Blue-ribbon baker Megan Roe racks up award-winning recipes

COLE CAMP — Blue ribbon baker Megan Roe, of Cole Camp, learned from the best — her “Granny” Beverly Steffens, and Evelyn Goosen, Cole Camp’s bread-baking queen.

“I took, I don’t know how many classes,” Roe said of Goosen. “I was over there at least twice a week.”

“For months,” her mother, Susan Roe, added.

Megan Roe, 26, began baking classes with Goosen when she finished college. Not many people signed up for the classes, so Roe attended as many of them as possible.

“She taught me how to bake with yeast,” Roe said. “I’d bring the bread home and it would be rising, and she’d call at 10 o’clock at night and say, ‘How’d it turn out?’

“I’ve always liked to bake and she started offering these classes, then I caught onto it,” she added.

Goosen taught Roe how to make honey whole wheat dinner rolls, kuchen (a German coffee cake), cream puffs and cinnamon rolls.

Her star pupil has been entering the Missouri State Fair and the Cole Camp Fair competitions for two years — and the ribbons are piling up.

At this year’s state fair, Roe entered 13 items. She won first place for her red velvet cake in the Hammons Black Walnut Contest, first place for her “Me Luv Hidden Surprise” cookies in the Laureate Beta Zeta Chocolate Chip Cookie Contest and second place for her caramel pecan twister braid in the Fleishman’s Yeast Contest.

Roe, who works 40 hours a week as a certified pharmacy technician, spent two days cooking for some of the smaller contests and full mornings baking for the major competitions.

For this year’s Cole Camp Fair, she had 25 entries including nine types of cookies.

“I started last night after work at 5 o’clock and got done at 10 o’clock,” she said.

Then, her mother added, she began her day at 5 a.m. the following morning.

When making large quantities of food, Roe has discovered some secrets to success. She pre-measures ingredients and places them into plastic zipper bags, and when making cookies for contests, she only makes two dozen of each variety. The extra dough can be frozen for later use.

For the Cole Camp Fair, she made two pies, chocolate crunch bars, crescent rolls, biscuits, the caramel pecan twister braid, cinnamon rolls, coffee cake and white bread.

“The Cole Camp Fair is way simpler than entering the state fair,” Roe said. “You don’t have to pay and they don’t want your recipes.”

She has a method for choosing recipes for entries.

“I really enjoy looking at old cookbooks, and a lot of the time I look at a recipe and see what I can do to make them better,” she said.

“I probably have 300 to 400 (cookbooks). I’ve been collecting the Pillsbury Bake-Off Cookbooks. I finally have the whole set, the vintage set.”

Her mother and sister, Molly, bought the rest of the set for her for Christmas last year.

“They made one every year, so there are 39 to 40 of them,” her mother said.

They also took Roe’s recipes and photos of her baked goods and custom-made a professional-quality cookbook for her on tastebook.com. They titled it, “Pumpkin Butter’s Favorites,” after the nickname her grandmother gave her as a child.

“It was a surprise,” Megan said. “It was the last thing I opened.”

The cookbook features 30 to 35 of Roe’s recipes including Goosen’s cinnamon rolls and her grandmother’s brown sugar and traditional sugar cookies.

“I would always go down to her house and we’d read cookbooks together or I’d be watching Julia Child’s show,” Roe said of her grandmother. “You never knew what we’d be baking.”

Roe offered some tips for baking quality breads, cookies and other treats.

“Before, I always used name-brand ingredients, but Evelyn always said use Always Save.”

Roe said with the economy like it is right now, buying in bulk is helpful. Bulk items such as yeast and flour can be purchased at Mennonite stores.

She prefers to use farm eggs when she bakes, because the yolks are richer and it gives the dough a healthy color. She also suggested that before beginning a recipe, all baking ingredients should be at room temperature. She allows 35 minutes for milk and eggs to warm and 1 1/2 hours for butter or margarine to become soft.

If a recipe calls for softened butter, don’t melt it in the microwave. Melting will change the consistency of the recipe, especially cookies.

“With softened butter you should be able to gently push your finger into it,” Roe said.

“I do use a different flour for my yeast breads. I use a high-gluten flour purchased at the Mennonite store. It makes the dough better and makes it a good consistency.”

Until recently, Roe mixed all of her ingredients by hand with a large metal and wood scoop. Mixing became easier when she invested in a large Kitchen-Aid Professional 600.

“It’s helped out a lot, especially with all this baking,” she said.

Her best piece of baking advice came from her mentor, Goosen.

“If you fail on a recipe, try it again. Don’t ever give up.”

Sugar Cookies
4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups butter-flavored shortening
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift flour, measure and sift again with the baking soda, salt and sugar. Cut the shortening into the dry ingredients until it is as fine as corn meal. Combine milk, slightly beaten eggs and vanilla. Add the dry ingredients to the liquid ingredients, beating until smooth. Cover dough and chill overnight or several hours.

Roll on floured board and cut with floured cookie cutter. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for eight to 10 minutes. They will crisp as they cool. Makes four dozen large cookies.

Recipe is from Roe’s “Granny,” Beverly Steffens.

Bubble Bread
1 package dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water
1 cup scalded milk
2 tablespoons shortening
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, well beaten
3 1/2 cups sifted flour
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup melted margarine

Soften yeast in water. Combine milk, shortening, 2 tablespoons sugar and salt. Cool to lukewarm. Add softened yeast and egg. Gradually stir in flour to form soft dough. Beat well, place dough in a greased bowl, cover and let rise in warm place, until double in bulk, about two hours.
Grease a bundt cake pan with shortening. Mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Turn dough on a lightly floured board. Form into a roll and cut into pieces and form into balls. Roll in melted margarine, then cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Layer balls in greased bundt pan. Cover with trash bag. Let rise in warm place for 30 minutes or until double in size. Remove cover.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Invert onto a serving plate as soon as it comes out of the oven. Let rest for five minutes, then remove pan.

IT’S A WINNER!
Megan Roe’s Ribbons from the 2009 Cole Camp Fair
• First place for non-yeast coffee cake
• First place for Fancy Yeast Bread — Caramel Pecan Twister Braid.
• First place for Cherry Pie
• First place for Ice Box Cookies
• First place for Chocolate Marshmallow Cookies
• First place for Toffee Crunch Bars
• Second place for Devil’s Food Cake
• Second place for Peach Pie
• Second place for Snickerdoodle Cookies
• Second place for Sugar Cookies
• Third place for Oatmeal Cookies
• Third place for Ginger Cookies
• Third place for Peanut Butter Cookies
• Third place for Everyday Cookies