Bakers Extraordinaire: Festival of Breads, Part II

Kansas Wheat photo

RaChelle Hudsmith didn't receive a bouquet of roses as winner of the National Festival of Breads' Home Baker division. She didn't need one: She'd created her own "roses" with her Chai Ube Rosette Rolls. 

RaChelle, a baker from North Logan, Utah, was one of eight finalists in the 2019 National Festival of Breads in Manhattan last Saturday, June 8. There were four finalists in the Home Baker division and four in the Food Blogger category.

Photo from the Festival of Breads website

When I talked to her during the baking competition, RaChelle said that the love of cooking and baking is in her blood. She grew up in the kitchen alongside her mom and grandmas, learning while standing beside them at the kitchen counter.

Besides being chosen as the home cook winner by three professionals, RaChelle also won the People's Choice Award as festival goers tasted her rolls and dropped money in a jar, all of which went to feed the hungry at Flint Hills Bread Basket.

 

Perhaps the popularity contest was due in part to one of the ingredients. Purple sweet potatoes - or ube - looked like a perfect choice for festival-goers who love all things purple in Wildcat Country. The dough is also flavored with chai, a seasoning blend that RaChelle's family loves.

While this was RaChelle's first trip to the breads festival as a finalist, she is no stranger to cooking and baking contests. 

"Cooking contests came into my life when I was going through some trials and struggles. The cooking contests brought some positivity and a new focus into my life. I think all of us have issues of one kind or another. We all need to change our focus from our hardships to other things that bring us happiness and confidence.”

--RaChelle Hubsmith, interview with The Cache Valley Daily

By day, RaChelle is a real estate appraiser for Cache County, Utah. But her side gig as a cooking competitor also brings in some cash. She has competed three times at the World Food Championships and has many other food competitions on her resume.

Being a cake decorator and having an artistic eye has come in handy when competing in food competitions, she says.  For example, she used a cake decorating method for shaping fondant to shape her rosettes.

She rolled out her dough with a rolling pin.

She then used a circular ring to cut perfect circles.

To make the roses, she stacked three circles and rolled them up in cinnamon roll fashion. Once rolled, she cut them in half and placed each part in a muffin tin for rising, then baking.

For a video demonstration on how RaChelle shapes the rolls, go to this link on Facebook or visit the National Festival of Breads Facebook page. I happened to be standing there as they were filming the segment, so I got the demo, too!

Once out of the oven, RaChelle brushed the tops with a butter and honey mixture.

RaChelle's rolls weren't the only breads that were easier to shape than the finished product appeared. According to Wheat Foods Council-funded research, there’s been a surge in demand for European-style artisan bread.

Chicagoan Kristin Hoffman’s entry — Tart Cherry, Pecan and Rosemary Boule — offers a great example of that style, said Cindy Falk, a nutrition educator at Kansas Wheat and chair of the National Festival of Breads baking contest.

“She bakes it in a Dutch oven and dusts it with rice flour, so when it comes out of the oven, it’s really crusty like a true artisan loaf,” Falk explained.

Kristin was the only baking competition novice among the eight finalists. The creator of the baking blog, Baker Bettie, Kristin was invited to attend a Kansas Wheat-sponsored bloggers event in June of last year. Even though Kristin grew up in Hutchinson, Kansas - which is home to some of Kansas' largest grain elevators - she had never been on a combine or in a wheat field until last summer. Her experience enticed her to enter the new food bloggers division of the National Festival of Breads.

While Kristin hasn't been part of the food competition circuit, she is no stranger to the kitchen. As a college student, she saw the Food Network show Good Eats, in which host Alton Brown explains the "why" behind baking and cooking. The science of the kitchen eventually led her attend a culinary institute and become a chef.

Her round bread loaf may look fancy, she says, but the ridged bowl does a lot of the shaping work. And, with a few strategic cuts in the risen dough, the visual effect becomes even more attractive.

"It's a lot easier than it looks," Kristin said as she made slashes in the bread. "I want to develop recipes that my readers can duplicate easily."

