Crispy pastry and a filling that tastes as good as the outside looks are the secrets to an award-winning pie, according to Better Quality Pies.
The Rotorua bakery won the vegetarian pie silver award in the 2011 Bakels Supreme Pie Awards for its roast pumpkin, kumara, pine nut and spinach creation.
Manager
Michelle Eruini-Bennett created the unique pie flavour and said she always knew it sounded good but just had to find the correct flavours to match.
"It was a bit of an experiment but the flavours sounded appealing so I just had to find the right combination."
Better Quality Pies also entered the roast vegetable pie last year without any success.
But 12 months later Ms Eruini-Bennett had improved the pie to medal-winning standards.
"I tweaked the recipe slightly this year. Maybe I'll tweak it again and who knows we might win gold next year."
Tai Kahu has owned Better Quality Pies for 11 years and Ms Eruini-Bennett has worked for him for 10 of those.
The pair said they always entered the competition and had had several successes over the years including a gold a few years ago.
"We've always been a pie genius factory," Ms Eruini-Bennett said.
The award winners were announced at 10pm on Tuesday, and by midday yesterday the Tarewa Rd bakery had already sold out of the winning pie.
The duo said they didn't anticipate it would be so popular so quickly.
Normally Mr Kahu bakes 50 of the roast vegetable pies a day but following its success in the competition he said he planned to bake at least triple that daily for the next few weeks.
"We'll be working extra hard tonight and cranking up production."
