Every youngster made a beeline for the ever-so-decadent Ice Cream Peanut Butter Pie with Fudge Sauce at the Pie and Storytelling Festival in Belfast on Oct. 2. The confection won hands down over all the sturdy apple pies with whole-wheat crusts and even a killer chocolate pie. The pies were judged by festival-goers who bought a slice and voted.

Caelyn Crosby, 9, of Northport made the Ice Cream Peanut Butter Pie with Fudge Sauce. It’s the fourth-grader’s first foray into the bakeoff business. She learned about the contest at school. “She really wanted to go,” mother Carolyn Crosby recalls. “When she learned there was a $100 prize, she was determined to win.”

Caelyn has liked cooking since she was little. In fact, the morning of the festival, she whipped up a batch of blueberry pancakes for her parents, Mark and Carolyn. “One of her favorite pastimes,” Carolyn says, “is to ‘make a mixture’ in which she combines ingredients, and she can’t wait for Mark and I to take the famous ‘taste test.'”

What’s her favorite thing to cook? “Cake.” What kind? “Vanilla.” She made one as a birthday cake for her mom topped with a boiled chocolate icing.

Each year Caelyn and her sister Camden make gingerbread men and candy cane cookies with their grandmother. Besides cooking, Caelyn swims and plays field hockey.

When asked why she has taken such a shine to cooking, Caelyn reveals that she likes math and gets a charge out of finding fractions in a recipe.

StarKids is an occasional column that highlights the accomplishments of children in elementary school and junior high. To submit your child’s achievement for consideration, send a brief summary and a picture to: StarKids, c/o Letitia Baldwin, Bangor Daily News, P.O. Box 1329, Bangor, ME 04402-1329. For information, call 990-8270.