Finalist Brenda Watts, of Gaffney, S.C., also believes in dramatic shaping to increase visual appeal. She used a star-like pattern and Italian flavors in a large, centerpiece-worthy round bread, Sicilian Star Bread.

Brenda's husband, Mike, was watching the timer on the oven in her festival kitchen while she shaped another bread loaf and chatted with festival goers. He was definitely a one-man press corps, sharing that his wife has competed in the World Food Championships, three times in the Pillsbury Bake-Off and has won a Betty Crocker contest.

"Come stand over here, where I'm standing and smell that bread baking," Mike said. "There's no better smell in the world."

Another trend in this year's entries was the use of natural coloring agents like fruits and vegetables to create uniquely hued breads, Cindy Falk said. Besides RaChelle's use of the purple sweet potato, fellow Utah resident Shauna Havey, of Roy, Utah, used beets in her Beetroot Amaretto Rolls. Shauna, who also competed as a finalist in 2017, has a degree in nutrition, so incorporating healthful items into her baking is a priority. The bodybuilder likes the nutrition, the taste and the pop of color the beet puree provides. 

Shauna was a finalist in the food blogger division and shares recipes on her blog Have Yourself ... a Time. Shauna, like many of the other finalists, is a competitive cook. Just last month, she won second prize in a cornbread contest.  

"The competitions have taken me all over the country and have given me and my family an opportunity to experience different places," Shauna said, as her son, Luke, checked in with her while she was shaping rolls.  "I feel incredibly lucky to have a hobby that has provided opportunities for me to show my kids how other people live, what they eat,  their accents, and all the uniqueness and charm that can be found in each and every place you go. I also love being able to express myself through food." 

Kansas Wheat photo

Merry Graham of Newhall, Calif., who won the Food Blogger division (and whom I featured on Kim's County Line on Tuesday) added ribbons of color to her Danish wreath with fresh blackberries and blackberry jam.

RaChelle's sweet potatoes weren't the only potatoes featured either.  Lauren Katz of Ashburn, Va., paid homage to her family’s love of mashed potatoes by creating her own version of Loaded Baked Potato Bread.

 

Lauren actually offered me a sample still warm from the oven. It was so good! Lauren may look familiar if you're a cooking show fan: She won The Great American Baking Show Holiday edition in 2015. Lauren has won so many contests, they would be too numerous to list here.  Just a couple include the Sutter Home Winery Build a Better Burger contest, and being a two-time Pillsbury Bake-Off contestant. Lauren was the 2017 honoree in the Cooking Contest Central Hall of Fame.

 

Tiffany Aaron of Quitman, Ark., (below) stuffed her bread with apples and lots of spices.

I personally loved her Mulled Spice Apple Cider Crisp Loaves. Tiffany is no stranger to baking. She began selling homemade cinnamon rolls as a sixth grader growing up in rural Montana. With a grocery store and restaurants an hour away, she learned to feed a family by working at her mom's side in the kitchen.

For this year's recipe, Tiffany discovered a mulling spice mixture at a local market. She tweaked the spice ingredients until she could recreate the same warm flavors in a yeast bread. The recipe combines her long-time love of cinnamon rolls with another favorite sweet - apple crisp.

"It's a matter of trying ... then trying again," Tiffany told me. "You rarely get it perfect the first time, and that's part of the adventure - to keep at it until it suits you."

This was Tiffany's second trip to the National Festival of Breads. She was also a finalist in 2017. This year, she brought all five of her children and her husband with her to experience Kansas.

Suzy weighed the dough to make sure they were uniform in size before shaping them.

The tastes of childhood were also a theme for Suzy Neal, of Sautee Nacoochee, Ga., who earned another spot with her Peanut Butter Pretzel Rolls.

Suzy and her husband Clark own Unicoi Preserves, so coming up with a flavor to complement their fruit spreads was second nature to the cook and blogger.

The Neals live in the mountains of Georgia, about 90 minutes from Atlanta. Their location along the Unicoi Wine Trail makes their small batch preserves a natural pairing with yeasty breads, crackers and, yes, wine, she says. Their unique flavors - like salted caramel peach spread and apple cider pepper spread - caught the attention of a regional grocery store, Ingles Market. Both she and her husband blog for The Ingles Table and also share recipes on their Unicoi Preserves website.

