Market on the Hill hosts cooking contest at annual Fall Festival

[September 17, 2024]   At the Mt. Pulaski Fall Festiva, a cooking contest was held at Market on the Hill at Mt. Pulaski’s Courthouse Square. The contest required all who entered into it to use a common ingredient, that ingredient being graham cracker.

Six items were entered, with no two items being the same, except for the fact that they were all desserts. The judges did not mind this one bit.

There were three judges on the panel. Their names were Phyllis Beccue, LeeAnn Volle, and Jason Sprang. Before any of the food was brought out, the judges were asked to create a universal judging system that they would all abide by. After their system was created, the baked goods were brought out one-by-one by Lee Kalka. With the judges keeping track of their scores on a piece of paper.

The judges partook in a strawberry cheesecake, a pumpkin pie, a chocolate eclair, a peanut butter pie, a s'mores cake, and a decorated cupcake.


After all six of the items were tasted, the judges decided to pick first, second, and third place winners by adding up all of their scores for each item. In third place was the pumpkin pie, submitted by Lily and Ava. In second place was the strawberry cheesecake, submitted by Easton Diebert. First place went to Betty Phillips for her chocolate eclair. Phillips won a $25 gift card to Market on the Hill.

[Matt Boutcher]