I apologize for taking so long to post these blog write ups!  I’ve been really busy getting ready for the RAW Semifinalist Show this Wednesday – I’ve been nominated for Accessory Designer of the Year! EEK!  Anyway – I think I have that all under control so now to get the rest of my life back under control…at least for a few minutes…

Here are our lovely judges for the event!  It wouldn’t be as much fun without them!  Thanks for taking the time to eat some pies all! The award for the ‘Most Creative Pie’ went to Lisa Pagel and her Apple Cranberry Pie. The award for the pretties pie went to Carolyn Brown for her Apple Pie with Bourbon. 

The judges were split into two groups for the judging.  Four judged pies 1 through 12, four other judged pies 13 through 24.  The two top scoring pies from each group went onto the finals where 3 judges scored to determine the winner.  First – I’ll share with you the runner’s up!Our first runner up was Heather Morrison with her ‘Perfect Apple Pie’Heather was very excited about this honor and I can’t say I blame her!  The next runner up is Aidan Helwig with his ‘Epic Cranberry, Blackberry Apple Pie’.    Here’s the email I had gotten from Aidan’s father the morning of the pie contest:

Hi,
Aidan (my 10 year old son) is going to baking a pie for the contest. He's been pumped for this since visiting the orchard a few weeks ago and has baked six different mini-pie versions so far trying to perfect his recipe.

He says the following about his pie:
"I tried a number of different ingredients and some combinations did not taste good and the pie crust wasn’t right. This pie has cranberries, blackberries and apples. It also has both sugar and brown sugar. This makes a good pie with a flaky crust."
See you later today!
Jim Helwig

This is my favorite story of the contest and I’m so excited to that this inspired a boy to cook a pie and spend some good, quality time with his father.  I hope this happens more in future years!  Thanks Aidan – and job well done – seriously – your pie was quite impressive!

The next runner up was Kyle Barber with his Christmas Tree Pie.  He was the first to deliver a pie to the contest and I completely spaced and didn’t get a picture of him with his pie.  Of course, by the time he came to pick up his pan (which was his Grandma’s pan) there was no pie to photo him with.  oops!

And the WINNER of the 2nd Annual Apple Pie Contest at Lapacek’s Orchard goes to… 

****drum roll****

Brenda Endres with her ‘Brenda Sue’s Apple Pie’!Brenda did a fabulous winner pose or her photo!  Unfortunately I didn’t get a piece of her amazing apple pie – it went too fast.  I’m hoping I convinced Brenda that she needs to make the runner/organizer of the pie contest a pie just to prove to me how good it is…we’ll see…

Brenda’s daughter, Erika is Cedi’s ‘Best Friend’.  When Cedi broke her arm last year, Erika sat with her on the playground.  They’re not in the same class this year but they are still best friends.  The girls were all very excited for Brenda’s win! 

I couldn’t resist getting my picture taken with the Grand Prize Pie Baker.

 

Thanks again to everyone for all the fun that was had for the 2nd Apple-Palooza!  We’ll definitely be having it again next year so keep working on those pies!

I just made a really delicious pumpkin apple pie…maybe I’ll have to teach the girls so they can enter that next year…