Calvin and Hobbes top Tammy Jo Gleckler’s award-winning cake, What Will You Do With Your Imagination?

Imagine this: You walk into the Tennessee Terrace concourse at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville greeted by long tables filled with children’s books and colorful, creative companion cakes! And then you know:  Reading really is in a sweet spot!

Cassie Pruitt’s cake Reading Is Fundamental: 2nd Place for All-Occasion Fondant, Intermediate Division

It’s all part of a major fundraiser for Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, a program that provides new books to children under the age of six in Knox County, Tennessee.  And with over 3,000 people in attendance, the net estimate of $25,000 by Mary Pom Claiborne (marketing director for Knox County Public Library) may be low since cakes, donated baked goods, and t-shirts were on sale, too. (Click here: News-Sentinel: Cake Bake a sweet event to benefit Imagination Library.)

Detail from Skyla Shealy’s cake Ladybug which took 2nd Place in All-Occasion Fondant, Junior Division

The main goal, of course, is to encourage reading at a young age, and, judging from the kids and grown-ups we saw, children (of all ages) were eager to dig into books as well as cupcakes, cookies, and cakes.

Year Shah’s Dr. Seuss: 3rd Place in All-Occasion Fondant, Beginner Division

We were also anxious to see what this year’s competition would bring since our blog post Books and Buttercream at The Great Cake Bake (Click here) nabbed the highest views of any post in 2013.  And, this year, we were definitely not disappointed.  In fact, if you had followed us around, you would have heard How’d they do that? multiple times since the mysteries of fondant, frosting, and flourishes escape us.  Here are our favorites, but who’s to say, right? Thank goodness we weren’t asked to judge.

Haley McManigal’s train loaded with books took 2nd Place in the All-Occasion Fondant category, Professional Division

Wedding Cakes

Ranging from average size to toweringly tall, wedding cakes were judged in two categories:  buttercream and fondant.

Chocolate on Amaretto Wedding Cake by Melissa Pendleton

Tammy Owenby, 1st Place Wedding Cake

Close-up, Tammy Owenby’s Wedding Cake

Fleur de lis base supports the tallest entry in the Wedding Cake category

All-Occasion Cakes

Cakes could be submitted in four categories:  Professional, Intermediate, Beginner, and Junior.

Detailed storybook characters populate the entry “Dr. Seuss” by Maria Pannala

Sarah Hicks’ entry The Hobbit took First Place in the Junior division.

Robin Middlebrook’s floral creation came in 1st in the Junior Division of All-Occasion Buttercream

Stacey Kolopus’s detail on her steam-punk themed cake merited 1st Place in the Beginner division of Fondant All-Occasion cakes.

We loved the characters on this Wonka cake by Whitney Roberson who was awarded 3rd Place in the Beginner Division for All-Occasion Fondant.

With so many people voting for Tammy Jo Geckler’s Calvin & Hobbes cake, we knew it would win, and it did: 1st Place, Intermediate Division, All-Occasion – Fondant.

Close-up of melting snowmen on Tammy Jo Geckler’s cake, What Will You Do With Your Imagination?

A dark background contrasts nicely with the figures on Julia Hammer’s entry “Granny’s Dragon”

Another popular cake was this UT Cornhole look-alike by Kathy Macourek!

Cupcakes

The tiniest creations in the show were submitted in the Cupcake category with these divisions:  Cake Pops, Intermediate, Beginner, and Junior

Hannah Southall’s entry entitled “Starbucks”

Winning 1st Place in the Junior Division was Rachel Hicks’ elephant cupcake

Donovan Scott created an almost look-alike llama to win 2nd Place, Junior Division for Cupcakes

Donovan Scott, proud winner of 2nd Place, Junior Division for his Llama Llama Red Pajama cupcake!

Debra Correa’s Catching Fire cupcake won 3rd Place, Intermediate Division

Diaper Cakes

A new category this year, Diaper Cakes, first involved supporters who donated $150.00 so that volunteers could create “cakes” out of diapers.  Yes, diapers.  After being carefully rolled and stacked to form “layer cakes,” diaper cakes were decorated based upon the theme of a beloved children’s book.

Little Owl’s Night

Zinnia’s Flower Garden

Good Night, Gorilla

Ladybug Girl and Bingo

All of Baby Nose to Toes

T-shirts were everywhere — on volunteers, Cake Bake attendees, etc. Parker Foppiano manned the table full of t-shirts (royal purple this year!) emblazoned with the Great Cake Bake logo.

Great t-shirts for a Great Cake Bake!

