Cool Whip Gift Basket Winner Revealed!

After a long, drawn-out process, we finally have a winner for the free Cool Whip gift basket. I whittled down the entries to five contenders, made four, and offered up three to a judging panel of eight people. Together we all sampled the goods, and after some discussion and debate, we decided upon one pie …

PIE FINALIST #4: Crunchy Caramel Apple Pie

Last but not least in the Cool Whip gift basket contest (sorry, the margarita pie didn’t make the cut) is Penny’s Crunchy Caramel Apple Pie. The name alone was enough to get my stomach growling. I had never actually made an apple pie before; the closest being a run of apple cake/tart tatins last fall …

PIE FINALIST #3: Chocolate Amaretto Crunch Pie

The third pie in the Cool Whip gift basket contest seemed to be the most promising of the bunch. It’s the recipe that my friends and I gravitated to most: LynnB’s Chocolate Amaretto Crunch Pie. Made with chocolate, Amaretto, Amaretti cookies, and almonds, it looked to be the decadent and sophisticated pie that I knew …

PIE FINALIST #2: Chocolate Chili Meringue Pie

The second pie I made for the Cool Whip gift basket contest was a recipe that the readers en mass implored me to make: the chocolate meringue pie. Of all the pies, this was certainly one of the most intriguing, what with its spicy, savory elements adding a bit of surprise to the proceedings. The …

PIE FINALIST #1: Turtle Pie

The contest for the Cool Whip gift basket continues to move forward. Last week, I narrowed the field down to five semi-finalists, and of those five, I selected four finalists (I know, not a major whittling down of contenders). I then spent Thursday and Friday baking pie, culminating in an eight-person tasting Friday night. The …

Here Are Your Semi-Finalists For The Great Pie Contest

About two weeks ago, I introduced a contest wherein readers could suggest pie recipes for me to make. Whoever submitted that piqued my interest the most would win an impressive gift basket from Cool Whip that features everything from Williams-Sonoma cookware to marshmallow fluff. Needless to say, the entries flooded in. There were more submissions …

Ep. 12: Banter With Ben and Lisa

Usually Lisa and I get together on a Friday to do our nifty podcast, but this time around, we caught up on Sunday night at her place where she not only cooked me up a lovely dinner, but also a generous mug of cocoa. With our stomachs full, we then got around to bantering, and …