Olympia Blintzapalooza: Back and better than ever on Sunday

Nobody would’ve known that Blintzapalooza — a longtime fundraiser built around blintzes, bagels and books — took last year off because it didn’t miss a beat on Sunday, attracting a steady crowd and a record number of entries for this year’s cheesecake baking contest.

The longtime event, which takes place at Temple Beth Hatfiloh in downtown Olympia, typically raises around $10,000 for a different charity. This year, they raised money for ROOF Community Services, the Emergency Overnight Shelter and South Sound Parent to Parent.

Rabbi Seth Goldstein said they took last year off because too many key volunteers were unavailable to help. But no matter, because the event still attracted about 2,000 people and 16 cheesecake entries for the baking contest — the most in the event’s history, said Oscar Soule, a longtime fixture with Blintzapalooza, who also is closely involved with the contest.

This year’s judges were Congressman Denny Heck, Olympia City Councilwoman Jessica Bateman and Mohamed El-Sokkary, owner of Smiling Mo’s Bakery, who, after sampling the cheesecakes, announced that Stephani Ross of Lacey was the first-place winner.

The other winners, Soule said, were Beth Dubey, Roberta Berger, and Heidi Mandler-Huff and Jeremy Huff, who received an honorable mention for their white chocolate blueberry cheesecake.

Ross did her homework before entering the competition, she said, by baking three variations of her winning cheesecake and then taking them to work to get feedback from her colleagues. The winner, both among her colleagues and Sunday’s judges, was her lemon sour cream cheesecake with raspberry swirl, backed by a cocoanut graham cracker crust.

Goldstein entered a cheesecake pie this year, he said, after finding one of his grandmother’s recipes for the dish. He couldn’t recall his grandmother ever making the pie, and he acknowledged Sunday that he should have tasted it before it was served.

Soule said he was surprised at the number of cheesecake entries because the cake takes time to make. Ross, for example, finished her cake Friday and let it sit for a day, saying it helps to let them age a bit.

Blintzapalooza has been around for nearly 30 years, Soule said. In that time, it has helped 54 different charities and raised about $140,000.

This story was originally published March 20, 2016 at 5:13 PM with the headline "Olympia Blintzapalooza: Back and better than ever on Sunday."