It has now been six years that Candy Bye and Don Carter have squared off in their annual cookie bake-off during the Carlyle Dickens Village Festival.
The Observer recently caught up with the contestants who provided some background.
The bantering started six years ago during a Cornerstone Theatre rehearsal for their annual Christmas play, A Christmas Carol. Bye’s son Kyle was performing in the play, as was Carter.
During a break, they somehow started talking about baking. Both know their way around the kitchen, it was discovered that they both had a love for baking, especially chocolate chip cookies.
Apparently Carter said he baked the best chocolate chip cookies and Bye instantly disagreed with him. From there came the first challenge. Bye learned her baking secrets from her dad Bruce Scammell, and also admitted that her secret ingredient is the love baked into her cookies.
Six years ago, Bye and Carter brought their cookies to Fezziwig’s pub at the Carlyle Memorial Hall during the Dickens weekend for adjudication. The voting was close with Bye coming out on top in year one.
And year two, and year three, and year four. For year five, they used the August 2021 Carlyle Fun Dayz as a backdrop as there was not a Dickens Festival in 2020.
Bye won that one as well. This year, Bye’s cookies again prevailed, winning by only one vote.
For the first four years, contestants were blindfolded. Now, they are allowed to see what they consume.
Carter has not been gracious in defeat. Last year, he was so confident he would win that he bought Bye a book, Sore Loser, A Story about Winning and Losing, by Frank J. Sileo.
Said Carter, “I can’t believe my cookies lose every single year. They basically look and feel the same, she must be bribing the taste testers.”
Carter also admitted he bakes a mean batch of ginger snaps, but unfortunately for him this contest is for chocolate chip cookies.
Bye modestly added, “You know, my cookies are fairly famous. They are known in Manor as Candy Bye Cookies, baking them for my kids, sports teams, school functions, drama groups, hot lunches or any other special occasion. My cookies have travelled to Calgary, Toronto and Quebec. I love beating Don, and when I do, I get to say ‘Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!’”
Carter and Bye are good friends and love the back and forth bantering. Every year, Carter says this will be his last year, but it never is. The two sport individual trophies, the bigger one for the winner, with the year and name engraved, and the smaller one for the second place finisher.
There is also the losing T-shirt. On the front, it reads “Ask me about the second place cookies,” and on the back, it says, “Candy Bye Cookies are the Best!”
