Lesson #152: Award Winning Apple Pie

Last weekend I decided to enter an apple pie contest at our local county fair. I entered just for fun and decided to not take the contest too seriously. In fact, I tried a new apple pie recipe that I thought looked good in a magazine and decided to enter the pie regardless of how it turned out.

The crust was an all butter crust (8 oz. of REAL butter!) with a touch of salt and sugar. The filling contained 3 lbs of apples - a mixture of sweet and tart - along with a healthy amount of cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg. The top of the crust is brushed with egg and sprinkled with a generous amount of sugar which results in deep golden color after it bakes.

Since I was entering the pie in a contest, I couldn't cut into it, but I did taste some the filling which bubbled out and it had an amazing sweet and buttery apple flavor. I almost decided to eat it instead of entering it! Here's a picture I took after it came out of the oven. It looked good to me!

Justin and I dropped off the pie at the fair building and showed up about an hour later for judging. We found out there were 16 pies in the contest and we could watch the 3 judges test the pies. We settled into our seats and immediately started chatting with the ladies around us. As far as I could tell, I was by far the youngest person to enter a pie :)

By luck of the draw, my pie was the last in line to be judged. On one hand, I thought this could be bad because the judges would be too tired of eating pie by the time they got to mine. On the other hand, the judges might recall my pie better because it was at the end and not in the middle of the pack (called the recently effect for any psychology nerds!).

After an hour of judging, the winners were finally announced.....and I received 3rd place! Here's a picture of my pie being uncovered at the judging table and myself waiting with the 2nd place winner.

The lady who won 2nd place was very nice and we talked about how she entered a peach pie into the Ohio State Fair 30 years ago and won first place. She also told me that the secret to her pie was making a homemade crust and she made me promise to buy something for myself with my prize money! She was so sweet!

Another highlight of the day was getting interviewed by the local news station. My interview didn't make the air, but they did announce my name as a winner on the evening news. Woo hoo!

LESSON LEARNED: I need to make this pie again to actually taste a piece of it! :)

Recipe for Award Winning Apple Pie