Find the winning recipe for Chai Ube Rosette Rolls on the Festival of Breads website, along with recipes from the other finalists. I've shared links to all the recipes if you click on the recipe titles. Or just go directly to the National Festival of Breads website and click on recipes.

Merry Baker: Festival of Breads, Part I

When I visited Merry Graham's kitchen at the National Festival of Breads last Saturday, she was talking to two boys and their mom. One of the boys was telling her about how much he loved to cook and bake.

"Do you know they have contests for kids your age?" Merry said with an infectious lilt to her voice. "You could do something like this, too! Just go to www.contestcook.com and look under the junior division. There's lots there to choose from."

For Merry, interacting with bakers - young and not-so-young - is part of the appeal of the National Festival of Breads, held June 8, 2019, in Manhattan, Kansas. And this year, the third time was the charm for the Newhall, California, baker, who walked away with the top prize in the Food Blogger division of the contest with her Blackberry Ginger Speculaas Danish Wreath. (More on the home cook division winner, Rachel Hubsmith, in the next blog post.)

Merry's enthusiasm and personality bubbled out just like the blackberries bubbled out from the wreath during baking. Sharing her passion with young bakers comes naturally. She enjoys baking with her seven grandchildren when she's not competing.

Blackberry Ginger Speculaas Danish Wreath - Photo from National Festival of Breads website

Three food professionals chose Merry's wreath as the winner among the four finalists in the food blogger division. The sweet yeast dough has brown sugar, Speculaas spice blend, and blackberry jam swirl, dotted with blackberries and crystallized ginger. Speculaas has gotten some traction in the grocery store aisles in the U.S. in the past few years with a spread often located next to the peanut butter (Biscoff spread). The spread is made from Speculaas cookies, a treat often served at Christmas time in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria,

Photo from National Festival of Breads

But King Arthur Flour, one of the major sponsors of the breads festival, has a Speculaas spice mix made  by combining cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves with anise, coriander, cardamom, citrus zest and a few other spices. That's what Merry used for her wreath recipe. (In the recipe, there's also a way to make your own at home.)

Sharing the legacy of baking and recipes is a central theme for Merry. She began her blog, A Merry Recipe, after she began competing in baking contests in 2009. After 10 years on the competitive cooking circuit, she plans to revisit some of those early posts. She hopes to retake some of the early photos and make sure that the winning recipes she's entered in contests all over the country will be easily accessible.

Merry used a thermometer to check "doneness" on her wreath.

"I look at it as a legacy," she told me. "And having it on the blog makes it so easy. You can just enter a topic or a recipe name in the search engine and have it at your fingertips. That way, I can make sure that my family has a record of all my recipes." A side note: It's also easy to access all the Festival of Breads finalists' recipes from this year and previous competitions at the contest website. 

Merry sprinkled fresh thyme over the freshly-baked wreath after she removed it from the oven.

Merry hedged her bets and entered seven different recipes in the 2019 Festival of Breads competition. The wreath ended up earning her a finalist spot.

When experimenting with recipes for the contest, Merry wanted to find a "showstopper." As she explained to the spectators during the judging on Saturday, a "showstopper" has a natural visual appeal. The ribbon of blackberries and blackberry jam provides a splash of dramatic color to the specialty bread.

"I've been watching The Great British Baking Show, and they feature showstoppers, so that's what I developed for my entry this year."

Win or lose, this was going to be Merry's final year in the National Festival of Breads competition. Once a baker has competed three times, they are no longer eligible. That's not to say she's done with competitions. She is a seasoned pro in that arena.

In 2014, she was selected as a finalist in the 47th Annual Pillsbury Bake-Off, winning the Gluten Free Award for her Herbs and Seeds Parmesan Crackers recipe. Also in 2014, she was one of the five finalists on the Rachael Ray show, Great American Cookbook Competition. In 2015, she competed on Season 1 of Food Network's Clash of the Grandmas, making it to the final round of the Thanksgiving-themed show. She has also appeared on and competed in the World Food Championships.

