Okay. Get ready. There’s a lot going on in this post.

Main topic is: Mini Pies. Pies-in-Jars. Back in March, I did this post where I talked about how I’d recently fallen in love with the concept of pies in jars and had made some for a bake sale and they were fabulous and adorable. I told you all to leave comments and I would randomly choose a few to ship pies to. Then, back in April, I announced who those lucky few would be. 

So I made them. I made these mini pies. The last time I made Pies-in-Jars, I made up the recipes. Not this time. This time I used Ken Haedrich’s Orange-Berry Pie recipe. (I have to say, I’ve gotten into a terrible habit this summer. Once I realized that I could make pretty great fruit pies without following recipes, I started getting creative all over the place. You can imagine that this does absolutely no good in helping me towards my goal of baking all 300 pies in Ken’s book.) Never fear. I went back to my book on this one.  I just slightly altered it by turning it into multiple little pies- one destined for Thamar, one destined for Eric, and one destined for Jen.

I used a regular pastry crust, which I slightly rolled out and then basically pressed it into the bottom and up the sides of the jar.

Holes: they happen. It’s no biggie. Just patch them up with your fingers.

Before I started making these pies, I found out a bit of an ironic situation had come up. My international tester (Jen) was heading to the USA for the summer, while my domestic tester (Eric) was heading to Brazil. I’m told the postal system in Brazil is kind of a joke. I knew I’d be away for most of the summer myself, so I went ahead and made the pies, planning on freezing Jen and Eric’s unbaked.

Putting a crumb topping on Pies-in-Jars is great because there ends up being a high crust to filling ratio in the jar situation. So it’s nice to have something besides more crust on top.

These three got baked right away, while the other two aforementioned went straight to the freezer to await the return of their owners to their respective places in the world.

I mentioned these labels before in my original Pie-in-a-Jar post and this time I actually used them. Shout out and thanks to LollyChops!

Adorbs.

I packaged this little friend up with some bubble wrap and a box and probably took other precautions I have forgotten about now.

This was Thamar’s email to me the following week:

We were so eager to eat the pie that we forgot to take a picture of ourselves with the pie! We paired it with a local vanilla ice-cream and it was delicious!

You are wondering how this story ends for the two pies in the freezer. Jen and Eric, you will still get pie, all being well, but it will not be those two. A few weeks ago, something tragic happened to some of my best friends. It was (and is) the type of thing that there are just no words for. There was (and is) no way to talk about it. There only was (and only is) shock and disbelief. I am bad at talking in the best of times, and so when I had the opportunity to make a meal for these friends (because, strangely, we still need to eat) and they asked if there would be pie involved, the best thing I could think to do was pull these jars out of the freezer.

Even when the small things I can offer (hugs, tears, pie) seem so ridiculously inadequate, I am glad to have something to offer all the same.