News Column
Carmen Rath-Wald
Logan County Extension Agent
July 21, 2017

Kuchen Contest Judging not for the Fainthearted

It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it.  Stepping up to the plate, literally were,
Brianna Klein, Miss Emmons County Farmer Rancher, District 28 Representative Jeff Magrum, John Wald, Logan County Commissioner, Ron Vossler, Author and Scholar, and Todd Mitchell, KFYR Radio Personality.  The five judges tasted every one of the 51 (yes, fifty-one!), kuchen entered into the World’s Best Kuchen Contest from the Tri-County Area at the Tri-County Fairgrounds just west of Wishek on Saturday, July 15, 2017.

It was brutal.  Not one was bad, not one sample was tasteless.  All were delicious, but decisions had to be made.  In the words of Marge Horner, "It's all good."  Nonetheless, here are the results after the judge’s serious work:

Emmons County's, Marlys Ohlhauser, took first in cottage cheese and wedding kuchen categories and second in peach and other.
Marge Horner from Logan County took first in other with caramel apple pie kuchen and grand champion overall with it.  She said she just put a base of apple pie filling on the dough, custard, sautéed apples for the top, baked and drizzled caramel topping on when cool.  One of the judges said the flavors just exploded in his mouth. 

Alice Wiest of Wishek, McIntosh County, took 1st in Rhubarb
Hildegard Mock (not pictured) of Emmons County took 1st in the prune category and McIntosh County's, Dianna Woehl took 1st in the Peach kuchen category.

Grandma's Kuchen from Ashley won in the Business Division with a Peach kuchen.

In the Junior division:  Adam Wolff of Wishek won in other category with his strawberry kuchen and his Peach plus he took the grand champion with his strawberry. 
Reagan Gross of Wishek took 1sts in prune, rhubarb and cheese.

Big thanks to BEK Communication for co-sponsoring the contest along with the Tri-County Tourism Alliance.  Additional photos from the contest can be seen at: https://www.facebook.com/GermanRussianCountry/. 

 For more information about this topic or something else, contact me at the NDSU Extension Service in Logan County at 754-2504 or email: carmen.rath.wald@ndsu.edu.  I would be glad to help!  Oh, and if you are willing to be on the kuchen contest committee, run the contest, judge the contest or bake for the contest next year…I’d love to hear from you!