A batch of New Zealand's top bakers will be waiting with bated breath to hear who takes out the prime pie prize tonight.
The 2015 Bakels New Zealand Supreme Pie Award winners will be announced at Shed 10 from 6pm.
About 6000 pies from 550 bakeries were judged in the competition on Thursday, whittled down to just four finalists in each of the 12 categories.
The competition will be particularly fierce in the Kiwi classics: steak and cheese, which had more than 378 entries, and mince and cheese with 340 entries.
New Zealand's top pie will nab the Supreme Pie Maker trophy and $7,500 cash, while gold award winners will receive $1000 cash.
Bakers around the country waited by their phones on Friday for the "golden phone call", signalling their position as a finalist.
Although the awards register as little more than a sign on a bakery wall for most consumers, to the country's pie-makers who fight hard to get the top gongs, they mean everything.
New Zealanders eat millions of pies every year, spending $110 million annually on meat pies and another $11m on fruit pies. The average Kiwi eats 12 pies a year.
Wellington chef Martin Bosley describes a good pie as "a thing of beauty".
He is one of a panel of judges who selected the top pastry picks from the array of pies on offer last week.
He said pies are popular because they are egalitarian, easy to eat and a complete meal in one tidy package.
"You get people in suits on the run getting one and the guys on the side of the road taking a break having pies, too.
"For a brief moment in time, it does not matter who you are or what you do, nothing else matters when you have a decent pie."
This year's pie awards introduced a new award category: the iconic Kiwi favourite Potato Top Pie.
Each baker must offer two examples of a pie in each category they enter, with most bakers entering every category.
With 49 awards to be won, Bakels managing director and judge Brent Kersel said the level of competition heightens every year.
"The pie awards have become the premier event for New Zealand bakers," he said.
"Last year we had the highest number of entries in the awards' history with 5000 pies from 533 bakeries submitted from all over the country."
