Blog Posts by Blue Ribbon Hunter

The Great American Pie Festival
The Great American Pie Festival in Celebration, Florida is two days of fun, games, and a whole lot of pie. It is also home to the National Pie Championships, where people come from all over to submit pies for judging, hoping to win "Best in Show" and the title of "Best Pie in America". And the blue ribbon goes to…

Sittin' on a Sandbar Key Lime Pie by Amy Freeze

Sittin' on a Sandbar Key Lime Pie
2013 APC Crisco National Pie Championships
Amateur Division
Best of Show and 1st Place Citrus
Amy Freeze, Avon Park, FL

Crust
2 cups crushed vanilla wafers
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
5 tablespoons melted butter

Filling
8 ounces Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
2 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
1-15 ounce can Eagle Brand condensed milk
¾ cup Coco Lopez (Cream of Coconut)
¾ cup key lime juice

Whipped Cream Layer
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 cup powdered sugar

Garnish
Lime slices & white chocolate sea shells

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Sandra Lee hosted the World's Largest Bake Sale at Grand Central Station in New York City on Wednesday, May 1st. Popular bakeries, celebrities, and chefs came out to donate baked goods to the bake sale, which benefitted the Share Our Strength No Kid Hungry Campaign, and the Food Bank for New York City. There were over 50,000 baked goods for sale at five dollars a piece in classic bake sale style. Some notable guests were Ty Pennington, Mario Batali, Wendy Williams, Buddy Valastro, and Dylan Lauren.

Allison eating the cupcake of the year by Sandra Lee.

We sampled some delicious baked goods, and in doing so, came up with some amazing tips for you to try at your next bake sale.

It has to look good. Remember, kids eat with their eyes. When their parent gives them a dollar or two to buy something at the bake sale, they are going to go for the item that looks the best. So if you are making cupcakes, Dylan Lauren of Dylan's Candy Bar recommends trying a bright colored frosting, or adding candy to the top to make it pop.

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The Grilled Cheese Invitational in Los Angeles, California is a yearly festival that brings both amateur and professional chefs together to compete to see who makes the best grilled cheese.  From the classic bread, butter and cheese sandwich, to bizarre dessert grilled cheeses, these competitors made it all.  This year 150 competitors made over 750 grilled cheeses for a hungry crowd of people who served as judges.

Tips for Making Great Grilled Cheese

Grilled cheese is easy to make, but it’s also easy to mess up!  The most common mistake is burning the bread, and not melting the cheese.  We asked the competitors for their tips for making perfect grilled cheese and here is what they said.

Temperature of the pan is key:  If the pan is too hot, you will burn the outside of the bread and fail to melt the cheese in the middle.  If the pan isn’t warm enough, it will take you forever to properly melt the cheese and brown the bread.

Cover the pan when you cook the first side:  Keep the heat low,

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Every native Philadelphian has their favorite place to get Philly Cheesesteaks, but there is only one original: Pat’s King of Steaks.  The story of the cheesesteak dates back to the 1930s when brothers Pat and Harry Olivieri started a hotdog stand in an Italian neighborhood in South Philly.  One day, the guys working behind the counter were sick of eating hotdogs for lunch, so they ran to the butcher and bought some steak.  They fried it up, threw it on some bread, and began to dig in.  A regular customer, a taxi driver, came up to the window to order a hotdog but saw the steak sandwich and requested one of those instead.  They gave him a small one and as he walked away he advised them to stop selling hotdogs and sell steak sandwiches.  The cheesesteak was born, but at the time, they weren’t adding cheese!  The Philly Cheesesteak that we know and love today didn’t come around until the 1960s.  They decided to use Cheez Whiz for their sandwiches because it was the easiest and fastest to

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For many of us, coffee is something we can’t live without! It gets us going in the morning, it boosts us in the middle of the day, and it’s something we socialize around. So what makes a great cup of coffee? Blue Ribbon Hunter traveled to New York’s Coffee Fest 2013 to find out.

The highlight of Coffee Fest is the America’s Best Coffeehouse competition, where coffeehouse teams compete to see who makes the best cup of coffee.  Coffeehouses from all over the country submitted applications and videos in order to enter the competition, and seven finalists were invited to New York to compete live.  The teams were tested on their knowledge of the equipment, their attitude and teamwork, and of course the look and taste of their coffee.  The winner was Peregrine Espresso from Washington, DC.  Their tips for making a great cup of coffee are to start with a great bean, grind it fresh, and use good water.

But great coffee isn’t just about taste, it’s about looks too, and that’s what the Latte Art

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Utz has been around since 1921 when Bill and Salie Utz began making potato chips out of their home in Hanover, Pennsylvania. As the company grew, they began making other snack foods such as pretzels, and their now famous cheese balls. In celebration of National Cheese Ball Day, April 17th, we headed to Hanover, PA to the Utz factory to see how they are made.

Utz started making cheese balls in 1990.  Sam’s Club, one of their biggest customers, approached them and asked if they could package the cheese balls in a barrel rather than in bags.  The design team came up the plastic barrel and infamous purple label that can now be seen in many stores, and have even been featured in shows like NBC’s “The Office” and the “Alvin and the Chipmunk” movies.

So, how are they made?  Well it all starts with coarsely ground corn meal that is brought to the factory in 2,000 pound bags.  That corn meal is then deposited into what they call an extruder, which is a machine that exerts enough pressure onto the

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Zillion Dollar Lobster FrittataIf you take a look at the breakfast menu at Norma's Restaurant in the Parker Meridien Hotel in New York City, you might do a double take when you see "The Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata". Accompanied by a line that says, "Norma's dares you to expense this", this frittata costs $1,000.00 and is the most expensive omelet in the world. ("Frittata" is an Italian word for a flat omelet.) We met up with chef Emile Castillo to learn all about this omelet and how it is made.

What's In It?

The Zillion Dollar Lobster Frittata boasts six eggs, a pound and a half of roasted lobster, chives, potatoes, and a lobster sauce made with the tomalley of the lobster, whiskey, and heavy cream. But the real bank-breaker is the 10 ounces of Sevruga caviar that gets piled on top of the omelet. The caviar alone comes out to around $1,000.00 anyway, so if you think about it, you are actually getting a good deal!

Who Orders It?

Since the hotel does tend to host an upper-class business crowd,

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CupcakesCupcakes are delicious and fun to make at home. Bakers love them for their simplicity, and cake lovers love them for their size and portability. However it does take mastering a few basic tricks to make the perfect cupcakes. We met up with Buddy Valastro, owner of Carlo's Bakery and host of Cake Boss and Next Great Baker, to get his tips for making the perfect cupcake.

Add Custard Cream to Cake Batter

The perfect cake should have a spongy, tight grain to it so that it has a velvety feel in the mouth. The way Buddy gets this is by adding a little bit of custard cream to the batter. It will help your cake to achieve the desired consistency and stay moist.

Oven Temperature Controls Shape

Depending on your vision, you may want a large, rounded dome on your cupcake, or maybe even a flat top. If you want a dome, bake your cupcakes at a higher temperature. If you want a flat top, bake them at a lower temperature (25 to 35 degrees lower). They will still cook all the way,

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