Monthly Archives: December 2020

A 2020 Pie Roundup

31 Thursday Dec 2020

Posted by in Apple Pie, Berry Pie, Buttermilk Pie, Chess Pie, Coconut Pie, Mini Pie, Mixed Fruit Pie, Original Pies, Summer Fruit Pie

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2021 is upon us, and, arbitrary though it may be, it feels good to move forward. It feels good to set new goals and intentions, to re-dedicate ourselves to our core beliefs and values and relationships, to know that any pain and struggles we experienced in 2020 will carve space for deeper joys to come, if we let them.

This is going to be a long post. The format was the most recent guest baker (aka Levi)’s suggestion so if you get too the end of this and think “THIS WAS TOO. MUCH. PIE.,” you can take it up with him. I was intrigued by the idea of starting my blogging life somewhat afresh in 2021, so I went for it. Without further ado, here is a roundup of eight dessert pies I baked in 2020 that had not yet been blogumented.

Yep, I just made that word up.

Indiana Buttermilk Pie

August 2020. First of three pies from when our friend Matt was in California to visit us for slightly over a week. Three pies in a week, that’s well above my usual pace. To put it in perspective, if that was my standard pace, this project would have been over by 2013. This was my first buttermilk pie (there are three buttermilk pie recipes in Pie) but not my last in 2020, as you’ll see. Simple, basic, uncomplicated flavor. 1 teaspoon of vanilla is the only real flavoring agent, and the tartness of the buttermilk shines straight through. I loved this.

“White” Summer Fruit Pie…sort of!

August 2020. Second of three pies in aforementioned week. We really wanted one of them to be a fruit pie, and Matt (Pie Hype Man) really wanted me to make progress in the cookbook, so we chose this “White” Summer Fruit recipe. It called for Rainier cherries and either white peaches or nectarines. As it turned out, we weren’t able to locate Rainiers so late in the summer, so we followed the recipe exactly but used zero cherries, white Saturn peaches, yellow nectarines, and rhubarb (of which I freeze lots each spring). While it was absolutely divine and we ate it with homemade vanilla ice cream (extra divinity points) my overactive conscience won’t allow me to check this pie off my list until I make it again with Rainier cherries. *Avoids eye contact with Matt, who totally thought this one counted.* But look how pretty!!

Little Crème Brûlée Pies

August 2020. Third of three. Unusual and unforgettable mini pies. My first time making Ken’s “Extra Flaky” pie crust recipe, which calls for cake flour. (Also my first time purchasing cake flour! A few of the pies in this post had ingredients outside the typical realm of my pantry, as you’ll see.) The pastry was lovely to work with and yielded enough for four miniature pie pans, pictured below. After these pies are baked, they are topped with a layer of brown sugar and blow-torched to perfection. I mean, what could be better?

Coconut Cream Pie with Coconut Meringue Topping

October 2020. More ingredients I never hardly ever buy: sweetened flaked coconut and cream of coconut (as in, the stuff in piña coladas, not to be confused with coconut cream aka thicker coconut milk). My cousin Martin’s family visited us for a weekend and I wanted to make a great pie to enjoy all together. When we were growing up and on summertime vacations in Vermont, Martin and I were the little kids who would order coconut almond ice cream without fail when we’d all go to our favorite ice cream shop (our grandparents’ treat). Our shared love of coconut led me to choose this pie for the occasion. Decadent. A coconut lover’s dream come true; yet, not overpowering or artificial in any way.