And baked goods were on sale for grown-ups who couldn’t pass up a bargain at the end of the day.  Like husband Bert who toted home cookies, oatmeal bread and a carrot cake at the insistence of long-time supporter of Friends of the Library, Bonnie Naugher.

Bert was easily persuaded by volunteer Bonnie Naugher to take home the goods at the end of the day!

Thanks to sponsors Sugarbakers and Food City and the many volunteers and Friends of the Library, the fifth annual Great Cake Bake is history — and a profitable one for a good cause, too.

Melissa Pendleton’s Green Eggs and Ham

If you missed this year’s Cake Bake, make a note for next year.  After all, who doesn’t like to have their cake and reading, too?

Close-up from Cassie Pruitt’s Reading Is Fundamental

For more information and pictures:

Check out my Pinterest Board: Fancy Cakes for pictures from The Great Cake Bake as well as other creative cakes I’ve found on the Web: http://www.pinterest.com/rushasams/fancy-cakes/

For the News-Sentinel article by Mike Blackerby “Cake Bake a sweet event to benefit Imagination Library,” click here.

For more on Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, click here.

For more on Friends of the Knox County Library, click here.

Photo of Curious George leading Parade of Books taken from Knox County Library Facebook page

There was no silent reading at the Children’s Festival of Reading sponsored by the Knox County Public Library! In fact, with more than 20,000 people in attendance, you could hardly hear yourself read aloud, even if you wanted to!

It was a two-festival day in Knoxville. We stuffed ourselves at the International Biscuit Festival the morning of May 18th (Click here to read post), and then walked down to Knoxville’s World’s Fair Park for the Reading Festival. With celebrities like Curious George and kids dressed in their very best Alice in Wonderland attire, the day was a rollicking, fun-filled, noisy-in-a-good-way celebration of reading!

The Junior League set up Kids in the Kitchen for cooking demonstrations, gardening-with-kids ideas, and afternoon cook-offs. We snapped this picture of Knoxville’s mayor Tim Burchett who led the Parade of Books that morning with Tracy Morrow, the League’s Executive Director.

Attendance has been great today, she told us. You just missed the demo with Heather Kyle of UT Extension.

Mayor Tim Burchett and Tracy Morrow

Fellow educator, Donna Hardy, chatted with us as she waited for the return of featured author Sharon Draper to their tent. Draper, five-time winner of the Coretta Scott King Author Award, is well-known for books for teens — the “Jericho” and “Hazelwood” trilogies and her bestseller Out of My Mind.

We walked the expanse of the park and saw people buying (what else?) books, of course.

And listening to a panel of authors talk about where they get ideas for writing.

Some kids created crafty things that corresponded to their favorite books, like this mask at the table where Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman by Marc Tyler Nobleman was featured.

Other kids (adults, too!) showed off their shirts and acrobatic talents.

Or learned the art of knot-tying at the Concord Yacht Club booth.

Julie Webb, one of Knoxville’s most dedicated volunteers, “manned” the used book tent. (Her warm smile draws you into whatever she’s promoting.) She even got us to sign up for Friends of the Library!

Husband Bert (on left) ran into Grant Standefer, Executive Director of Compassion Coalition. (I think they were trying to hear each other over the excitement of the kids all around them!)

And some children, like my granddaughter, just wanted to play at the splash pad at the World’s Fair Park! Reading would come later — in the car, at home, at bedtime . . .

The Children’s Festival of Reading — a great day for families all revolving around the wonderful world of books!

Have you signed up YOUR kids for Summer Reading yet?

Knox County Public Library

http://blogs.knoxlib.org/

Twitter: @knoxkidsreads

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#!/knoxreads

Click here for “Children’s Festival of Reading promotes literacy for fun” by Amy McCrary (Knoxville News-Sentinel, May 10, 2013).

Click here for “Big names, big fun at Children’s Festival of Reading” by the Knoxville News-Sentinel staff (May 16, 2013).

Whitney Roberson’s teapot cake

If there’s anything near and dear to the heart of a former English teacher (that would be me), it’s a celebration of books and the joy of reading.  So when I heard that Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library would send a book a month — FREE, you see — I signed up my granddaughter as soon as she was born!!! Sure enough, like clockwork, the postman delivers an age-appropriate book each and every month to the delight of    . . . well, all of us.

So with great pleasure I joined the masses at The Great Cake Bake benefitting Knox County Imagination Library February 23rd at UT’s Neyland Stadium.  Bakers from all over East Tennessee brought in their finest cakes and cupcakes — all to raise funds and promote reading!  An event I could definitely get behind.

Lots of picture-taking at The Great Cake Bake!

