Just waking up this morning and overjoyed by our big award yesterday. Much thanks to everyone that has been sending in their support and love. Here's a little report on how yesterday went for us.

Got to bed close to 1am the previous night as we had a late start time to bake off, and the pies had to cool thoroughly in order to keep the structural integrity as we brought them up to our room. Luckily we were able to borrow a pastry tower with wheels and kept it our room overnight. Lot's of hotel night owls were very inquisitive as to why we had a tower of pies. We started off the day with waking up at 6am to prepare our pies. The pies were looking pretty good, but not incredible at the same time. Some of the strawberry-rhubarb looked as it needed a few more minutes in the oven, and most of the pumpkin had cracks in the center. To refresh people's memory, we had to bring 4 of each type of pie, 1 for display (not being judged), 1 for the judges to look at and taste, and 2 backup pies in case some didn't turn out so beautiful. Well, we're really glad we had those backup pies as there were quite a few that didn't look as great as we would have liked them too!

We headed our tower of pies downstairs to the judging room, which was giant! Baker's Square was checking in their pies, think they entered over a 100 different types of pie total, lot's of crazy looking cream pies, some looked too pretty to eat. We had quickly found our friends from the Achatz Bakery in Michigan, we "oooed" and "awwwwed" at each others pies for awhile. We brought down a slightly broken pecan pie to let our friends snack on while we waited to be checked in. They make a sugar-free apple pie that is sweetened only with apple juice that looked and sounded divine, was rooting for them to win in the sugar-free category (and I was thinking about you Mom).




Linda Hundt (Last year's big winner in the best-in-show category for the professional bakers) and her crew brought in their pies and added some last minute pie bling, shaking some edible glitter over the roof tops of their entries. (Check out the action shot).



After the registration, Scot and I had our biggest break in time since we've been in Florida. We decided to check out the local cuisine, tracked down an authentic and well run cuban sandwich spot called the Black Bean Deli. Won't carry on about this too much since it's not pie-realted, but know that their food was incredible, and there is alot of love that goes into their slow cooked and well prepared food. If you are ever near the Orlando area, we highly recommend this establishment.



Back at the festival things were starting to heat up. Over 900 different pies were displayed in the "War Room" (a term that was phrased by head coordinator and all around great lady, Linda Hoskins). Scot and I arrived early to get some good pictures of the place, and besides, our food coma lunch was beginning to wear off and we wanted to be first in line at the appetizer table.



We meet a few new artisan pie baker's, some that had us sweating pretty good as their pies were in our division and looked incredible! Michele's Pies out of Connecticut really impressed us, and not just with their many years of award winning pies, but also their down-home feel with a good attitude and abundance of character. They got their start in farmers market just like us, and they blew up over the course of several short years. They source locally produced fruit and pumpkin to make their sumptuous looking pies.

The awards ceremony announcement was made and the large group of pie people gathered closely to the podium. Apparently in previous years the announcement of winners took quite awhile so the APC (American Pie Council) made with a quicker ceremony. Beckmann's Bakery was the third winner to be called and it was so surreal. Our pumpkin pie reigned supreme and we were in a state of shock. We had so much support and congratulations coming from a slew of pie people that come from all over the country. This is a competition, but a very friendly one and we couldn't be happier to have meet some of these great humans.






Today we're off to be judges in the amateur and professional category. Not sure if they're going to let me take photos of the pies, I'm gonna try though. Hopefully our stomachs are up for the challenge of sampling up to 60 pies!

Thanks again to all of our fan's out there, we love you!

-Tony the Pie Dude