Gillian's Winning Honey Cashew Pie

Time to brag.

My daughter Gillian won a pie baking contest yesterday. And it was the first pie she ever made too. And all for a good cause — raising money for P.S. 29 in Cobble Hill, in Brooklyn.

She doesn’t even own a rolling pin, so the dough got flattened using a seltzer bottle wrapped in plastic wrap.

The recipe was a takeoff on one that I posted, but she used cashews instead of hazelnuts, and a 10-inch tart pan rather than pie pan, so it looked more glamorous and the consistency was somewhat firmer. She also baked it for a shorter period of time than a deeper, standard 9-inch pie.

She won two cookbooks. You can see her holding one of the books in the photo; she’s next to judge Gail Simmons (special projects director at Food and Wine and also a judge on Top Chef and the host of Top Chef Desserts).

I never won a cooking contest but I remember entering one once many many years ago. My entry was for Chicken in Champagne Sauce, which my husband and I loved and I had just learned to cook. Everyone thought the dish was a winner, so why not enter it into a cooking contest.

First prize went to Beef Stew. Which I like. But didn’t think, at the time, that plain old beef stew should be a contest winner.

I was wrong about that.

But not wrong about this: Gillian’s Cashew Pie is really delicious. A winner, for real.

Congrats Gill!

Gillian’s Honey Cashew Pie