Five-six families with grandparents thrown in here and there gather at my brother's home next door around 4:00 in the afternoon each year on July 4th. Each family brings a plate of sandwiches to share, any equipment necessary for the race/contest they have planned, and a handful of prizes for the winners of such. Past highlights have included the watermelon roll, for those three years old and under ( the seeds of which are used in the later seed-spitting contest), the mile run in and around the cornfield, and the "hollerin' contest". The yard is always festively decorated (thanks to my sister-in-law) with traditional patriotic ballads playing in the background (thanks to my brother, and yes, he knows the words to all the songs!)
After devouring the sandwiches and the repurposed watermelons, the climax of the evening for all those with an insatiable sweet tooth like myself, is the judging of the pies in the pie baking contest (because after the winner is announced by the guest judges, we get to eat all the pies!) I have won the pie baking contest 3 out of the 4 years that I have entered a pie. This is quite funny , and even baffling to my sister-in-law I think, because I am quite possibly the worst cook in the county. (I think I remember asking my college roommate how to heat a can of soup. I guess I could blame my mom for that lack of training by the time I entered college, but I don't, because my growing up years were near perfect due in large part to her mothering, and I do just fine with soup prep these days!) Mom would be proud!
Well, here's the very simple winning recipe for the 2011 Caldwell Founders' Day Pie Bakeoff...start picking out a place to hang your First Place ribbon now!
Double Chocolate Pie (how could you go wrong with a name like that?)
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup instant cocoa mix4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 large eggs, separated
1 9-inch pie shell, baked
Melt butter and cocoa mix over low heat, stirring until mix is dissolved. Stir in chocolate until melted and well mixed. Remove from heat; cool slightly. Beat in egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat egg whites to stiff peaks; fold into chocolate mixture. Spoon filling into pie shell. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Serve with whipped cream. Makes 8 servings - I doubled everything!
The highlight of winning was how proud my 12-year old son was of me....middle schoolers don't often confer praise on their parents, or atleast the two that I live with don't! (Being that he's male, it figures that that praise would be the result of his stomach being full of something he had liked the taste of!) My son immediately asked me when we returned home on the eve of Founders Day if I had remembered my ribbon. I think I'll go gaze at it now, hanging in the exact spot where he placed it on our fridge!
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