I know a lot of you enjoy baking and cooking lovely treats for your loved ones around this time of year. This is the Fourth Annual Sweet Surprise Cooking Contest! I'd love to see what you're Cooking Up! So I am inviting you to share what you've made in these three traditional categories!

• Sweet
• Savory
• Sippable

To enter, simply prepare your real-life creations, add your username and snap a photo. Host the image somewhere (such as IMGUR, Flikcr, or tinypic), and paste or link your entries in this thread using the provided form. :3

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• No more than two entries per person, per category.
• Don't edit your username into your image - it's got to be part of the original photo. If you mess up and forget the username, talk to me, Emilio, and I'll see if we can work something out.
• No store bought goodies, please! Using recipes or box mixes is fine, as is getting as little bit of help from another person as needed (2 year old "help" decorate? That's fine. Enlisted someone to chop nuts for you? That's ok too.), as long as you've done the majority of the work yourself.
• No last year entries! One wouldn't think this needs to be said, but apparently it does. Someone's already tried to pull this off in past years. You know who you are!

There will be a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place prize for each category! The prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are as follows:

• 1st Place: 2 EIs of your choice from any FOWN event 3000g
• 2nd Place: 1 EI of your choice from any FOWN event 1500g
• 3rd Place: 500g

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Q. What criteria are the entries being judged on?
A. For edible entries, I am looking at sentimentality (Is this a family recipe? Does it remind you of your nan, or a special memory? I love that stuff! ), how yummy I imagine it tasting (you won't fail for accidentally using an ingredient I don't personally like), and overall presentation (both staging and the food itself). For crafts: creativity, technique, results (if you attempt something really difficult I'll take that into consideration when judging the final product).

Q. All I have is my phone camera. How important is photo quality to you?
A. While entries aren't being judged on photo quality directly, since I can't actually taste the food the visuals do matter. I am not going to be picky about image resolution but a nicely staged photo will have an edge over a similar quality dish with a careless photo. (eg, Don't set your plate of beautiful, yummy food on a dirty floor next to a pair of sneakers to take your pic.)

Q. Does my entry need to be "Christmassy" in order to win?
A. Not at all. Whatever seasonal means to you is just fine with me. :) Feel free to add comments to your entries to explain anything you feel concerned about.

Q. I'm not the best cook, should I enter anyway?
A. Go for it! I love to see any and all creations - it's especially neat to share holiday foods because so many of them have personal relevance to the chef. :)