ bakeries. “I taste the city, basically, to get ideas,” she says, adding, “I’m a Food Network junkie,” who also has 20 years’ worth of Bon Appétit magazines stacked up in her bedroom and hopes to open her own bakery someday.
It was Cleary’s first year entering the fair, and she made sure to review the fair’s voluminous rulebook. “You would think this was solving world peace,” she says. While it doesn’t go that far, baked goods are certainly an ingredient to happiness. “People can’t help but smile when they get a cookie or a cupcake” she says.
This year, Cleary plans to enter six cookie varieties and four bread recipes, and she knows she’ll be up against throngs of other participants. “It’s become like a cult classic to enter,” she says. “It has that mystique around it.” Winning at the fair also brings its share of accolades. “Minnesotans are really impressed by [winners] because we’re proud of the fair,” she says.
Elaine Pearson is a double-dipper. For the past 10 years, she’s received first place in Creative Activities for her découpage wall hangings, using flip-flop painting and snippets of paper napkins to replicate produce. She also received a ribbon in 2015 for her snickerdoodle cookies, which she baked with her granddaughter. Despite her creative abilities, Pearson says, “I’m not a Marjorie Johnson,” speaking of the ubiquitous and beloved baker and State Fair winner.
The thrill of winning is intensified by how Pearson discovers her wins. On the first day of the fair, Pearson and family members locate her entries, which can be a challenge to find amid all the other baked goods, to see if she received a ribbon. “My family has really gotten into it,” she says. “It’s sort of like a treasure hunt.” This multiple-year winner doesn’t take her standings for granted. “Each year, I get [a ribbon], which shocks me,” she says.
We’re not shocked. The talent pool in Edina is deep and wide. How many Edina ribbon winners can you find at the fair?
Elizabeth Feinberg draws inspiration from her spouse, Cindy Edwards, and her grandmother, who was “a huge needlecraft person,” she says. Feinberg received third place for her Seeds of Freedom cross stitch (letters, not a sampler).
This wasn’t the veteran cross-stitch artist’s first turn at the fair. “I’ve been entering pieces in the State Fair since 1996, when we moved from Florida to Minnesota and was totally impressed with the wonderment of the fair,” Feinberg says. She almost always enters a cross-stitch piece, “which is my favorite sport, especially in wintertime,” says this reverse weather transplant.
Feinberg intends to return to competition this year. “I’m working on several pieces, including a ‘welcome’ piece and a snowman banner,” she says.
Jane Gfrerer, fourth-place winner for her chocolate and angel food cakes, learned quickly that coming from a large family has its perks. “I grew up in a family of nine kids, and most of us realized early on that learning to bake ensured we’d always have treats on hand,” Gfrerer says. “We were allowed a fair amount of leeway with our baking repertoire. Besides the usual cakes and cookies, we made Danish pastries, baked Alaska, root beer and hand-cranked ice cream.”
While growing up, Gfrerer says her older brother served as inspiration. “My mother claims he learned to read from recipe cards, and he was always amazing us with his baking skills,” including cakes, breads, buttery peanut brittle and pillowy divinity. Julia Child also inspired Gfrerer, who loved her humor and fearlessness in the kitchen, she says.
Gfrerer isn’t a contest newbie. “I won a few other State Fair ribbons in the baking category,” she says—apple pie and peanut butter cookies. Gfrerer has also entered several knitted items, “but haven’t cracked that one yet,” she says in terms of placing. No matter; Gfrerer says there’s more to the State Fair than winning ribbons. “It’s not just a contest,” she says. “It’s an event.”
Carrie Woodley’s fourth-place contemporary crop art, Crop Circles II, was a sequel to another of her winners, Crop Circles I. Her first foray into crop art featured a portrait of the family springer spaniel, Dilly. Crop art enthusiasts use seeds as their medium. The State Fair requires that the seeds be native to Minnesota, including corn, flax, rye, soy, split pea and wheat, for example. Woodley draws her design on a large canvas, positions the seeds and then secures them with good ol’ Elmer’s Glue. In all, it takes her “an hour here, an hour there for several weeks,” she says.
A few years ago, Woodley visited the crop art exhibit in the fair’s horticultural building. “Most of them are incredible work and incredibly realistic,” she says. “That was inspiring enough just to see that. I saw the exhibit and thought it would be a fun thing to do.” Woodley also has a stronger source of inspiration—her father, Eugene Nieland, who founded and served as director of the Uptown Art Fair for 25 years. Woodley’s childhood home served as the fair’s headquarters.
Wondering what happens to Woodley’s art, especially the seed-festooned version of Dilly, which was stored in her home’s basement? “It unfortunately came to a bad ending because it was attracting mice,” Woodley says, humor still intact. “You have to be careful with your crop art.” Point taken.
Minnesota State Fair winners baking tips:
★ Use fresh ingredients. “People think, ‘Oh, my Arm and Hammer baking soda is only eight years old, and it’s not a big deal.’ It’s a big deal!”
★ Store dry ingredients in sealed containers.
★ Don’t skimp on ingredients. “Use the freshest, highest-quality ingredients you can get.”
★ Spoon (don’t scoop) flour into measuring cups for accurate measurements.
★ Use parchment paper on baking sheets.
★ Understand how accurately and quickly the oven heats.
