There were 69 total entries in the San Miguel Basin Fair’s annual dessert contest, and 37 in the youth. Organized by Katie Alexander, of The Coach’s Mother, every year for decades the event brings people together from Norwood to Nucla and Naturita and beyond — all in the name of savoring the sweetness of the fair and local area.
For pies, in the professional category, Tammy Gillaspy won grand champion for her triple-berry pie, and Melissa Richardson was reserve champion with a coconut pie.
Gillaspy, of Nucla, competes in the pro division, since she sometimes sells her pies and breads. Her triple-berry pie had blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. It takes her at least two hours from start to finish to make a pie, longer if she bakes it. (She sells take-and-bake pies.)
“I only use Red Rose Flour from Cortez in my baking,” she said, "and I never use canned pie filling.”
For the youth pie category, Kaliber Merril was grand champion with a cherry pie, and Ayva Davis was reserve champion with an apricot pie, tying with Tennessee Richardson and a key lime pie. For single-crust pies, Shannon Rayborn was grand champion with toasted coconut, and Claudia Torres was reserve champion with a blueberry cheesecake pie. For the double-crust pies, Carla Gutierrez was grand champion with an apple pie, and Rebecca Rogers was reserve with a raspberry pie.
For the cakes, grand champion was Melissa Richardson in the pros with a chocolate cake with peanut-butter frosting; Dawna Morris was reserve champion in the pros with an Italian cream cake. For the youth division, Kalese Merrill was grand champion with a pecan cake, and Brylea Butler was reserve champion with a tuxedo cake. For the frosted cakes, Karla Gutierrez was grand champion with a chocolate cake, and Mary Fourney was reserve champion with a banana cake that had brown butter frosting. For unfrosted cakes, Joey Zikor was grand champion with New York cheesecake cupcakes; Pricilla Richardson was reserve champion with a tres-leches cake.
Ice creams didn’t see as many entries this year. There were youth submissions, however, and Layton Harrigan won grand champion with his vanilla-pumpkin ice cream, and Tennessee Richardson won reserve champion with a key-lime-pie ice cream. For flavored ice creams, Sarah Holguin won grand champion with a rhubarb-peach ice cream. Nobody submitted in the professional division, or the fruit division either.
For the cookies, Dawna Morris was grand champion for lemon-strawberry cookies, and Melissa Richardson was reserve champion with twisted-sugar-lime cookies. For the youth entries, Brylea Butler won grand champion with her salted-caramel-cheesecake cookies; Ryatt Hannigan was reserve with pumpkin bars. Paige Franklin won grand champion drop cookies with her snickerdoodle submission. Her mom, Sarah Franklin, won grand champion for filled cookies with pecan-pie bars, and Pricilla Richardson won reserve champion for beer empanadas.
Rayborn, of Naturita and also a fierce pie competitor in the amateur division, enjoyed preparing for the contest with her grandchildren this year.
“Yes, we made desserts together, and had one fail,” Rayborn told the Forum with a laugh.
She included all three of her grandsons, and it so happened that two of them won awards — the Harrigan boys, though Jaxson Carver also entered.
“Pumpkin bars have been a special dessert in our family for years now,” Rayborn said. “Normally we just make them around the holidays. … We always thought they would be great in ice cream, so we made it happen.”
Rayborn said the boys had their hands in all of the dessert-making work: mixing, measuring, putting it all together.
The Franklin ladies, of Norwood, are longtime bakers and participants in the dessert contest.
“We have grown up in our home baking together, and it has become a tradition that we love, being able to share with the community by entering in the dessert contest,” said Paige Franklin, of Norwood.
