Three-Peat

Yep - I did it! I am now the 3-time Waterside Bake-Off Champion! The Cocoa Kiss Cookies came through for me. I actually don't think they were my best entry, but I've learned the secret to winning a bake-off, where voting takes place via public vote (as opposed to a panel of experts). Here are my tips:

1. Chocolate - if it has chocolate in it, it stands a better chance of winning than if it doesn't have chocolate in it.
2. Creativity - basic chocolate chip cookies will never win. Anyone can make them and there's nothing special about them (delicious, yes, but interesting? Not so much.) It should be something they've probably never had before.
3. Choose a recipe that makes small cookies, or some sort of bar or brownies that can be cut into small pieces - all people need is a small taste to know if they like it.
4. Choose a recipe that makes a large quantity of whatever it is. One entry that was out was a plate of about a dozen cookies. Really? A dozen? So at the most, you get 12 votes. My cookies were supposed to make 4 & 1/2 dozen, but I over-did it with the dough a little bit and only got 44 out of it. But still, that means I could get up to 44 votes. Take that you measly dozen!

Anyway, so I am very proud of myself, and have therefore declared myself to be the Best Baker in Waterside. Whether or not that's actually true, who knows. Oh, and I did actually get a prize too! A Publix gift card. Not sure how much is on it, but I'm sure it at least has enough to cover the cost of the ingredients I used for my entry.

The egg hunt was fun too. It's amazing to watch the progression from the 0-1 group, where the kids don't really know what to do, and the pace is very slow, and it takes several minutes for all the eggs to be gathered up. Then they moved to the 2-3 year olds who had a little bit better idea, but still get easily distracted (like Zachary - he'd pick up an egg and would be so excited about it that he'd forget to pick up another one). By the time they got to the 4-5 year olds, the pace was much faster, however the 6-7 year olds were lightning fast. I think the eggs were collected in about 30 seconds. Everyone looked like they were having a good time. Liam fell asleep before we even had pulled the car away. We tried to feed him some lunch but he just wouldn't wake up (video at the bottom).