Three Sisters Coconut Buttermilk Pie

October 2020. Remember that sweetened flaked coconut I’d just bought? Me too…so I looked for another recipe that called for it. Since making the Indiana Buttermilk Pie and absolutely adoring it, I had been looking forward to trying a second buttermilk pie – this was an easy pick. Like a coconut custard pie but with the tang of buttermilk to take it to the next level; a real treat. We shared this pie with our good friends Brad and Deb at our big outdoor table. It seats 18, but we’ve been so grateful for the few times this year that we’ve used it to seat even 4. ❤

Homestead Chess Pie

November 2020. I was looking for something very simple, with pantry ingredients, as I decided to put this pie together at the last minute. This fit the bill: eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla, a bit of vinegar and cornmeal. In my last blog post, I mentioned that I made a (correct) executive decision to bake my Tarte au Sucre an extra 15 minutes past the time given in the recipe. I initially took this pie out at 35 minutes (recipe calls for 30-35) but ended up putting it back in the oven later, cause it clearly was underbaked. Yikes. Perhaps my oven does run cold and I am just waking up to this fact? I shall ponder this further. A delightful pie in the end, for all its simplicity. The fifth of the five Chess Pies in Pie – I’ve now exhausted that category. I confess, I did secretly wish this was a Lemon Chess Pie when I was eating it. Levi probably did too because he is Mr. Lemon Dessert.

Crock-Pot Fall Fruit Pie

November 2020. The name above ruins my punch line. Which of the desserts pictured below do you think was my Thanksgiving pie this year? That’s right, it’s the only one that looks nothing like a pie! This oval-shaped semi-imposter, though not what you would expect of me, was a popular and tasty dessert table choice that I’d recommend any of you try. It’s made with baking mix (like Bisquick – I used Birch Benders Organic Classic Pancake and Waffle Mix), fresh cranberries, pears, apples. Super Thanksgiving-y and great with a dollop of homemade whipped cream.

Apple and Blueberry Crumb Pie

December 2020. This was an important pie for me. I didn’t follow a recipe. I made it for my dear Linda (Pippa’s former nanny) and her family. My apple pie is Linda’s favorite, my blueberry pie is her daughter’s favorite, and they both love crumb topping. Linda had filled a pie dish with homemade tamales for us shortly before Thanksgiving. After the tamales sustained us for several days, I was left with this empty dish (it says Blessed on the bottom – I’d actually given it to her as a gift the last week she worked for us). I couldn’t picture giving it back like that, so I made this pie while Pippa took an afternoon nap one day. This has been a season of grief, and that was an afternoon when the grief was more present than I realized. There was something so visceral in making that pie with my hands, both painful and healing at the same time. I didn’t expect to react the way I did to peeling and coring the apples, to breaking up clumps of butter with my floury fingers – each familiar step generating a physical heartache – but perhaps I should have. Linda said her whole family agreed it was the best pie they have ever had.

Through that experience, I recognized that pie making has become a way to let my heart speak what is on is mind. It is a path I can walk any time, in any weather. And it is a way I can return blessings on the givers in my life, of whom there truly are many.

Be blessed in 2021, my friends, though it may look different than you expect. Happy New Year!

A few editorial notes:

  • You probably got this already, but a pie named in bold type is a pie from Ken Haedrich’s Pie baked for the first time. The two fruit pie titles are not in bold, denoting that they aren’t counting towards my count to 300.
  • While at this moment I’m feeling 96.5% sure that I covered all of 2020’s sweet pies, there were also a couple savory pies I’d like to tell you a bit more about another day. Also, there are still some pies of yesteryear that will occasionally pop into my mind or out of old photos which have yet to claim their rightful place in the gallery. So, if you had any fear that I was completely done with flashbacks…fear not.

Visions of Sugar-Pies

27 Sunday Dec 2020

Posted by in Sugar Pie

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This Christmas was the first I’ve celebrated while also having my own child able to really see and articulate the wonder and delight surrounding the season. Watching her watch sparkling lights, try special holiday foods, search for new “decorations” around our neighborhood, and express real gratitude for the gifts she received has been extremely lovely. Now that she fancies herself a ballerina, she’s learned about the Nutcracker and pretends to be Clara often; sometimes I’m the sugarplum fairy. Good deal.

Now, there is no Sugarplum Pie among the many recipes in Ken Haedrich’s Pie collection. (Italian Prune Plum, yes, which is on a short list of pies I’ve started called THE HIGHLY ELUSIVE ONES. Marionberry is on there too. And Balaton cherry. Anybody got any leads?!) But, there is a Sugar Pie; more formally known as Tarte au Sucre. As the name might give away, this pie is of French Canadian origin. In fact, I was first introduced to this dessert about five years ago at the home of some wonderful friends of ours who dwell in Quebec; it was April, but very snowy, and I remember it as one of the coziest moments – we had a double pie meal, a French Canadian style meat pie first, followed by Tarte au Sucre.

