Winner Reveal: Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition 2023™

Entry Name: On Tuesdays, We Wear Beads

Heather Brookshire is an award-winning sugar artist from Spring, Texas and is the owner of her very own cottage-bakery, The Cake Whisperer. Her love for cake and cookie decorating began at the young age of 12 when she took Wilton courses at Michaels. She enjoys playing with cookies, gingerbread, and buttercream for sugar arts competitions and was recently a competitor on Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship Gingerbread Showdown. When she’s not in the kitchen, she plans magical vacations for families traveling to Disney and Universal theme parks. And when she needs a break herself, Heather enjoys traveling with her husband, friends, and extended family on cruises and to cake shows or theme parks around the country. To learn more about Heather and her work, please visit her on Instagram.

Heather on Theme Interpretation: "When it comes to celebrations, few throw as good of a party as New Orleans during Mardi Gras. This tradition is celebrated the world over in slightly different ways but I was drawn to New Orleans' version of indulgence because of the architecture of the city and how important it is to the people there. Plus, the food and music are so lively! Let the good times roll!"

First-Place Winner/Silver Medal

Entry Name: Balinese Holiday

Alicia Arbaugh is a physical therapist assistant by day and a cookier by night. Alicia's hobbies include traveling, running, and hanging out with rescue dogs. She has been decorating cookies for about seven years now, entering and placing in various competitions along the way. Working on cookies lets Alicia explore her creative side. She is honored to win first place in the 2-D category of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™ again this year. To learn more about Alicia and her work, please visit her on Instagram. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Alicia first won in this category in 2020 when the competition made its in-person debut in Austin at That Takes the Cake Show. ~JMU]

Alicia on Theme Interpretation: "When creating my International Holiday entry, I wanted to convey the literal interpretation of the theme and the British meaning of holiday (vacation). Barong masks are used in Balinese holidays, including their most holy holiday, Galungan Day. This is when they celebrate the return of their ancestral spirits to earth and the triumph of good over evil. I love the look and detail of Balinese barong masks and wanted to incorporate one into a travel poster."

3-D Cookie/Beginner-Intermediate Winners

Third-Place Winner/Honorable Mention

Entry Name: Sukkot - The Jewish Celebration of Harvest

Bobbie Jill Young is owner of Cookies for Ewe, a new cottage bakery in Austin, Texas. Bobbie Jill began decorating cookies as a hobby. In 2018, Bobbie Jill was awarded first place for her “Starry Night” entry at That Takes the Cake Show in the beginner cookie division. This year, she was very excited to place third in the 3-D Beginner-Intermediate category of Julia M. Usher’s Cookie Art Competition™ with the entry pictured above. Bobbie Jill also placed first in the breakfast pastry tasting competition. Her winning entry was created using a combination of her cookie recipe and her great grandmother’s pie dough recipe. Bobbie Jill enjoys creating adorable custom cookies that bring smiles to cookie lovers of all ages. Her cookies are especially known for their delicious taste. When not baking, Bobbie Jill enjoys spending time gardening, feeding squirrels, and traveling the world with her husband. To learn more about Bobbie Jill and her work, please visit her on Instagram.

Bobbie Jill on Theme Interpretation: "I enjoyed creating entry pieces for this year’s competition theme of International Holidays. I used this theme as an opportunity to celebrate my Jewish heritage with entries that focused on the major holidays. Sukkot is a festival held in the fall to remember the sheltering of the Israelites in the wilderness and to celebrate the fall harvest. It also commemorates the forty years Jews spent in the desert when they escaped slavery in Egypt. A sukkah is a temporary hut and is often decorated in an autumn theme, such as with colorful fall leaves or branches. Harvested items are placed underneath it for the celebration."

Second-Place Winner/Honorable Mention

Entry Name: Christmas Cookie Truck

Jaci Dayton is a mom, daycare worker, wedding coordinator, artist, baker, and chef. Back in 2015 during a wedding cake class in college, she had to enter That Takes The Cake Competition, and there she fell in love with cakes and cookies. Her favorite mode of decorating is to handpaint cookies with cocoa butter, but she also loves to experiment with everything! For now, cookie decorating is just her weekend hobby, but she keeps striving to learn new things from everyone she can in order to better her skills. To learn more about Jaci and her work, please visit her on Facebook.

