BROOKVILLE – Denise Messer recently experienced the sweet taste of success not once, but three times at the Jefferson County Fair.
The Clarington, Forest County grandmother won the apple pie, angel food cake and chocolate cake contests. In addition, she had “Best of Show” for chocolate cake.
“I was so surprised,” she said. “Of course, I was thrilled. I never thought I would get three of them.”
She said that she followed her “heart” in choosing the recipes.
“Instead of making what I thought a judge would like, I made something I know my family likes,” she said.
“I am just so excited. The fair said it was the only time in history of the fair that someone won all three! How cool is that?”
Messer said she made everything from scratch. She used a basic apple pie recipe with a crumb topping, a basic angel food cake recipe with a light lemon glaze and a double chocolate mocha latte cake recipe.
She placed the rainbow-colored ribbons that she won on the side of the antique hutch in her kitchen.
Messer said her family was thrilled that she won, especially her husband, Robert.
“He always gets to try everything I make,” she commented. “If I make a new recipe, he’s always up to taste it.”
She encourages people to come to the fair each year and look at all the entries and “see the hard work people put into these things.”
She also urges young people to volunteer at the fair.
Messer is concerned that a generation is being lost. She said entries of handicrafts such as needle work and quilts, as well as canned goods, are down.
“I just want people to realize how important the fair is,” she said. “It is the past and it is the future. We all learn from one another at the fair.”
As for herself, Messer is letting the younger generation take over.
She doesn’t plan to enter anything in the fair and will let her granddaughter, Isabelle, 8, and daughter, Kate, try their luck.
“We’re just carrying on the tradition, which is what the fair is all about.”