The Gospel Choir Bake-Off – Crust Rivalries, Ingredient Espionage, and the Secret Weapon in Evelyn’s Apron
By Tom Seest
At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
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🎤 Audio Overview
The Gospel Choir Bake-Off – Crust Rivalries, Ingredient Espionage, and The Secret Weapon In Evelyn’s Apron?
In Sequatchie Crossing, gospel isn’t just a sound—it’s a flavor. And once a year, those flavors compete in the most delicious spiritual warfare the county has ever seen: the Sequatchie County Gospel Choir Bake-Off.
Hosted in the First Unaffiliated Missionary Temple fellowship hall, the bake-off is equal parts culinary pride, denominational one-upmanship, and passive-aggressive pie placement. Each choir is expected to submit one savory and one sweet dish “inspired by praise and Scripture.”
The Gospel Choir Bake-Off – Crust Rivalries, Ingredient Espionage, and The Secret Weapon In Evelyn’s Apron?
This year, tensions began early when Mabel Dean Ashcroft announced she would not be making her legendary lemon meringue, citing “fiscal fasting” and “the betrayal of last year’s judging.” In protest, she submitted a saltine cracker with a communion wafer glued to the top by frosting.
Evelyn Grace Tipton, her longtime frenemy and soprano 2 for the Harmony of Zion Singers, seized the opportunity. She unveiled a double-layer pecan praline chess pie with a caramel cross baked into the center. The audience gasped. Pastor Peeler wept.
Boot Barnes, representing the River of Fire Male Chorus, entered a chili so spicy that one judge briefly lost vision in his left eye. Boot claimed it was “the fire of the Holy Ghost.” The judge claimed it was “a violation of the Geneva Convention.”
Shelley Wexler offered gluten-free zucchini bread with affirmations written in edible ink. The slices said things like “You Are Loved,” “Sin Is a Concept,” and “Butter Is a State of Mind.” The Methodists refused to eat it.
Suspicion broke out when the Sweet Serenity Choir’s cornbread mysteriously tasted identical to the one from the previous year—which had been made by Clovis Strickland’s mother (now retired from competitive baking due to “pasta-related politics”). Clovis launched an independent investigation.
Doug ‘Doughboy’ Teeter brought a fully motorized serving cart labeled “Faith Fuel,” which carried his “Cinnamon Roll Confessionals” to each table while playing a cassette of slow gospel covers of Bee Gees songs. One roll caught fire. He called it “a sacrifice of steam.”
The bake-off nearly turned into a bake-down when Trixie Jo Bartlett attempted to enter a frozen store-bought pie under the alias “Patricia Crumble.” Her disguise included a fake mustache and a church hat. She was disqualified but gained three followers on her bake-off vlog.
Conclusion
In a surprise twist, Evelyn’s pecan pie was disqualified when it was discovered that her “secret ingredient” was imported molasses from Georgia—violating the “Local Leavening” clause of the bake-off bylaws.
The final winner? The Pentecostal Praise Quartet’s peach cobbler, served warm with a scoop of “Holy Spirit Vanilla” from the youth group’s ice cream machine. Boot called it “suspiciously divine.”
Mabel Dean has already vowed to return next year “with a vengeance and a graham cracker crust no one will forget.”
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At Sequatchie Crossing, we tell the stories of Sequatchie Crossing.
Please share this post with your friends, family, or business associates.
Disclaimer: This story is entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people, living or just stubborn, is purely accidental—but also maybe a little flattering. Sequatchie Crossing exists only in the minds of those brave enough to imagine a town where zoning laws, casseroles, and conspiracy cassettes collide in glorious disarray.
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