Jaci on Theme Interpretation: "To me, 'International Holidays' means encompassing the whole world to celebrate every individual. It’s a way of being all-inclusive and to view different cultures through one another's eyes. There are so many holidays to learn about and observe, so this theme really helped to make people more aware of others. I chose this design because it reminds me of Christmas but with a spin. Wouldn’t it be neat if ice cream trucks turned into Christmas cookie trucks every holiday? Imagine you step out onto your porch after a snow blizzard just rolled in. What do you see parked at the end of the street? A cookie truck covered in a fresh blanket of snow, which doesn’t stop the owners from serving up fresh warm cookies!"

First-Place Winner/Bronze Medal

Entry Name: Renewal in the Year of the Dragon

Kristyn Wighton-Tiofack is originally from Hamilton in Ontario, Canada, and now lives in Georgia, USA. Kristin has had an interest in desserts and pastries since a very young age. She loves that her artistic skills are able to shine through to décor on cakes and cookies. Her favorite thing about desserts is how they always put a smile on everyone's face. Julia's competition was the first one she had ever entered, and she is excited to fine-tune her skills and compete again in the future. To learn more about Kristin and her work, please visit her on Instagram.

Kristin on Theme Interpretation: "I chose Chinese New Year and specifically the Year of the Dragon (2024) as it is supposed to promote luck. It is said that, in the Year of the Dragon, more babies are born than under any other zodiac sign. I also chose to represent cherry blossoms in my work, as they signify renewal and the start of spring. They also promote fertility. I hope that the Year of the Dragon will bring my husband and me luck in having our first child! The symbols on the lanterns are health, wealth, happiness, and love, which I feel coincide with the renewal and luck that the new year brings."

3-D Cookie/Advanced-Master Winners

Third-Place Winner/Silver Medal

Entry Name: Ready for Easter

Susie Jacobs was once a high school English teacher, but nowadays is a sugar artist from League City, Texas, who runs a home-based cake decorating business, SusieMakes. Her cakes have won multiple awards and been published in several magazines. She is still relatively new to the cookie world, but she enjoys experimenting with the possibilities of cookie art. Susie also enjoys traveling to cake shows for competitions and classes. She loves learning techniques that can be used on both cakes and cookies and is happily doing a little bit of everything in the sugar art world. Out of the kitchen, Susie enjoys gardening, painting, raising butterflies, and spending precious time with her husband and four kids. To learn more about Susie and her work, please visit her on Instagram.

Susie on Theme Interpretation: "Easter has always been a very important religious holiday to me, but I also find beauty in combining its religious and secular aspects, because I have kids, and it’s fun to make a little magic too. We go to mass on Easter Sunday, and while there, the Easter Bunny delivers baskets filled with gifts and hides eggs in our yard. My kids delight in finding their treats after celebrating the resurrection of Christ. They are getting older now, and the magic is almost gone. With this in mind, I created my piece to represent some items a growing young lady might take and wear to Easter Sunday mass. Springtime colors and flowers to be worn; I imagine these are sitting on her dressing table, in anticipation of a beautiful day. A basketweave clutch reminds her of the Easter baskets of her childhood; bright neon eggs have been replaced with something a little 'fancier'; and her jewelry consists of understated pearl stud earrings and a cameo brooch of the Blessed Mother. A tulip she picked from the garden rests beside her accessories and her old prayer book. It is a season of new life and faith and growth."

