On Sunday, Oct. 1, Central Arkansas bakers and pie makers will have the opportunity to compete in The Root Cafe’s seventh annual Pie Bake Off and Recipe Swap from 3-5 p.m. on The Root’s outdoor patio at 1500 Main St.
Presented by CALS Six Bridges Book Festival, the bake off is free to enter and contestants can register upon arrival. The Mighty Rib food blogger Kevin Shalin will emcee the event. Guest judges will be Raduno executive chef Cash Ashley, Arkansas food author and pie historian Kat Robinson, and celebrity guest judge Stacey Mei Yan Fong, author of the cookbook “50 Pies, 50 States: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the United States Through Pie.” Fong, in town for Six Bridges, will be doing a cooking workshop at Egg Shells Kitchen Co. on Sept. 30.
Pies will be judged on appearance, flavor and texture. Judges will award five blue ribbons, five red ribbons, and one best-in-show. The winner of best-in-show will receive $100, provided by CALS.
What’s great about this event is that after the judging takes place, it becomes a pie pot luck. I attended last year as a guest judge and had the pleasure of sampling a variety of locally-made fruit pies, chocolate pies, coconut cream pies and savory pies. My favorites: The spiked s’mores pie, a jalepeno apple pie, a salted caramel pecan pie and a pastrami reuben pie (what!). There were 25 pie entries at last year’s bake off. Here’s a few photos from last year’s event:
