Each year, when Thanksgiving rolls around, I am tasked with making what is, in my opinion, the most important menu item: the pies. It’s my favorite because it’s one of the rare Thanksgiving dishes where you can have a little fun. And while I cannot show up without my now-famous pecan pie in-hand, the second pie is up to my discretion, so every year, I like to switch it up. One year it was a tea-flavored custard pie, another, a Pepto-pink cranberry curd tart. I’ve even been known to ditch the tradition altogether in favor of whoopie pies.
But when I came across the winner of the inaugural Stissing House x Substack Pie Fest, as crowned by Martha Stewart herself(!), I knew I had found my second pie for Thanksgiving 2025. Here’s why.
Martha Stewart Crowns the Winner of Pie Fest 2025
Last weekend, bakers and pie lovers from all across the country gathered for the first-ever Pie Fest, an event co-hosted by Stissing House, a restaurant in Upstate New York, and Substack, the newsletter platform. 33 pies were entered and evaluated by a panel of 14 esteemed judges, which included cookbook authors Claire Saffitz, Samin Nosrat, and the queen of Thanksgiving herself, Martha Stewart.
After an hour of tasting and a half-hour of spirited deliberation, according to chef and owner of Stissing House, Clare De Boer, the judges came to a bit of a stalemate. Ultimately, it came down to a Shaker Lemon Pie and Salted Maple Bourbon Pie for the blue ribbon, but Martha pushed the latter over the edge. And lucky for all of us, baker Nikki Freihofer was kind enough to share her recipe for the winning Salted Maple Bourbon Pie.
Freihofer describes the pie as “a pancake breakfast that grew up, put on a cashmere sweater, and decided to do boozy brunch instead,” writing it’s “the kind of thing people take one bite of and immediately start plotting their second.”
The pie is actually quite simple, with a bourbon- and maple-flavored egg custard set in a flaky pie crust and topped with mascarpone-spiked whipped cream. Freihofer recommends using high-quality maple syrup (bonus points for a bourbon-barrel aged variety), and to be generous with the salt. If you haven’t experienced the difference a sprinkle of flaky salt can make on top of dessert, prepare to have your life changed.
With its creamy, cozy-yet-sophisticated flavor profile and perfectly balanced salty-sweet notes, I know this dessert belongs on my Thanksgiving table. And heck, if it’s good enough for Martha, I know it’s good enough for my family—she hasn’t steered me wrong yet.
You can find the recipe for the Pie Fest 2025-winning Salted Maple Bourbon Pie at the bottom of De Boer’s Substack post.
Dining and Cooking