Go figure. If you hold a whoopie pie bake-off promising samples for community and celebrity judges alike, you’ll draw a big crowd. Oddfellows was filled to the brim Wednesday morning as 24 hopefuls competed in the first annual Whoopie Pie Bake Off.
John Roderick sez whoopie
Organizer Tallulah Anderson of Linda’s empire of bars and restaurants tells CHS that the point of the whole thing was the pie. “The goal of the Whoopie Pie Bake Off was to have a fun, free event that is open to the community and brings together both professional and home bakers (our youngest contestant is 7 years old!) over the common love of Whoopie Pies,” Anderson wrote in an e-mail.
Oddfellows’ back communal table was overflowing with entries and a large crowd waited to sample — and judge — the pillowy cake sandwiches. Celebrity judges were in charge of awarding one set of honors. The assembled celebs: Rocker John Roderick, Chamber of Commerce head Michael Wells, ice cream entrepreneur Molly Moon, the Stranger’s Christopher Frizzelle and Chelsea Lin of Seattle CitySearch. Meanwhile, community attendees were also voting for a people’s choice award whoopie victor. Prizes? Mostly honor but some other gifts and goodies including art from CakeSpy were up for grabs. Early buzz is that entry #13, a traditional style but reportedly delicious pie, was set to, um, take the cake. More details from CakeSpy on bake-off rules here.
We’re told the genesis for the event was a tweet from Babeland‘s marketer Audrey McManus regarding her whoopie pie skills. When a friend passed the boast along to Oddfellows, the battle was on.
We’ll have results from the voting later today. Please, no wagering.
The judges’ table
UPDATE:
Here’s the winner of the “Best Traditional” category, seven-year-old Eliza Dworkin from the team entry, Chef Eliza and Sous Chef Robin. We’ll see if we can weasel a recipe out of Team Eliza.
I feel sick.
Reported thus far:
“Best Overall” and “Most Interesting” — Heather Earnhardt, Volunteer Park Cafe
Best Traditional — Mystery 7-year-old
Who made the really pretty red velvet ones? Was that a winner?
Also, I didn’t boast about my OWN whoopie pies, my friend replied to a tweet from Odfellows about their Whoopie Pies saying they should try mine. Odfellows said they would love to, I said I would bring some and got Jessie from CakeSpy in on it too. She is the one who elevated it to a “smack down” with her painting. The rest was a snowball effect.
From @JesseBJones: @oddfellowscafe @AudreyMcManus makes the BEST Whoopie Pies for @ssburlesque shows – I might have to sample yours to see how they compare ;]
Followed by this later in the convo:
From @cakespy I am very inspired by the prospect of whoopie pie smackdown http://tweetphoto.com/26400363
that 7 year old won? that is crazy! i’m Eliza, the 7 year old. that contest was really fun and i really enjoyed the cooking part. that was two years ago. i was recently a judge for the 3rd annual whoopie pie contest. it was awesome to know what the judges did to make me win and experience it myself.