Baked Bean Showdown

Beans pictured in the back: Tricia's Baked Beans

Beans pictured in the front: Amy's Baked Beans with a Kick

Amy from Amy's Finer Things and Tricia from Once a Month Mom (two of my favorite bloggers!) are each out to prove that they make the best baked beans. Thus, the Van Camps Baked Bean Showdown.

So I (very obligingly) did a bit of cooking on Saturday and whipped up both recipes for the church cookout that we had on Sunday. Per the contest rules, I used Van Camp's Baked Beans for both recipes. Did I mention that I'd never made baked beans before until now?


Here's what I thought:

Amy's Baked Beans With a Kick: I liked how this recipe called for more than just pork n' beans...it has kidney beans and butter beans in it, too. I also liked Amy's addition of the picante sauce (I used medium). And it also calls for molasses, which I had never used before in a recipe.

Tricia's Baked Beans: This recipe was very simple! Pork n beans, brown sugar, bacon, dry mustard, and ketchup are the only ingredients...I loved how easy it was to whip up (but do allow for a longer cooking time...the recipe calls for 2.5 hours!).

First of all, let me just say, they both tasted awesome. I took a pan of each kind to the cookout and quizzed people to know which one they liked better. It was a tough call, because both recipes were wonderful and they are completely different in taste! So it was close, buuuuuuutttt...............the winner by general consensus was......

Drumroll....

...Tricia's Baked Beans!!!

I thought they had the perfect amount of sweetness AND they were super easy to make. A win-win situation.

To see how the other judges have weighed in, visit the link-up at the Once A Month Mom website.

Baked Bean Showdown