Blue-Ribbon Bakers

Meet the winners from this year's area county fairs (and don't count up those calories)

The fair winners. (Renee Comet)

A successful county fair judge needs both a sweet tooth and a cast-iron stomach. Or so it seems. Sampling pies then cakes, preserves then pickles, may sound like a fun feeding frenzy, but there are inherent risks.

At the Prince George's County Fair, which closed Sept. 10, judges gathered around a long brown-paper-wrapped table covered with a broad assortment of breads, cookies and jars of jam, each bearing a numbered tag.

"Some can be really good. Some can be really bad," said St. Mary's County resident Ann Richards, who, like her fellow judges, is a member of the Maryland Association of Agricultural Fairs & Shows. These tasting volunteers travel from fair to fair around the region each summer. The berry jams may look enticing. Still, "you really take a chance tasting canned goods," said Roseanne Fitzgerald of Montgomery County.

Aside from an occasional grimace, the competition went smoothly this day. "Next, we have a questionable plate of cupcakes," said a skeptical Richards. Oddly, half of the chocolate frosting was missing from each cupcake. "At least they're not burned and don't taste bad," said Queen Anne County's Pearl Haussler after a suspenseful nibble.

But when talk turned to a certain Bundt cake, tasted earlier that morning, there was immediate agreement and smiles all around. "With the amount of work, I'm thinking this is number one," said Richards as she cut herself a fresh slice. "It tastes good. It looks good," said Fitzgerald. And then, after a second bite: "It keeps the tradition alive," said Haussler with a nod of the head.

Tradition and the fun of competition, essentially, are what county fairs are all about.

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And now, after three hours of sampling and judging, it's official. The best-in-show ribbon for food preparation and baked goods at this year's Prince George's fair went to Becky Moyer for her moist and fine-crumb pineapple-coconut Bundt cake.

"I was speechless," says Moyer, 18, a home-schooled special-needs student who lives in Bowie with her parents, Ray and Frances Moyer. For the past four years, Moyer has entered the baking competition, but this is her first best in show. She chose this particular recipe because "I really like coconut."

At this year's Prince George's fair -- Maryland's oldest fair, established in 1842 -- there were eight categories of baked goods including more than 100 food categories in all. For example, the Cookies category comprised 13 classes, among them Brownies Not Iced and Diet Cookies. In the Cakes category, Moyer entered the Other Cake class as there wasn't a Bundt class. (D.C. residents are also eligible to enter Home Arts at the fair.)

After judges award first-, second- and third-place ribbons in each division, an overall winner, a best in show, is chosen for all baked goods. This year, Moyer was that winner.

Across the United States and Canada each year, more than 3,200 county, state, regional and provincial fairs are held. Traditionally, in addition to baking competitions, there are farm animal, horticulture and agriculture contests. Modern fairs have monster trucks, carnival rides and sideshow games of chance.