A couple weekends ago I had the amazing opportunity to be one of the judges for the Greater Dover Chamber of Commerce Apple Harvest Day apple pie contest! I was so excited to be given the chance to taste so many pies and be with some amazing judges! There were four judges including myself. The other judges were Don Briand, a local radio personality and Citizen of the year for 2015, Mrs. New Hampshire Carrie Alex, who is both beautiful inside and out and Commander Christopher Polk of the USS Norfolk. Commander Polk and crew were “adopted” by the City of Dover for its year-long decommissioning process at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. What an amazing group of people, not to mention the other radio personalities from our local station WOKQ, who broadcast live throughout the competition!
I have never been a judge so I had no idea what to expect or how many pies I would be tasting. So, I turned to my trusty friends from Taste of Home Magazine and I got lots of great tips from them. So many tips my head was swimming in thoughts of pie crusts for about two days!!
Let me share some of the tips I received from some of the experts! They all started with the crust. They told me to try the crust by itself and decide if it was flaky, crumbly, salty, and were there any other flavors in the crust or was the crust soggy on the bottom? Wow, right?! Who knew there was so much to think about when it comes to pie crust, and that’s not all…is the crust cooked evenly. Is it decorative and how much space is there between the pie crust and the apples if it is a double crust? I know, crazy! So much info!
Onto the filling tips. Lots to think about here too! Are the apples sliced evenly, are they all cooked evenly, is the sauce runny or too thick? This too is just the beginning of the tips! Next up was the flavor of the pie filling. What kind of spices are used? Did it compliment or take away from the pie? Is there too much or too little spice?
Next up was the presentation. This really was more of a personal preference. Is the pie decorated? Was anything done different or unique?
I think you can understand why I was dreaming of apple pies for a couple days! So much to think about. Some other tips that were geared to being a judge. Things like…be sure to bring a water bottle to clean your palate, eat protein for breakfast, and my favorite tip was don’t eat the entire piece of pie because you love it and can’t stop eating it! This field editor told me this was from her experience!! Needless to say I took all of the tips and used them all when judging all 21 apple pies!!
We had three pies entered in the kids division, all were done very well! Then, we had 18 pies in the adult section and what a wide range of pies! We had an apple meringue pie! Wow! I would have never thought of that! We also had a pie that was just beautiful, the crust had an apple tree on it, absolutely outstanding! The pie that did win was a pecan, caramel apple pie.
This pie was also very pretty but all of the flavor so really came together and the crust was perfectly flaky! I did not taste one bad pie! Everyone did an outstanding job and certainly made it difficult to pick just one winner!!
So if you plan on entering a pie in a contest or get lucky enough to be a judge, I hope these tips help you as much as they helped me!
Enjoy!
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