The Third Annual Brooklyn Pie Contest filled Williamsburg’s K M Bar with high drama this past Saturday, when over 50 aspiring master bakers competed for a chance at culinary greatness. I arrived to find a cop car canvassing the area on behalf of a girl who’d just been mugged at gunpoint a mere block away, but, upon questioning the crowd, realized everyone was too excited about pie to care.Yet more insanity lay inside the watering hole, which was packed to its tin ceiling with be-flanneled youths so ravenous for artisanal desserts I feared they might riot.

“Once you get your pie, please move towards the door!” yelled the event’s organizer Megan Paska over the din. "I had no idea this many people would turn out," she gasped while wrangling the hordes.

Over at the judges’ table, three chefs bravely took in endless sugars and fats in the name of anointing the next local pie-lebrity. "I wouldn’t even do that pie the dignity of swallowing it," Cody Utzman of Papacitos said with a grimace as he spat someone’s gooey failure into his napkin. "It tastes like shit, try it!" chirped co-judge Diane DiMeo. Were they starting to get full yet? "No, I can eat pie," Utzman replied—a girl can dream! "I’m judging a barbecue contest after this," deadpanned judge Seamus Mullen. But with a good 30 confections left to go, the judges’ stoic facade was bound to crumble. "I have a tummy ache," DiMeo groaned a few minutes later.

Indeed, many entrants were not easy to like, with monstrosities like chocolate/peanut butter/bacon and what Utzman referred to as a "bleu cheese sperm disaster" presenting damning evidence that Brooklyn’s skills in the kitchen have yet to catch up with the number of its citizens claiming to be "foodies." There, were however, a few bright spots, like the Mexican chocolate cream pie that ultimately won, and "The Dude," a most abiding white Russian cream pie. "The crust reminds me of the sand on the beach in the scene when they’re scattering Donnie’s ashes," mused Mullen.

In the end, the sated packs slunk back to their caves, leaving crumbly carcasses for someone else to collect. Winners were announced, money was raised for Brooklyn Farmyards and a vegan won a gift pack from The Meat Hook. In the cutthroat world of homemade pastry, one must move up the food chain to survive.