Bonnie Naugher, long-time supporter of Friends of the Library, directed me to tables of these juried delights in categories ranging from Beginner to Professional.

Long lines of folks filed past the cakes pointing the details to friends (“Oh, look over here!”), taking pictures, and sniffing the buttercream!

I noticed a definite trend (at least on the children’s book-themed cakes): lots of green frosting.  Like this Dr. Seuss Oh, the Places You’ll Go cake by Devon McGinley, Chesney Julian, and Erin Claxton.

And Lynette Kegley’s green confection depicting Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman. (Love that birdie in the nest!)

Author Eric Carle would have been proud of Dale Newman’s Very Hungry Caterpillar: chocolate cake dotted with green frosting and sporting a perky butterfly!

Courtney Haggard topped her three-tiered creation based on Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen’s Mine-o-Saur with — what else? — a green dinosaur!

Lining the center table were the more professional, adult-looking cakes. Adorning Whitney Roberson’s elegant creation were pale orange flowers atop creamy cake rounds.

With layers of pearly white flowers, dots, and frills, Lisa Cunningham’s wedding cake made heads spin.  Her new business, OVENart, opens at the end of May in Maryville — offering cakes, confections, pastries, and breads.

Closer looks at some of the cakes revealed details I never imagined possible.  Just check out Lee Umberger’s perky pirate resting against a palm tree with a happy crab, faithful parrot, and treasure chest by his side!

From the book Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White came a People’s Choice Award. Rebecca Grizzle’s towering, many-layered cake showcased some of the tidiest, tiniest details of the whole show. And there’s a ferris wheel smack dab in the middle!

The Junior People’s Choice Award went to Ellen Cofer for this adorable ensemble, Billy Goat’s Gruff. (Picture from Knox County Imagination Library Facebook Page.  Click here.)

In the cupcake category, A Mud Pie for Mother was the inspiration for Donovan Scott’s piggie-topped creation complete with coconut grass.

My personal award for humor goes to Denise Campbell’s cupcake featuring a witch who met her demise in a sweet sort of way.

If I had to select one cake (and that would be tough) from all the others as a true stand-out, it would be the one by Sara Kroetsch.  Based on Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, this colorful, quilt-topped four-poster with a cute down-and-out kid had it all — detail, workmanship, and a forlorn little face.  Loved it!

Just looking at all these kitchen creations made me long for something sweet to eat.  Fear not.  There was a table filled with goodies ready for purchase.  Most of the cakes on the display tables were for sale, too.  You just had to wait ’til the show was over to take one home.  (A tiny price to pay when you consider you’re bringing home a tasty masterpiece!)

About the time the hunger pangs hit, I spotted Magpie’s booth where they were passing out colorful squares (free!) from a sheet cake based on Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. (The chocolate was the richest I’d ever had in a commercial cake!)

Thankfully, the Cruze Farm girls were on hand with their great-tasting milk to wash it all down!

It was altogether a great event.  Kids could practice cupcake-decorating.

And volunteers, like Elizabeth Parker and Ashley Jackson from the Knoxville Junior League’s Done in a Day committee  . . .

as well as Anthony and Kate from Gap Kids said they’d definitely man the booths again.  Besides, it was fun just wearing those green shirts!

The Great Cake Bake accomplished its goals and then some:  raising money, boosting reading, and making some of us jealous of those creative bakers. What a great way to spend a Saturday!

If I’d stayed longer, I could’ve sampled The Berenstain Bears from Magpie’s!

If you’ve been to The Great Cake Bake or you’ve got a cake story to tell, please share. We love comments about as much as we love sweets!

Knox County Imagination Library

 https://www.facebook.com/knoxkidsread

Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library

https://imaginationlibrary.com/

Filed under: Benefits, Children's Books, Cooking, Food Tagged: benefit, cakes, Cruze Farm, cupcakes, Dolly Parton, Imagination Library, Knoxville, Magpie's, Southern food ]]> http://ohtheplaceswesee.com/2013/03/11/books-and-buttercream-at-the-great-cake-bake/feed/ 19 rushasams Whitney Roberson's teapot cake Lots of picture-taking at The Great Cake Bake! IMG_7661 IMG_7744 IMG_7668 IMG_7720 IMG_7672 IMG_7740 IMG_7680 IMG_7689 IMG_7691 IMG_7696 IMG_7697 Billy Goat Gruff Cake IMG_7708 IMG_7711 IMG_7701 IMG_7702 IMG_7718 IMG_7726 IMG_7723 IMG_7714 IMG_7750 IMG_7719 If I'd stayed longer, I could've sampled The Berenstain Bears from Magpie's! GreatCakeBake