Toast the Stanislaus fair with a treat from the past

TURLOCK -- Among the competitions at the Stanislaus County Fair this year is one that challenges all its entrants to make something from the same recipe.

The 100-year cake contest, in honor of the fair's centennial, is designed to give the winner bragging rights for the next 10 decades, said Timm LaVelle, who is sponsoring the competition.

LaVelle said he worked with the Turlock Historical Society to come up with a recipe that would fit in with the opening year of the fair, 1911.

"We looked for old recipes, but a lot of old recipes are kinda boring," LaVelle said. "Then we looked at dessert recipes."

They found a few that required ingredients no longer available at local grocery stores before finding a cake used at the World's Fair that year, held in Italy.

It might seem like a contest with everyone making the same cake would be pretty boring. But the recipe, being 100 years old, is missing some of what most bakers today would consider basics: the size of the cake pan, for instance, and the temperature at which to bake.

And one of the ingredients is chocolate — doesn't say if it's bittersweet, baking or milk.

It does, however, say to boil the chocolate, something that isn't regularly done anymore.

Bee copy editor Sharon K. Ghag, the newsroom's resident baker, made the cake. A photograph of her version appears with this story.

'That's what I had'

She used cocoa for the chocolate "because that's what I had" and substituted vanilla for the water, since there wasn't any flavoring in the cake.

Baking time for a small Bundt pan was 35 minutes at 350 degrees; cupcakes took 20 to 25 minutes.

Testers found the cake dense but not overly sweet. One recommended "a hunk o' milk to go with it."

LaVelle is hoping local bakers and history buffs get involved for the chance to win 100 years of glory.

The contest is July 20, so bakers have plenty of time to test the recipe. But the deadline to register is Thursday. Exhibitor handbooks and entry forms are available online at www.stancofair.com/exhibitor-handbook . For more information, call (209) 668-1333.

Bee staff writer Patty Guerra can be reached at pguerra@modbee.com or (209) 578-2343.

'We looked for old recipes, but a lot of old recipes are kinda boring, Then we looked at dessert recipes.

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