Pie competition

This past weekend, my company held their annual picnic. They take over a local park that not only has lots of playground equipment and a beach to play on, but they also organize kids’ games and rent a couple of bouncy houses. Little Chick LOVES bouncy houses. It was a very hot day as you can see – but her red cheeks were also after playing and bouncing for close to an hour. We had to force her into the shelter to cool down, get hydrated and eventually get her to eat something.

Last year the picnic organizers decided to add a food competition and had a pickle contest. Papa and I haven’t had much success with canned pickles so we didn’t participate. But this year their choice was fruit pie.  THAT is something I can do! Unfortunately, I forgot to take a good picture of my pie before delivering to the picnic. Mine is #7 on the table. I wasn’t sure it was going to qualify as a fruit pie because it was a layer of brownie (I used the Smores brownie recipe, a thin layer of cheesecake which we baked separately, and then it was topped with a raspberry sauce and fresh whole raspberries on top. However, everyone I mentioned my concerns to said, “but it has fruit on top!” 🙂

Guess what?! My pie came in second place! I was happy with the outcome and I won a set of Cake Boss mixing bowls … something I really don’t need, but I’ll find a use.

The judges were a group of people that had driven up from our Milwaukee office. They didn’t eat much lunch afterwards. Then the scavengers took over and pieces of the pies started disappearing into the mouths of the other picnic-goers. I don’t blame them. All the pies looked delicious. We managed to sneak a piece of our chocolate raspberry pie – and a small taste of the 1st place winner’s pie. She had made an upside-down apple pie with a caramel/pecan topping. And it was delivered piping hot.  But her apples were still chewy (not that I’m competitive or anything).

What made Papa even more happy than 2nd place was seeing one and only one pie plate completely empty when it was time to go. None of the other plates looked like that; they all still had leftovers.

I was happy to see it gone as well, but for a different reason.  My pants have been feeling tight lately

I doubt I’ll ever publish the recipe here. Too impractical. Bake the brownie in one springform pan. Bake the cheesecake in another. Dirty a saucepan to make the raspberry sauce. Too many dishes, too many hours. But it was delicious 🙂