My First Ever Blue Ribbon

Ladies and Gents, I have the bug! I have the Iowa State Fair Bug!!! 

I won my first and second blue ribbons last week in the Beginner's category.  I won the Beginner's Dessert, and then they took the winners of Beginner's Dessert, Beginner's Main Dish and Beginner's Bread, and they named first, second and third.  AND I WON GRAND CHAMPION!  I feel like Toddler's in Tiaras right now.  Speaking of... they should have a reality show about the Iowa State Fair food.  It's cut throat! Did you know that the winner of the Tones Spices Cinnamon Roll contest wins $3,000?!?!  DANG! Get ready to see some cinnamon roll recipes on here. #testing

So my winning recipe was Lavender Cupcakes with Lemon Curd and Vanilla Bean Buttercream.  I've made similar cupcakes before, but these were LCLCVBB 2.0.

The ingredients weren't anything outstanding, but the assembly was, as the judge stated, "ambitious".

Take your favorite vanilla cupcake recipe, crush some lavender, and toss it in.  Around 2 Tablespoons.

Lemon curd can be purchased, or made... But let me warn you, homemade lemon curd is one of the most delicious things in the world.  It's sour, sweet, buttery, warm... It's irresistible. 

Take your cupcakes and use a pairing knife to cut a pretty little hole.  Little enough to keep the cupcake from falling apart when filled, but big enough to get a good dollop of delicious lemon curd.

I even went so far as to cut a little cap to top the curd with.  I actually tried to use a special long frosting tip to fill the cupcake, and as soon as I lifted it back out, all the curd came squirting out the hole on the top... so I scrapped that and cut a well.

The frosting I used was a fairly basic American buttercream with butter, crisco, vanilla, vanilla bean paste, powdered sugar and cream. 

I watched the judging, and I was so nervous, but then they started to ooo and ahh over it, and then I overheard one of the judges say to the other, that was amazing... and then he replied, yes, the lemon was a fantastic surprise.  FIRST PLACE ALL AROUND.  Now, at this point, they hadn't even tasted all of the desserts, and hadn't even gotten started on the breads!  I tried to play it cool, but I was secretly celebrating and picturing where I plan to hang my blue ribbons.

I had two more entries after this, and I won one more ribbon after this one... so stay tuned! More recipes in the days to follow.