How to Win a Cooking Contest

Here are some tips from Mary Blenk:

Don’t be intimidated.
You have to just jump in. Enter often and don’t get discouraged.

Learn from each experience.
Any comment from the judges, positive or negative, is valuable. If your entry doesn’t win and you think it should have, enter it again–and again! There’s no rule against that.

Make it look good.
Presentation is important to the judges. They like decoration on cakes and pies, but it should represent your style. “Some presentations are so lavish!” Mary notes. “I go to Goodwill to get plates for my entries. I have fun doing that. You have to be who you are.”

Give your recipe an alluring name.
“The first thing [the committee members] see when they’re sorting through all the entries is the recipe’s title. Make it sound irresistible.”