Apple Pie Contest

I don't have many pictures or much to say...but I did enter an apple pie contest today. It was my first time and I was very nervous! :-) I used my grandmother's sacred recipe to bake and enter a traditional apple pie. I had also created a concoction to enter into the non-traditional category, and at the last minute decided to include it. I was a frantic lunatic the morning of the contest and left the house with the pies right out of the oven. (Actually, my husband, Matt, had to go home to get my non-traditional pie after we arrived and I had figured out that I could enter one in each category).

I didn't have a spare second to take pictures, and I didn't even capture the recipe I used for the non-traditional. I will tell you that Cara, from Cara's Cravings, offered some great ideas, and I did look at this recipe for inspiration. I started with my grandmother’s crust recipe for the bottom crust, but I did add some milled oats and cinnamon to the dough. I filled the pie with Cortland apples and used the same spices as my grandmother’s recipe. But, I didn’t top with a traditional crust. Instead, I made sort of a crisp/cobbler topping. I combined butter, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, pecans, and golden raisins.

And the drum roll please…
Turns out my traditional pie didn’t quote finish cooking, even though it looked like it was perfectly done. I made the pie the exact same way I have made it for years, and cooked it in the same oven, for the same amount of time. What went wrong will always remain a mystery… Needless to say, I did not make the finals. There were over 40 pies in that category, and although my pie when at its best is pretty darn amazing, a less than perfect version just didn’t cut it. As for my non-traditional…my pie did make the top ten, but didn’t win one of the top 3 slots. They didn’t tell you which place you won other than 1, 2, and 3, so I like to think that I came in fourth!

The judges tasting MY pie!