News

Have an amazing apple recipe? Enter Apple Festival contest

By Lightning Reports, Published: August 11, 2025

Do you have an amazing apple recipe?

Put it to the test at the 2025 NC Apple Festival's Apple Recipe Contest. The annual event will be held on Friday, Aug. 29, at the Henderson County Cooperative Extension Office with winners announced at the festival later that day.

Entry is free and there will be prizes for 1st place in all categories with ribbons for 2nd and 3rd. Business prize sponsors include HenDough Chicken and Donuts, Shine, Stepp’s Orchard, Horse Shoe Farms, The HenDough Honeycrisps and more. The awards ceremony will be held at noon Friday, Aug. 29, at the Apple Festival mainstage. The deadline for Apple Recipe Contest entries is Aug. 25.
Entries are divided into five categories:
• Bread – sweet or savory in a loaf or muffin form
• Pies and Pastries – must have pie crust or pastry dough component
• Desserts – includes cakes & cookies
• Kids – any recipe made by a child who is 12 or younger (with adult supervision)
• Local business – a local business in Henderson County that produces an item in one of the categories above (bread, pies, pastries, desserts). This category is reserved for professionally trained pastry chefs as well. (The local business category does not win prizes, but instead a winner’s certificate to display at their business and bragging rights as the Best Apple Recipe in Hendersonville. Additionally, the local business category does not need to provide as a recipe as we understand this can be proprietary information.)

For more information and to enter visit henderson.ces.ncsu.edu/ and click on the apple recipe contest.