P.S. This is what I miss the most right now.

Tarte au Sucre stars one of the tastiest forms of sugar – maple syrup. I baked one for our Christmas Day 2020, and since this pie isn’t terribly well known (at least, outside of Canada), I’ll go into some detail about how it comes together!

Essentially, after making and pre-baking a single crust pastry, two separate components of the filling are prepared: crumbs and syrup. For the crumbs, flour, light brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and butter are combined much in the way you’d make a crumb topping for a fruit pie. The syrup mixture contains warmed maple syrup, baking soda, an egg, an egg yolk, and vanilla, whisked together. The pie is then assembled in three layers: crumbs, syrup, more crumbs. It’s quite a simple process, but I moved through the steps slowly and deliberately because a) the method was fairly foreign to me and b) I recently made a fruit pie that I forgot to put any cornstarch in until the pie was in the oven for ten minutes, so my confidence is a little on the rocks but I’m gonna be okay thanks for asking.

While I’m confessing past pie foibles I may as well bring up the Shoofly Pie I made 8 1/2 years ago (Have I really been doing this for that long?!) Shoofly Pie is made in a similar manner to Tarte au Sucre; I’d call the two each others’ Southern and Northern cousins. I never tasted the Shoofly Pie, as I sent it off to a bake sale. (Side note: I’ve learned enough in the past 8 1/2 years to know that that’s really NOT the kind of pie to send to a bake sale. Too unusual, too gooey. Has “fly” in the name.) In Ken’s book, the filling of the Shoofly and Tarte au Sucre only bake for 30-35 minutes. In my version of history, the Shoofly Pie was sent to that bake sale after perfectly following the recipe; nevertheless, it was underbaked. My friends were kind enough to not tell me that expressly, but, well, there were some veiled comments about it being difficult to cut and serve. I’m telling you, I know in my heart that it needed ten more minutes. And when I was baking this tender little Sugar Pie, I vowed to learn from the past.

Pie said, “Don’t be tempted to bake the pie much more than 30 minutes, even if the filling seems loose.”

Jessica Gelineau said, “I’m baking this puppy for a full 45.”

Et voila!

Truly, this was a yummy treat. Gooey, almost cookie like in flavor and consistency, with a real emphasis on the maple flavor. Let’s all take a quick moment to note that I’ve begun making more of an effort to crimp the edges on my single crust pies. I attended a virtual Pie Academy with Ken Haedrich in November (which was fantastic – more to come on that in a future post!) and basically was just inspired after watching his fluting technique to give my own pies a bit more oomph in the visual department.

(Note for the nerdiest pie nerds amongst you: This particular crust got a bit too brown and also didn’t hold its fluting perfectly, as you can see. This was a situation where my little silicone pie crust shields should have been employed.)

Now, back to that Christmas wonder and joy I was talking about earlier. One of my written goals for this year, before any of us knew what 2020 would bring, was, “Foster a sense of wonder and delight in my little girl”. The credit isn’t mine to take, but that wonder and delight is growing in her every day. One of Levi’s Christmas presents to me was a book called Awaking Wonder: Opening Your Child’s Heart to the Beauty of Learning, by Sally Clarkson. I’m so excited to read it! Book club, anyone?

One of my gifts to Pippa was a child-size rolling pin. ❤

Did you have a favorite moment of Christmas Day this year? Here are a few of mine: Levi reading to Pippa about Jesus’ birth, Pippa pretending to be baby Jesus (yes, all those stuffed animals are the ones in the manger…the lamb is a little more accurate than Paddington Bear…), and Pippa enjoying the trains and Christmas villages at her great-grandparents’ house.

I’ll be back in a few days to share the rest of 2020’s pies. Hasta luego. xox