Second-Place Winner/Silver Medal

Entry Name: Liam the Leprechaun

Kelly Powell is the owner of Sweet Tooth ATX, LLC in Austin, Texas. In 2006, she started her sweet journey exploring the artistic side of food, avidly pursuing the art of baking and cake designing. She didn’t even decorate her first cookie until 2011. In 2013, Kelly started her teaching career as a Wilton Method Instructor. In 2017, she hung up her purple apron and moved to a local decorator’s supply shop and classroom, Make It Sweet. There, she was able to spread her wings and teach all manner of classes from beginner-level cake and cookie classes, like Buttercream 101 and Cookie Bouquets, to more advanced classes like Advanced Fondant Techniques and Cookie Platters. She has been competing since 2009 and has become an award-winning decorator and baker. The most important thing to her when competing is to try new things, and to tackle self-directed projects she doesn’t normally get the chance to do. To learn more about Kelly and her work, please visit her on Facebook.

Kelly on Theme Interpretation: "For my International Holidays-themed entry, I chose St. Patrick’s Day. In my mind it was one of only a handful of holidays celebrated around the world with iconology and imagery that cannot be mistaken. Everyone knows the myth of leprechauns, and their treasure at the end of the rainbow. Leprechauns are capricious and mischievous little fairies who amass their tiny fortunes by making shoes for the other woodland faerie folk who pay with tiny gold coins. As the story goes, after being captured by a couple of farmers, a leprechaun tricked them into letting him go by offering his tiny fortune that he hid at the end of the rainbow in exchange for his freedom. With a wink and a nod, he left the farmers to chase the end of the rainbow, forever looking for his tiny fortune. For the end of the rainbow, one shall never find."

First-Place Winner/Gold Medal

Entry Name: Holiday Express

Ganna Oliinyk is a 42-year-old cookie decorating master from Ukraine, currently living in San Antonio, Texas. She is passionate about creating beautiful and delicious treats for all occasions. Ganna is a proud mother of two, and has a wonderful family that supports her in her craft. She started her journey in baking seven years ago by decorating Christmas cookies for her kids, but in a short time, it became obvious that cookie decorating is her passion and calling. Moving to the USA in 2022 was difficult, but it also opened up new horizons that Ganna is so excited to explore. To learn more about Ganna and her work, please visit her on her site www.sundaycookers.com.

Ganna on Theme Interpretation: "My entry, Holiday Express, offers Easter, Christmas, Halloween, and Thanksgiving family holidays. These holidays are reminders of our family traditions and cherished values. Decorating cookies and moving from one holiday to another keep us going through life's challenges. Holiday Express allows us to board the train and travel from car to car, tradition to tradition, spreading joy and happiness among family members. We can make each moment count and keep our family happy under any circumstance."

Kerry Vincent Best in Show Award Winner

And, last but not least, the unveiling of the coveted Kerry Vincent Best in Show Award! This award is given each year to the one entry across all categories/classifications that best demonstrated impeccable skill, attention to detail, design innovation or aptitude, and/or high style – all hallmarks of Kerry Vincent’s legendary designs. And, this year, the award went to (drumroll, please) . . .

Congrats again, Ganna! One judge noted, “This entrant was one of few to represent multiple holidays in her piece, which I though was very on point, as the theme is ‘International Holidays’, plural, not ‘International Holiday’. But, more importantly, I enjoyed her personal interpretation of connecting the family by traveling through the holidays together year after year. Choosing a train to convey this journey was a clever thought.” Another said, “Brilliant work! This entry displays a wide range of decorating and construction techniques, all well combined in a harmonious display with great 360-degree viewability.” Still another summed up the judges’ collective sentiments quite well, “I am so impressed with all of the wonderfully executed details and surprise elements (faces and figures) peeking out of every car; the piped and painted figures were expertly done and so charming – they really underscored the sense of joy that comes with the holidays. I also appreciated the attention paid to achieving metallic and shiny effects, particularly on the engine and in the lights. The wide range of textures and finishes lends a lot of extra interest to the piece.” As you can see, the judges were universally charmed by Ganna's magnificent piece.

And, on that congratulatory note, I conclude this year's official winner reveal! Thanks again to That Takes the Cake Show for hosting the competition; to our judges for laboring over every entry detail to make these very difficult decisions; to our sponsors for their overwhelming generosity; and, most of all, to EVERY entrant who had the courage and persistence to get an entry on the table. You are all winners in my book.