This 12-year-old beat her grandma in a Wisconsin State Fair baking contest last year

Lois Trongard, of Pewaukee, has been baking, cooking and canning items to enter Wisconsin State Fair's culinary competitions for the past 30 years. But her dedication to showcasing her culinary skills hasn't been a solitary endeavor; many family members, including Trongard's 12-year-old granddaughter, Elena Scray, have joined in on the family tradition.

"Whenever we would go to State Fair, I would see the winners displayed and think, 'I could do that,' " Trongard said.

So one year she entered a few items. When Trongard realized she wouldn't be able to watch her creations get judged because of her full-time job, she planned her vacation time around the fair the following year.

"I won a few of the categories that year," she said. "And it became my way of showing that just because I work full time doesn't mean I can't cook or bake; I'm a homemaker, too."

Homemaking is important enough to Trongard that she has passed her skills, recipes and competitive spirit on to the next generations of her family. Her three kids have all "cooked, baked, entered and placed" in State Fair competitions over the years, as have her 16-year-old grandson and Scray. Trongard's 5- and 7-year-old grandsons, who live in Wyoming, miss out on Wisconsin's state fair, but they will be entering their own state's fair in a few weeks when Trongard and her husband visit.

A friendly family competition

While Trongard's kids and oldest grandchild have stopped entering as they've grown older, she said Scray has shown the most interest in entering — and winning — the culinary competitions.

Scray, who began competing when she was about 5 years old, even achieved the unthinkable last year — she beat her grandma.

For a baking contest sponsored by Splenda at the 2022 State Fair, Scray baked, decorated and entered her version of a cake that she and Trongard make every summer. It was a carrot-and-zucchini cake topped with cream cheese frosting and fondant decorations made to resemble a garden.

Scray took first place for the cake. How did she feel about beating her grandma?

"I don't know," she said in a recent interview as she laughed and looked at Trongard out of the corner of her eye.

Trongard knew how she felt; she was proud.

"She did beat me," Trongard said. "I'm OK with that. I always want her to do better than me, and she didn't just beat me. She beat a lot of other adults, too."

This year the two will compete against each other again in the same contest; Scray will enter an apple pie baked with the family recipe and Trongard will enter a banana cream pie.

"I don't have high hopes of winning against her," Trongard said.

Young baker loves decorating contests the most

Trongard and Scray both love cooking, baking and canning, but Scray's favorite contests are ones that focus on decorating.

"I like decorating best because I get to show my creative side," Scray said.

This year Scray has been flexing her artistic muscles by using fondant, rice paper and candy rocks to painstakingly decorate a dragonfly-themed cake. She'll enter the cake into one of the contests for kids. Although the "cake" itself is Styrofoam, all the decorations must be edible.

"When I heard about the theme, I drew a sketch of what I thought it should look like, then asked my friend for a few more ideas, then I did a final drawing," she said.

At that point, she and her grandma brainstormed the best edible ways for Scray to create each of her elements.

"I had to edit my design as we went," Scray said. "I decided against doing a waterfall, and our first idea for the dragonfly wings was gelatin paper, but it just kept breaking. So I searched up some other ideas and came across rice paper. That worked."

Scray said she finds the problem-solving and experimentation inherent in her craft frustrating but satisfying; although she's able to exclusively focus on design for the decorating contests, she also spends a lot of time on the artistry of the entries that will be judged on taste.

"What do we always say, Elena?" Trongard asked.

"What?" Scray asked, caught off guard. "Oh, yeah, we eat with our eyes first."

She has entered dozens of competitions

Over the years, Scray has made so many beautiful and delicious items that she has trouble remembering some of them. As she scrolled through her phone, she found photos of a dinosaur cake, a volcano cake, a forest cake and rainbow cupcakes. One year, she made a Rice-Krispie-treat-themed dessert shaped like cheese, complete with fondant mice ready to eat their snack.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot about this one," Scray said as she found a photo of "her favorite eating entry ever because it just tasted good, really good" — a chocolate and caramel brownie dessert with a layer of pretzels on top.

As Trongard scrolled through her own phone, she said to Scray, "Oh, remember when you made this casserole?"

"I did?" Scray said.

"Well, you're holding it in this picture," Trongard answered, laughing.

"I guess I don't always remember everything I make," Scray said.

It's not a surprising admission considering Scray is entering 13 items in State Fair competitions this year, a number she said is typical for her.

"I have all my ribbons hanging on my wall," she said. "That's kind of how I keep track of how many things I've entered, because I do usually get ribbons for my stuff."

Trongard estimates Scray has entered between 50 and 60 culinary items over the years.

"Oh, wow! Well, I don't have that many ribbons on my wall," Scray said, modestly.

This family tradition includes baking family legacies

Trongard and Scray's culinary season starts each April when the State Fair competitions booklet is released. That's when grandma and granddaughter sit down together to decide which contests to enter; then they go through family recipes, brainstorm designs and develop their plans.

During the summer, they spend many days together baking, testing, experimenting, tweaking and, of course tasting.

"We make so many things to enter that we start out in the morning putting one thing in the oven right away, then that's followed by another and we keep it going all day," Trongard said. "We do take breaks once in awhile for our sous chef — my husband — to do dishes. He hates this time of year because the kitchen is always a mess."

Trongard said she's typically "all baked out" for a few months after the fair, which is good timing for a break because that's about the time Scray starts getting busy with school and sports.

But by the time the holidays come around, grandmother and granddaughter are back at it, baking for family and friends.

This year, Trongard is planning to teach Scray how to make the family Norwegian krumkake recipe. She said the waffle cookies are difficult to master because they're made using a cast iron griddle that will burn the batter if it's not the exact right temperature, and that the cookies have to be flipped onto a cone and rolled when they're the exact right texture, or they'll break.

"She'll be able to to it," Trongard said. "We're using the cast iron equipment her great-great-great-grandmother brought from Norway, and I want to pass it on to Elena after she learns to make the cookies."

Trongard also hopes Scray will learn to make each family member's favorite recipes, to carry on traditions and memories.

"What's your favorite Christmas cookie? The jelly ones, right?" Trongard asked Elena.

"No, those are Landon's favorites," Scray said. "Mine are the pecan fingers."

"Oh, yeah," Trongard said, smiling. "You learned to make those last year."

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Rematch time for baker and granddaughter at Wisconsin State Fair