1st, 2nd And 3rd Place Winners In Middletown Apple Pie Contest

MIDDLETOWN, NJ — Fourteen people total entered pies into Middletown's first-ever Apple Pie Contest, held Sunday afternoon at Ross Brewing in Belford.

Brewery owner John Ross Cocozza said he would hold the contest every November and released some special small-batch beers for patrons to try along with the pies, including their Manasquan Witt beer with blackberry and lemon.

Even the wife of Middletown Police Chief R. Craig Weber entered a pie; her pie won for best appearance and she said she used an old family recipe from Ireland. The judges were brewery owner Cocozza, Michael Zapcic, general manager of Jay & Silent Bob's Secret Stash comic book store in Red Bank, your very own Middletown Patch reporter Carly Baldwin and Middletown Mayor Tony Perry, as his wife and three young children hung out with the crowd.

Judges judged on appearance, creativity and taste. Funnily enough, first- and third-place winners both went to caramel apple crumb; second place went to a traditional apple pie.

First place winner was Lauren DeSanti, 40, a Belford resident. DeSanti took home the blue ribbon for her caramel apple crumb pie, which was sweet, buttery and rich. When she's not working her day job as a teaching assistant in New York City public schools, DeSanti runs a licensed baking business, Whisky Business, out of her Belford home. Her top sellers are chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookie kits for kids to decorate; she also makes cakes.

Also, this is not her first time winning a baked goods competition; her pumpkin pie took home first place last week at a pumpkin pie contest held at the Grove in Shrewsbury.

She prefers to make apple pie because "pumpkin pie is much harder to get right."

"I've been baking ever since I was old enough to hold a whisk," she tells Patch after the contest, holding her blue ribbon. "My mom taught me how. Honestly, the secret is to make everything with love. You have to put a lot of love into it. And that means only using the absolute best ingredients you can find. High-quality ingredients really make a big difference. For example, I buy the best vanilla I can find, Nielsen-Massey vanillas; I think it starts at $35 for a small bottle and you can only find it at Williams Sonoma."

Middletown resident Christine Ward took home second place.

"Today, this was for my grandma," she beamed over her pie. "My grandma taught me how to make pies. I'll never forget she said to me, do you want to do it your way or do you want to do it the right way? I used all apples I picked from Delicious Orchards. The funniest thing is my grandmother always told me don't worry about the crust; Pillsbury pastry dough is fine. And that's what I used today and I still won second place!"

And third place went to Jennifer McCue of Matawan and her 12-year-old son, Daniel. Their pie had a very strong cinnamon flavor and a cinnamon-butter crumb topping that was out of this world.

"We used four different kinds of apples, cinnamon, vanilla and just a little bit of lemon in the filling," said McCue. "What I do is bake the pie and while the crumb topping is still hot I pour a little caramel over the top, so it melts into the pie. That way you don't get overwhelmed by caramel taste."