Carrot Cake Confusion - Conclusion

I've been meaning to post about the outcome of my first entry in a cake competition since last October, many apologies for the delay - I hope that the wait has been worth it!

On the morning of the competition I decided to make the competition cake gluten free and then spent a nervous 30 minutes wishing I'd cleaned the glass of the oven door more recently. This is because the cake batter ended up considerably more runny than my practice non-gluten free batter and I was worried that it might drip out of the loose-bottomed cake tins.

This also gave me insight into how the competitors feel on The Great British Bake Off when they're watching their cakes bake. I'd always thought, 'I'd never do that', except there I was anxiously peering through the glass of my oven door, trying to see if my cakes were behaving.

I also made a slight change to the cream cheese frosting by adding orange zest as I thought the frosting flavoured with just vanilla extract a little plain.

Here's what my competition cake looked like without the frosting:

and here it is ready to go:

Here's how the Judges saw it displayed:

I was convinced that this cake would win, as I loved the original presentation:

 After wandering around the showground for a couple of hours whilst all the judging took place in the marquee, I made a tentative return and spent a good 30 minutes looking at everything EXCEPT the cake table - I was really nervous about the outcome. Here's what I saw when I finally got the courage to look:

Woohoo! Yay!! As far as I was concerned, I was the champion!! The relief I felt was intense and I had a huge, silly grin on my face. A couple of total strangers had tasted my baking and not only liked it but awarded me a rosette. Awesome :)