I love pie, so when I had the opportunity to become a judge at the Crisco 2010 National Pie Championships at the American Pie Council’s Great American Pie Festival, I jumped at it. This is the biggest pie contest in the country, with categories for commercial pies – such as those you find at grocery store bakeries and in restaurant bakeries, like Kroger and Baker’s Square – amateur pies made by home bakers, junior pies made by kids and professional pies made by bakers. So, I flew out to Kissimee, Florida this past weekend to try some pie.
I ended up being one of about 100 judges judging the amateur pie division on Saturday. This is a popular division, with about 400 entries of just about any flavor you can imagine. It was broken up into 15 categories, ranging from Peanut Butter to Apple to Cherry to Chocolate Cream. There were 6 or 7 judges for each category, all seated around a circular table. The judging was fun, but there were a lot of points that we had to hit as we looked at each pie. We judged overall appearance, sliced appearance, overall flavor, filling, crust and creativity. The scores were tallied up by officials in another room, so while we did discuss the pies we liked best at our tables, we didn’t have to come to a consensus about a winner ourselves.