Merry admits the cooking competition world becomes kind of like a "sorority." She knew almost all the finalists at the bread competition this year and had competed against them before.

"These events become as much a reunion as they do a competition," Merry said. "I always enjoy reconnecting with everyone."

Photo from Kansas Wheat at the Joe & Geena Kejr farm near Brookville.

As a sponsor of the biennial contest, Kansas Wheat arranges a Field to Flour tour. With a later harvest this year, contestants weren't able to ride a combine cutting wheat. Instead, they could take a spin in a sprayer with farmer Joe Kejr near Brookville. Joe and Geena Kejr also hosted the contestants and their guests for lunch and told about wheat production. The finalists also toured Farmer Direct Foods at New Cambria and drove by grain elevators as they drove to Saline County and back to Manhattan.

This was Merry's third Field to Flour tour. But the experience always reminds her that a premium flour is worth the extra money.

"I'm a southern California girl," she told me. "When I go into my grocery store and pay a few more dollars for the premium flour instead of the store brand that's on sale, I remember those trips to a Kansas wheat field. I remember the people of Kansas - especially their commitment and their passion to produce a quality product. When I think about all the hands the wheat touches from the field to the grocery store, I realize what a bargain it is."

Kansas Wheat photo

On Saturday, the contestants could begin their first attempt at their bread recipe at 7 AM. At 8:30, the ballroom opened to spectators, and the contestants interacted and answered questions throughout the day while making their recipes up to three times. They had to choose their best product to be judged by 2:30, and another of their products went into a silent auction to raise money for Flint Hills Bread Basket. (The People's Choice award votes and the silent auction raised more than $938 to feed the hungry in Manhattan.)

Kansas Wheat photo - Merry Graham, food blogger division winner, and RaChelle Hubsmith, home cook division winner (More on RaChelle next time.)

I was outside for much of the day working a booth in the Children's Festival.

Children could spin a Wheel of Fortune-like wheel and answer questions about wheat production, end products, nutrition, exports and harvesting for a prize.

 

I had some special contestants. (Well, they were all special, but these two were the most special to me!)

Randy took a shift, so I could go inside and cool off. I spent part of that time talking to all eight contestants and taking some photos so I could blog about it this week.

When I got back, we had another special visitor to our Wheel of Wheat station. Willie the Wildcat pondered his answer ...

... And he correctly deduced that Kansas is usually the leading producer and exporter of wheat in the nation. Good job, Willie!

I try to do my part in connecting the farm with consumers through blogging, something I've done since beginning Kim's County Line in January 2010. But face-to-face interaction is better in the long run. That's why I gave up my Saturday to volunteer at the National Festival of Breads.

With all the gluten-free promotion and companies marketing "non-GMO" to consumers, it's important for those of us in production agriculture to tell our stories. Goodness knows, popular restaurants and so-called nutrition experts aren't shy about doing it.  (For the record, there is no GMO wheat commercially available at this time. And yes, those with celiac disease must avoid gluten. However, many of those who don't have celiac disease avoid gluten based on inaccurate information from non-medical professionals who make unsubstantiated claims.)

In 1870, 50 percent of the U.S. population was directly involved in agriculture. Today, farm families comprise less than 2 percent of the population. A lot of the kids I talked to didn't even know what kind of machine harvests wheat. So that's why it was important to volunteer and talk to little consumers and their families about wheat.

Photo from Merry Graham's website as she was practicing before the breads festival.

And it doesn't hurt to get some yummy recipes, too. Check out Merry Graham's winning recipe for Blackberry Ginger Speculaas Danish Wreath on the National Festival of Breads website as well as the other winner and all the finalists' recipes.

For her champion bread, Merry receives tuition to attend a hands-on baking class at a King Arthur Flour Baking School in Norwich, Vermont or Skagit Valley, Washington, along with a $1,500 check for travel and lodging expenses. She also receives a one-year supply of Red Star® Yeast, another major contest sponsor.

More from the National Festival of Breads next time!