National Pie Championship Winning Pie Recipe

There is nothing better than a fresh berry pie during the summertime. I don’t have just any old pie recipe for you, I have the winning Professional Best of Show pie recipe from the Pie Championship. Pie just doesn’t get any better than that! And it’s just in time for prime summer berry season.

Best of Show Cheery Cherry Cherry Berry Pie

TOM’S CHEERY CHERRY CHERRY BERRY PIE

Crust:

1 ½ cups of flour

¼ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

½ cup Crisco shortening

Mix all ingredients in a stand mixer on medium speed swiftly until crust appears “pea like.” Carefully sprinkle ice cold water in crust mix until it just starts to be fully moistened and gathers together. Pat into disc, wrap and refrigerate for at least one half hour. Roll out on floured surface and make and crimp pie crust. Freeze until ready to use.

Filling:

4 ½ cups Montmorency tart cherries –frozen

1 cup sugar

¼ cup cornstarch

½ tsp real almond extract

1 tsp fresh squeezed lemon juice

½ tsp orange zest

½ cup dried Michigan cherries

1 ½ cups of frozen blueberries

Combine frozen cherries, dried cherries, sugar, cornstarch. Stir constantly on med-hi heat until boiling. Add blueberries. Boil for one minute or until thickened. Add almond extract, lemon juice and zest. Pour blueberries in bottom of pie shell and pour cherry mixture over them.

Crumb Topping:

1 cup sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

¼ tsp salt

1 stick butter softened

Mix together all crumb topping ingredients by hand or a pastry blender until crumbly.

Cover filling with crumb topping. Bake in preheated 400 degree oven for 45 minutes to one hour or until filling is bubbling over crust.

The award winning pie was baked by Linda Hundt of Sweetie-licious Bakery Cafe in DeWitt, Michigan.

Where does Linda get the inspiration for her wonderful pies? The American Pie Council (APC) has the scoop…

The owner of the Sweetie-licious Bakery Cafe, a vintage-style bakery in downtown DeWitt, Hundt is known for her 50s-style dresses and aprons, her pearl necklaces and her pearls of “pie wisdom” including her mantra, “Eat Pie and Love Life.” After leaving her career in politics, Hundt started her pie business in 2002, selling pies to high-end restaurants and at farmer’s markets. Coming from a long line of pie bakers, Hundt names her award-winning pies in honor of the family members who have inspired her over the years.

In her bakery and on her website, she tells the heartfelt and sometimes humorous stories behind each of her pies. Her brother-in-law Tom earned his pie, the Best of Show-winning “Tom’s Cheery Cherry Cherry Berry Pie,” by being a great supporter of Hundt’s dreams and a friend to everyone he met. Her “Mommy’s Pumpkin Pie” earned its name after a fire swept through Hundt’s mother’s home just before the holidays. Having to cook Christmas dinner at her daughter’s house in an unfamiliar oven, the normally wonderful cook burned the entire meal, except for the pumpkin pie. That fool-proof recipe earned the name “Mommy’s Pumpkin Pie.”

The APC/Crisco ® National Pie Championships are held annually April, in conjunction with the Great American Pie Festival. At the annual event, bakers of all skill levels, all ages, and all degrees of training, from all over the United States and Canada, compete in a bake-off to determine North America’s best Professional, Amateur and Commercial bakers. They also have a division for all those Junior Chefs out there.

This year, the competition attracted 138 bakers who baked 465 pies in the Commercial division, 130 pies in the Professional division and 266 pies in the Amateur division. Talented pie makers came from 28 states, from as far away as Washington, California and parts of Canada. Wow!

A complete list of winners is available at the Pie Council website.