Pennsylvania Farm Show opens Saturday

Carbon County bakers will be well represented this year at the Pennsylvania Farm Show.

Four area bakers, three of whom have made this trek before, will head to Harrisburg Saturday to prove they make the best cakes, pies and brownies.

We wish them lots of luck!

Connie Wentz

Connie Wentz of Lehighton has made the trip many times; so many in fact, she doesn't remember the exact number, but guesses it's at least 10. This year she is representing the Carbon County Fair as winner of the PA Preferred Chocolate Cake Contest.

While she's never captured the top prize at the state level, she did place fifth one year for an angel food cake, and another year her chocolate cake made it into the top 10. Wentz is a frequent winner at the Carbon County Fair. She has also won for her chocolate cakes and apple pies.

This year Wentz created a Chocolate Raspberry Cream Cake with Chocolate Ganache. Ironically, she's not a fan of the fruit/chocolate combination, but it seems the judges were.

"I don't really like fruit with chocolate," she admits. "I've done peanut butter and chocolate together and won at the fair, but I thought I would bite the bullet and do raspberry. I haven't even tasted it."

When it comes to creating her award winning cakes, Wentz is pretty easy going.

"I try to just take something from one cake and mix it with something from another cake. It's usually nothing I've seen anywhere else."

She says when she's getting ready to make a cake to enter in the Carbon County Fair, she makes it up that day.

"I don't test it."

Although Wentz is an old pro, she doesn't take winning lightly.

"I'm excited to go. Even when you don't place, you just think it was exciting to be chosen. The fun thing is a lot of time when you go down there, you see the same people and you make this little bond, and we have a lot of fun. It's the excitement of going," she says. "It's not even about the winning."

Chocolate Raspberry Cream Cake with Chocolate Ganache

Ingredients

1 cups flour

2 cups sugar

cup cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 PA preferred large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 cup hot brewed coffee

Frosting

1 8-ounce cream cheese, softened

cup butter, softened

1/2 cup cocoa

4 cups confectioner's sugar

1 teaspoon raspberry extract

Raspberry Cream

cup juice strained from red raspberries

2 tablespoons raspberry Jell-O

1 teaspoon corn starch

1 8-ounce Cool Whip

1/2 teaspoon raspberry extract

Chocolate Ganache

4 ounces semi sweet chocolate

1 cup heavy cream

Directions

Mix all ingredients for cake with a mixer, except coffee. Add coffee last and mix just until incorporated. Batter will be thin.

Put into two greased 9-inch cake pans and bake in preheated 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

While cake is cooling, make cream and ganache. Cook juice with Jell-O and corn starch until it boils, making sure to keep stirring.

Add extract. Put in freezer to cool. When cool, mix into Cool Whip.

For ganache, boil cream and add it to chocolate with a whisk until melted.

Cool in refrigerator. When cool, beat until thick.

Cut cake layers in half. Put raspberry cream between two layers and ganache between other layer.

Beat frosting until creamy and spread over cake, top and sides. Decorate as desired and refrigerate.

Christina Tomsic

Christina Tomsic of Palmerton is no stranger to winning at the Carbon County Fair. This year she heads to the Farm Show as the local winner of the Angel Food Cake Contest.

Her winning entry is called Pumpkin Spice & Everything Nice Angel Food Cake.

She has won first place in the Hershey/PA Preferred Chocolate Cake Contest at the Carbon County Fair three times, in addition to her other wins.

Although she's made the trip to Harrisburg a few times, she's yet to bring home the gold.

"The competition you are up against is fierce and the talent throughout the state is phenomenal," says Tomsic.

Still, she enjoys the challenge.

"I have an overwhelming amount of excitement about this weekend's upcoming competition!

"I've been told that creating a perfect angel food cake is an art of it's own, so being able to create such a unique spin on a classic has already made me feel like I accomplished something."

Although Tomsic admits to having been intimidated by angel food cakes before, since they are so labor intensive and precise, she's thrilled with the result.

"After toying with my recipe and creating what I felt was the perfect flavor combination, I decided then to submit it to the fair and was pleasantly surprised that I won first place.

"This cake recipe SCREAMS fall!!! Every single time I've made this recipe since the fair, I immediately envision myself with a cup of hot chocolate watching the leaves fall. It is a pumpkin-lovers dream come true!"

Pumpkin Spice Angel Food Cake

1 1/2 cups PA preferred egg whites

1 cups powdered sugar

1 cup flour

cup pumpkin purée

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

teaspoon nutmeg

1 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup sugar

Maple Cinnamon Icing

1/2 cup shortening

3 cups powdered sugar

cup maple syrup

2 teaspoons cinnamon

Water

Pumpkin Pie Spice Drizzle

cup sifted powdered sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons hot water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Measure out 1 1/2 cups egg whites, let stand 30 minutes. In another bowl, combine powdered sugar and flour, sift three times. In another bowl combine pumpkin purée, cinnamon and nutmeg. After egg whites have set 30 minutes, put them in mixing bowl and add cream of tartar, salt and vanilla.

Beat on high. Slowly add sugar to egg white mixture and beat until stiff peaks form. Carefully fold in sifted flour and powdered sugar, cup at a time. Add pumpkin mixture to batter by gently folding in. Pour gently into ungreased pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes. Cool upside down completely.

Icing: Mix everything together except water. Add teaspoon of water at a time until it is a thick consistency.

