Secrets For Winning Cooking Contests
Cooking contests are a fun way to see if everyone else likes your recipes as much as your family does. Food and cookware companies use cooking contests to promote their products, and the prizes are well worth winning. Whether you enter a new recipe or a family favorite in a cooking contest, whether your thing is barbeque or dessert, you can find a cooking contest that appeals to you.
Healthy Cooking Contests
Everybody knows that good health and healthy eating are interrelated, and healthy cooking contests encourage healthy eating. One example of this type of contest is the healthy college cookbook contest, where the winner gets their recipe published in a cookbook, gets a copy of the cookbook, and a $25 cash prize if the recipe is one of the top 25.
Another healthy cooking contest is the Get Fresh With North Carolina Sweet Potatoes Recipe Contest, which awards $500 prizes in each of four categories: soups, salads, sides, and sweets.
Dessert Cooking Contests
Who doesn't love dessert? If you make a mean pecan pie, a creative coconut cake or a bodacious batch of cookies, a dessert contest is your chance to shine. Hershey's Cocoa has sponsored a classic cake-baking contest for the last twenty years. Cakes and frosting must be made from scratch and must use Hershey's cocoa. Cash prizes are offered for the winning entries, but the best prize is bragging rights for winning this prestigious competition. The Annual Sesame Street Cookie Baking Contest is another popular cooking contest. This one was featured in the 1979 Cookie Monster Storybook and, according to legend, the Cookie Monster is one of the judges of this fun cooking contest.
Vegetarian Cooking Contests
Want to win an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii? Of course you do; who wouldn't? The Blossoming Lotus restaurant in Kauai hosts a contest called, "The Most Remarkable Vegan Recipe Contest In History." The winner of this cooking contest, which requires entrants to use a recipe containing no animal products whatsoever, wins a one week trip for two to Hawaii, all expenses paid.
You can find contests to enter in magazines that specialize in food, menus, and recipes. Enter local contests first, to build your confidence. Local contests don't attract nearly as many entrants as nationwide recipe contests. Once you have a few local contests under your belt, go ahead and start entering national contests.
Read food articles in magazines and newspapers to stay current on trends, and incorporate those trends into recipes you submit for contests. Examples of recipe contest trends are meals that can be prepared quickly, low-fat meals, and meals with trendy ingredients, like sundried tomatoes or figs.
