A First-timer: Edie Rogers' black-walnut pie takes the cake

Credit: Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll

Edie Rogers used a familiar recipe to win the grand prize at the Black Walnut Festival with her black-walnut chocolate pie.

By: Michael Hastings | Winston-Salem Journal
Published: October 28, 2009

Historic Bethania held a baking contest as part of its Black Walnut Festival on Saturday.

Cooks could enter just about any kind of baked good -- cookies, candy, bread, cakes or pies. The challenge: Everything had to have black walnuts.

The contest drew 15 entries.

Terry Ramsbotham, the manager of the Historic Bethania Visitor Center, asked me to help judge. I was joined by Mayor Deborah Stoltz Thompson of Bethania, and Michael Terry, the former manager of the visitor center.

Cakes and pies constituted the majority of the entries, but they also included fudge and brownies. Two creative entries came from Michelle Blandino of Kernersville. She entered a savory bread called a walnut pesto tomato cake roll, which turned out an attractive orange with a white cream-cheese filling. She also made a sweet rolled lemon-rosemary cake with a lemon custard filling.

Edie Rogers of Bethania took the grand prize for her black-walnut chocolate pie, a recipe she has been making for at least 10 years.

"Or it might be even 20 years," she said.

Rogers is a retired nurse. She got this recipe from Janice Sypes, who was a fellow nurse at Baptist Hospital.

Rogers likes that the recipe makes three pies. "I always freeze two of them," she said.

It does call for making pie dough, but you can use a store-bought crust, she said. Other than the crust, the recipe can be mixed in about five minutes.

"It really is a no-fail recipe," Rogers said.

Rogers said that as much as she likes baking, she has never entered a contest before. But after Saturday's win, she "might get hooked."

For more recipes from the Black Walnut Baking Contest, see the Dishing It Out blog at www.journalnow.com/dishingitout.