Drizzle: Mix all ingredients together. Drizzle over iced cake.

Sarah Schweitzer

Although Sarah Schweitzer of Lehighton is only 19, she's already an old pro when it comes to the Farm Show and baking competitions.

In 2012 she went to the Harrisburg, where she competed in the PA Preferred Chocolate/Brownie/Bar Contest for youths, the category that her 9-year-old sister, Maya, won this year. Sarah didn't win that year, but valued the opportunity.

She was a double winner at the Carbon County Fair this year, winning Best of Show for her Shoofly Pie, as well as capturing first place in the Blue Ribbon Apple Pie Contest with her Apple-Cherry Crumb Pie.

A student at the Escoffier Online International Culinary Academy, Sarah is currently in the culinary program. She recently completed the online pastry program.

She plans to make her winning pie on Friday, and bring it to Harrisburg for the competition, which takes place Saturday.

"I'm excited," says Sarah. "I hope that I place for something, but if not, I'm excited for the experience and to have that competition under my belt. Whoever wins, I'm really happy for them, but just to get that experience is good, and to know where I stand."

Apple-Dark Cherry Crumb Pie

Apple Pie Filling

Approximately 6 large Braeburn or Golden Delicious apples (or your favorite pie apples) peeled, cored, sliced, and enough to fill 70 percent of the pie

1 1/2 cups of pitted, cut in-half fresh, dark red cherries

Sprinkle of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup refined sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Sprinkle of nutmeg

2 tablespoons fresh citrus juice (orange or lemon)

Combine these ingredients in a large bowl and set aside until ready (or refrigerate if you do not have your crust ready yet).

Bottom crust

1 cups all-purpose flour

stick of cold, diced butter

teaspoon salt

cup vegetable shortening

1 1/2 tablespoon sugar

3 to 4 tablespoon water (just enough until the dough gets together).

Extra flour for rolling out the dough

Using a food processor is the easiest way to combine flour, salt and sugar. Pulse just to combine. Add diced butter. Pulse, until the butter is the size of large peas.

Through the top of the processor, drizzle in the water, while pulsing, JUST until the dough comes together. Remove the dough from the machine and gather it together. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour until firm. This step will allow the gluten in the flour to relax, to make a tender, flaky crust.

Remove dough from the refrigerator. Lightly flour the table and rolling pin. Roll out the crust to a bit larger than the pie pan.

Lift the crust up, and gently place it into a pie pan that has been lightly sprayed with a cooking spray. Crimp crust as you like it, and cut off the extra dough around sides with a knife.

Place this crust into the refrigerator until ready to add filling. (Alternative: If you do not have a food processor, your favorite by-hand homemade crust or even a frozen pie crust would work also. The filling is so nice, it will make the pie!)

Fill crust with the apple/cherry filling. Now, it is time to top your fruit pie with a quick, delicious crumb top.

Crumb Topping

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup quick-cooking oats

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of salt

1/2 cup light brown sugar

6 tablespoons of cold butter, diced

In a food processor, pulse all ingredients until they form coarse crumbs, then, pour into a bowl and place into refrigerator until ready to top pie.

Begin baking your pie, with the oven preheated to 425 degrees, for 15 minutes. Then, lower the temperature to 350 degrees for another 30 minutes.

Top with fresh whipped cream and sprinkle of cinnamon. You will enjoy making and eating this pie!

Maya Schweitzer

Maya Schweitzer, 10, will make her first trip to the Farm Show this year as a competitor. She is the winner of the Carbon County Fair's PA Preferred Chocolate Cookie/Brownie/Bar Contest.

A fourth-grade student at Commonwealth Connections Academy, Maya plays flute in the Lehighton Boys and Girls Band. She is the daughter of Lisa and Jonathan Schweitzer.

Maya's winning recipe is Dark Chocolate Blondies.

Why blondies and not brownies?

"I'm a blonde," she says, and according to her mother, the only blonde in the family.

While Maya's recipe is original, she did have some help.

"I had a little help from my sister, Sarah."

Maya has entered the Carbon County Fair competition before, but this is her first win. She said she was "shocked" when she learned she had won.

Maya says going to the Farm Show will be exciting, although she admits be being a little nervous about the competition.

Dark Chocolate Blondies

2 cups unbleached flour

teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks of room temperature, unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups light brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

2 jumbo eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups semisweet chocolate

1 cup sweet coconut

1 cup pecans

Parchment paper to line pan

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift flour, salt, baking powder and soda.

In mixer, mix butter and then add sugars. Add eggs one at a time, vanilla and then dry ingredients. Stir in chocolate chips, coconut and pecans.

Pour batter into greased 9-inch by 13-inch parchment paper-lined pan. Bake 40 minutes and check by toothpick. It could have some soft crumbs on it. Top will be golden.

Put blondies whole on cooling rack and lift it out by paper. Cool and cut.

If you go: The Pennsylvania Farm Show is the largest indoor agricultural event in the nation, with 24 acres under one roof that feature nearly 6,000 animals, 10,000 competitive exhibits and 300 commercial exhibitors. Admission is free and parking is $10.

For more information visit www.farmshow.state.pa.us.

The Farm Show opens Saturday and runs through the following Saturday. It is open each day from 8 a.m. until 9 p.m.; and from 8 a.m. until 5 p.m. Jan. 17.