Wayland’s Sandy Burr Country Club Sunday hosted the second annual Iron Chef competition to benefit the Wayland Council on Aging.

More than 20 businesses came out and set up tables of hors d’oeuvres for the community to enjoy as two Iron Chef-style competitions that took place, one indoors and one out.

Inside, cake decorators baked and iced their way through the competition and outdoors, it was all about grilling.

“It’s a very different kind of event,” said Julie Secord, co-director of the Council on Aging and one of the event’s main planners. “What really makes it is the businesses that came out and participated. It really gives everyone a sense of community.”

The event took nearly a year to plan and many people to make it happen. The turnout was impressive, which made it all worthwhile.

The cake decorating competition stole the show as contestants had to use four out of six mystery items in their design. The contestants were allowed to bring only a shoebox full of edible items and were not told the theme of the cake until the competition began.

Thaddeus Thompson and Lynn Lipcon, representing the Wayland Public Library, won the People's Choice Award with their Hawaii cake.

“It’s a little bit of a geography lesson,” said Thompson.

His partner, Lipcon, added, “It’s colorful, playful and has a sense of humor.”

The judges' pick -- dubbed the Sweet Victory award -- was the two-tier cake made by Antje Schaefer and Julie Mansfield of the Wayland Garden Club. This decision was based on the application of frosting, creativity and originality of the theme, skill in decoration, degree of difficulty in decoration and the effective use of the mystery box items which included graham crackers, pretzel sticks, gum drops, shaved coconut, fruit roll ups and vanilla wafer crumbs.

Judge John Pergantis announced the winners, saying to the library team, “You started off a little sketchy, but in the end it came out really cool. I really liked what you did with the ingredients.”

Pergantis then announced the Garden Club as the winning team saying, “You used the mystery box items the most creatively and that is what this whole competition is about.”

On the grilling side of things, the Neighbor Brigade team walked away with Bragging Rights for One Year.