Signature Desserts

Prize-winning Recipes from the National Pie Championships.

The American Pie Council (APC) is sponsoring the APC Crisco National Pie Championships April 23-25 at the Omni Championsgate Hotel in Celebration, FL. Commercial, professional, amateur, and junior chef pie makers will compete throughout the weekend. The Great American Pie Festival sponsored by Crisco is held in conjunction with the championships, April 24 and 25 at Lakeside Park in Celebration and is free and open to the public.

Visit www.piecouncil.org.

Here are prize-winning recipes from recent championships.

Camp Fire Fun Pie
By Raine Gottess, Canton, OH

Crust
1 ½ cup graham cracker crumbs
2 ½ TBS sugar
6 TBS melted butter

In a bowl, mix above ingredients with a fork. Press with the back of a large spoon into a 9” deep dish pie pan to form a crust. Bake in a pre-heated 350 oven for 7 minutes. Cool

In a saucepan, add the first 3 ingredients gradually adding milk on medium heat to boil and thicken, about 2 minutes on a slow boil. Remove ½ cup of mixture and add egg yolks, return to saucepan. Stir about 2 more minutes and remove from heat. Add the butter, vanilla and your choice of the chocolates. Blend well. Pour over crust and place in freezer.

Using a mixer beat well the first 5 ingredients. Add Marshmallow cream.
Carefully spread over chocolate cream layer. Sprinkle with 2 chopped Hershey bars
Place in Freezer.

Mix together and carefully spread over previous layer.

Edge with Cool Whip to decorate. Refrigerate about 6 hours. Slice to serve top with drizzled Smuckers Smores Hard Shell topping or Smuckers Chocolate Hard shell topping and cut up Hershey bar peices. Freeze a minute to harden shell and serve.

California Mudslide Pie
Amateur Division First Place
Classic Chocolate Category
Patricia Lapiezo, La Mesa, CA

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Cut in shortening. In a small bowl, combine egg, water and vinegar. Gradually add liquid to flour mixture until dough comes together. Refrigerate one hour. Roll out one-half dough to fit a 10-inch deep pie pan. Crimp edges and prick bottom and sides with a fork. Line with foil and fill with pie weights. Bake for 10 minutes. Remove weights and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until browned. Cool completely.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9-inch pie dish and an 8-inch square baking pan with nonstick spray. In a medium saucepan over low heat, stir together chocolate and butter until completely melted. Cool slightly. Beat in sugar. Whisk in eggs, one at a time, until completely blended. Stir in vanilla. Fold in flour and salt. Divide batter in half and spread in prepared pans. Bake both pans together in oven until done, or approximately 15 minutes for the 9-inch dish and 25 minutes for the 8-inch square pan. Test with a toothpick. Cool completely.

Take the brownie baked in the pie dish and place in the bottom of crust, trimming to fit if necessary. Set aside while preparing filling. Heat the 3 oz. chocolate and whipping cream in microwave until melted. Stir and spread over brownie. Refrigerate while preparing filling.

Place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat ½ cup whipping cream and espresso until it just simmers. Pour over chocolate and let sit for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth. In another bowl, beat the remaining whipping cream until soft peaks form. Fold in half of the cream. Beat the remaining cream until stiff. Fold in whipped cream. Spread ½ over brownie. Halfway from the center of pie to the edge, make a ½ inch wide indentation in filling. Fill with caramel topping. Top with remaining chocolate filling. Prepare topping.

Caramel topping
Cut the square brownie into chunks. In a saucepan, heat the cream and chocolate until melted. Stir in reserved brownie chunks and chopped candy bars. Spread over top of pie. Drizzle with caramel topping. Decorate edge of pie with sweetened whipped cream and sprinkle with chocolate shavings, if desired. Refrigerate 4 hours. Keep refrigerated.

Chocolate Truffle Surprise Pie
By Diane E. Selich, Vassar, MI

Combine flour and salt in bowl. Cut the Crisco in with a pastry blender until the mixture is uniform. Toss with a fork. When all of the water is added, form the mixture into a ball. Roll to 1/8 inch thick and to 1 ½ inches bigger than pie plate. Place in pie plate, trim and crimp edges. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Melt the chips in microwave and spread evenly in the cooled, baked pie shell. Cool then spread the raspberry preserves over the chocolate.

Put 1 cup of half and half and sugar on low heat. In a mixing bowl, add the other cup of half and half along with eggs, salt, vanilla, cornstarch and cocoa. Mix well with a whip until smooth. Add to heated mixture, stirring constantly to prevent lumps. This mixture should be smooth. Pour over the raspberry preserves. Cool completely and top with whipped cream.

Rocky S’Mores
Patricia LaPiezo, Las Mesas, CA

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa and salt. Cut in shortening. Stir in vanilla and enough cold water until dough holds together. Form into a ball and roll out to fit a 9-inch pie pan. Bake 8 minutes at 400 degrees. Cool completely. Brush bottom and sides of crust with Smuckers S’mores Magic Shell. Sprinkle bottom with ¼ cup each chopped dry roasted almonds and chocolate covered graham crackers. Refrigerate while preparing filling.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in melted chocolate until well blended. Fold in whipped cream and ½ cup miniature marshmallows. Spread over prepared crust.

Spread top of pie with magic shell. Drizzle with marshmallow cream. Sprinkle with chopped almonds and graham crackers. Decorate edge of pie with sweetened whipped cream.