Paula Deen - Get Cookin'

Well, not exactly a "sale". 

In 2005, we were members of the booster club for the ECHL Augusta Lynx Hockey Team.  We (the hubby & I) helped plan the Christmas Party for the team.  These were young men who were all very far from home and didn't have enough time to participate in many holiday things with friends and family.  So, the booster club would do everything possible to make sure they had a good Christmas Party.

Part of the evening was to be a baking contest.  The club members all brought their baked goods and had numbers assigned to their items.  The players job was to taste, decide a winner and then, of couse, eat everything in sight. 

I decided to make "Gooey-Butter-Cake-Bars".   The recipe is very similar to Paula's, but I had gotten it out of the newspaper years ago.  I decided to make 4 batches.  The first two batches burned on the bottom.  This was the day of the party and I really began to panic.  I'd also decided to make a gingerbread Christmas tree complete with icing and decorations.  Had a bad time with the icing because it decided to rain that day and the icing was too runny.  Nothing was turning out right!

Somehow, I managed to get all 4 batches of the Gooey-Butter-Cake-Bars done.  I even added red & green sprinkles to give them a Christmas look.  As far as the tree, I had to let the icing kind of "drip" down.  I placed a glass cake holder in the center of a large platter.  The tree sat on top of the cake holder and the cake bars surrounded the cake holder on the bottom.

Off we went to the party, in the rain.  I was really down because so much had gone wrong.  I knew there was no way anybody would like what I had made, but I had signed up & had to take something.  The players began tasting everything.  Then before I knew it, they had gone back to my creation and were calling out my number! 

I won!!!!!  I had never won anything, especially having to with food!!  The prize was a $50 restaurant gift certificate and an embroidered apron.   The gooey butter bars were devoured in minutes.  Even the tree on top, that I had really only planned for decoration, was gone!!!

I think my husband was happier than I was.  Unfortunately, in the rush to get to the party, he had forgotten the camera.  So I have no pictures of that special night. 

After that, some of the players requested me to bring them batches of bars.  I spent alot of time the rest of that season baking for some of them.  The players who were married asked for the recipe so their wives could bake, too.

Now, anytime I have to take a dessert somewhere, guess what I always take???