It had been a long time coming, but one of the competitors had been very busy, actually working, unlike the other two retired competitors, but last tonight was the night!

Mick decided he would stick to what he knew (or he thought) would win – his rabbit, mushroom and leek pie.

He had a problem though, as he had no dripping (lard) in the fridge, having used it for our first apéritif dînatoire. We searched for some in our local supermarkets without any success, and had just about given up, when we stopped in Quillan and he found it, once we knew what it was called in French – saindoux .

He made his pastry and blind baked it – of course.

My job was to prepare the table (and the vegetables).

The guests / competitors arrived around 6pm, and all the entries were placed into the oven while we enjoyed a pre-dinner drink, or two.

Each of the entries looked amazing.

Mick had taken time to give the dinner guests a clue as to what his pie was made from, hoping it might score him extra points.

The other two competitors brought very different pies – individual ones as that.

Bob the Yorkshire man, brought homemade Cornish pasties, but he’d added some mince to them and sprinkled them with semolina. His secret ingredient he later revealed was goose fat.

The mystery competitor made individual pork pies, using three different sorts of pork.

There was no way we could eat all of that between the five of us, but there wasn’t much left over. It was agreed that the contest be declared a “dead heat”, as each of them was delicious.

But, there was more.

The photos don’t do them justice, but for dessert there was citrus cake and chocolate mousse. An unusual combination I thought, but very much enjoyed by us all.

There was talk of another “bake-off”, but we concluded there was not enough time in our stay here (we leave in 9 days) to fit another competition in.

Perhaps at the next location??