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What's the Fourth of July without apple pie?
7/4/2009 12:04 AM   2 comment(s) on this story E-mail this story to a friend

Flaky, golden brown crust. Sweet apples with a dash of cinnamon. Delicious aroma.

Each was a factor in determining the winner of the Aiken Standard's and Desserves first Apple Pie Baking Contest.

In the end, Rhana Synak walked away with the blue ribbon and, certainly, some bragging rights.

"You have to understand, in my family, I am not a cook," Synak said after being declared the winner. "But it is a foolproof recipe. I've always had good luck with this one. If I could get lard today, I would use it because it has a great flavor.

"I'll have to wear this (the ribbon) to work ... they'll just die."

People were asked to submit their favorite apple pie recipe then prepare a pie to be tested by three judges on taste and appearance in a final showdown at Desserves, Aiken's downtown bakery.

The pies had to be made from scratch, and additional toppings like ice cream or cheese were not allowed.

Synak and the two other contestants, Lorraine Morgan and Gail Sintich, scrunched up their faces at the suggestion of toppings, anyway.

French vanilla ice cream, if anything, they said.

Judges Milisa Godson, owner of Desserves; Aiken Standard News Director Tim O'Briant; and Rick Osbon of Osbon's Laundry and Cleaners were incredibly thorough. They pulled their fork tongs through the crust to judge its flakiness, bent down to breathe in the fresh-baked smells and swished water in their mouths after each taste to cleanse their palates.

"It was a highly deliberative contest," O'Briant said. "We all agreed they were all fantastic. It was a very hard decision. In the end we chose (Rhana's). The filling had a certain something. (Gail's) drew you in with the aroma. (With Lorraine's) the color was great."

Synak said the secret to giving her filling a "certain something" was the combination of Fuji and Granny Smith apples to give the pie both a tart and sweet taste.

"This is a great way to kick off the Fourth of July," Osbon said.

Morgan said she surprised herself and her family by entering the contest and tugged on her earlobe in a gesture to her aunt, who came up with the recipe.

"I am not a baker, and my family has been hysterical watching me bake this," she said with a laugh. "This is my aunt's recipe, and I submitted it to honor her. She does a family cookbook and sells it to friends to help my cousin, who has cancer."

Sintich said she likes to think about the special times her family shared over apple pies while she bakes hers.

"My in-laws would bring big brown grocery bags of apples from a tree in their backyard when they visited from Pennsylvania," she said. "My father-in-law would sit at a picnic table and peel each apple. My mother-in-law and I made the pies and froze them raw, and I had a whole winter's worth of pies."


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  2 comment(s) on this story

What's the Fourth of July without apple pie? :  7/4/2009

Fun and interesting story. Photos of the pies and the cooks would have been fun to see.

Gwen

apple pie contest :  7/4/2009

THANK YOU JENNIFER MILLER AND ALL FOR A FUN TIME AT DESSERVES. GREAT IDEA!

LORRAINE
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