One of the first times I baked with my third-generation Irish friend Ken he made one thing clear. He made apple pie one way and one way only. "It can't be goopy, it can't be too sweet" he explained, unprompted, while pacing across the kitchen. Reader, he was right. After having been treated to the Lumb Family Apple Pie, I am a believer. I decided to shine the introductory light on Ken because I spent most of my life not liking apple pie and thus felt a bit of a fake including such an iconic pie in my project. To me, apple pie is a textural nightmare and a flavor blah (except if you are making pie #9 - then it is a flavor WHOA). The only thing I had enjoyed about apple pie before being treated to the Lumb method was its aesthetic. The round top with slits and crimps is delightful and makes me smile with nostalgia much more than an elegantly cross-hatched berry pie or a triumphantly smoothed custard. So, by including Ken in this recipe, I can one, deliver a powerful story of redemption, two, give a great apple pie recipe, and three, not seem like a poser. The essential framework of the Lumb family pie, (if I may be so bold), is that you should let the apples speak for themselves, amplifying their voice only with more lemon than you think, exactly how much cinnamon you think, and far less sugar than you think. If you do that with confidence, and take a few paces around the kitchen, then you have followed the method exactly (in my book). Lumb Family Apple Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2-3 hours Recipe from the Lumb Family Ingredients Two rounds of pie crust 4 sweet-tart firm baking apples, roughly sliced More lemon juice than you think (a whole lemon's juice) Exactly how much cinnamon you think (2 tsp.) Less sugar than you think (A tablespoon?) 1 egg 1 Tbsp demerara sugar Directions Make dough and chill in two disks while you prepare the filling. Combine apples, lemon, cinnamon, and sugar and let marinate for a bit. Preheat the oven to 400°. Arrange apples into crust and pour remaining juices over the top. Crimp edge and brush whole top with egg wash. Sprinkle with demerara sugar. Cut a few 3" slits in top to let steam escape. Make the pie very cute. Bake pie at 400° until crust is beginning to take on color, 15–20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350° and continue to bake, tenting with foil if crust is getting too dark, until crust is deep golden brown and juices are thick and bubbling, 45 minutes longer.
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This pie pulled me in with its description. A dark, molasses-ey holiday pie with a hit of pepper and lots of spices? A silent "p"? Perfect for a holiday evening. To create an exciting visual on top of the pie (and to be festive) I used a skill from kindergarten - cutting paper into a snowflake by folding it in half and cutting out elaborate shapes along the side. This, next to knowing state capitals and performing simple arithmetic are probably the skills from elementary school that I use the most. The skills that I use least are the rules of wall ball and long division. The pie was beautiful and just as strong in the molasses as it had promised. If you like molasses, this is a pie for you. If you don't like molasses, the popsicle project might be more your speed. Pfeffernusse Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2 hours Ingredients Sister Pie crust 1/2 cup melted butter 1/4 cup molasses 3/4 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup cornmeal 1/2 tsp kosher salt 3 eggs 3/4 cup heavy cream 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/8 tsp black pepper (freshly ground) 1/8 tsp ground cardamom 1/8 tsp ground ginger 1/8 tsp ground cinnamon 1/8 tsp ground cloves 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg Directions Preheat the oven to 350°F and prepare your sister pie pie crust. To make the filling, combine the melted butter and molasses. Whisk in the brown sugar, cornmeal, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream, vanilla, pepper, and all spices until combined. Slowly pour the egg mixture into the molasses and whisk until combined. Pour the filling into the blind-baked crust. Bake on a sheet tray for 40-50 minutes, or until slightly jiggly in center. Let cool. When pie is cool, create your desired shape with parchment paper and sift powdered sugar over the top. Serve with whipped cream (I added some egg nog into mine!). This recipe came from a mental mash-up of two intriguing pies. The first pie had a cranberry base and an oat + walnut crumble topping. I was very pleased with the look of the recipe until I came across the layer below the cranberry filling. A swipe of cream cheese across the base. I am sure that there is a world where the action of swiping cream cheese could create a good pie. Maybe in the late twenties of this project I will even dance into this world. But not this early. The cream cheese layer terrified me, but the cranberries and the pretty circular crumble topping stayed in my mind. I decided to look into more cranberry pies in my (ever growing) stack of pie cookbooks. Soon, I found a pear cranberry pie. Pear and cranberry are two of the most texturally displeasing (in my opinion) fruits, so the pairing seemed apt. As I read through the recipe, my mind began to construct the ideal pie. A pear cranberry filling with a crumble topping. I decided to cut the oats, as the pie already felt busy enough. The richness of the walnuts, however, seemed essential. The eleventh pie was born. Cranberry Pear Walnut Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2-3 hours Ingredients Sister Pie crust Filling: 1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries 1/2 cup sugar 4 pears (bartlett or bose), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2 inch cubes 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice 1 tbsp grated orange zest 1 1/2 tbsp cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon Dash of nutmeg Topping: 1/2 cup walnuts 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/2 tsp salt 1 stick butter Directions Preheat the oven to 425°F and prepare your sister pie pie crust. To make the filling, pulse the cranberries and sugar in a food processor until cranberries are coarsely chopped. In a bowl, combine cranberry mixture with pears, lemon juice, and orange zest. Let sit for ten minutes. Add in cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg and gentle mix. To make the topping, combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Cut the butter into the mixture until it is no longer visible. To assemble the pie, add the cranberry-pear filling to the pie crust, distributing the pieces evenly. Sprinkle the crumble around the edges of the pie, leaving a hole in the middle (it is up to you how big you want the hole to be, but it is also a useful indicator of pie-doneness, so keep that in mind). Bake the pie at 425° for 15 minutes and then reduce the oven to 375° and bake for 40-45 more minutes, or until the juices bubble. I made three pumpkin pies in November. I will call the first pie "The Artisan" because Ken and I made it in a kitchen in Avignon, using the roasted-flesh method, in a too-large pan. It was great. The second I will call "The Libby" because it was a classic pumpkin pie - store bought crust, Libby's canned pumpkin, and the exact directions from the Libby's can. This pie was also good. I will call the third pie "I Would Die For This Pumpkin Pie" because I would die for this pumpkin pie. It is phenomenal. It is a lot of work. If you love pumpkin pie, it is worth making this pie. If you feel medium about pumpkin pie, you should make the Libby. If you are in Avignon and don't have any canned pumpkin, you should make "The Artisan" (probably in no other circumstances should you roast the pumpkin. Canned is better). My genius mother, a Cook's Illustrated loyalist and fellow pie-lover, decided to try making this project of a pie many years back. Every year, I am Thankful that she did. I Would Die For This Pumpkin Pie Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2-3 hours Recipe from Cook's Illustrated Ingredients Pie Crust (I used my now-favorite Sister Pie crust for every pie this Thanksgiving) Filling: 1 cup heavy cream 1 cup whole milk 3 large eggs plus 2 large yolks 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree 1 cup drained candied yams from 15-ounce can (see note) 3/4 cup sugar 1/4 cup maple syrup 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg 1 teaspoon table salt Directions (I am copying this directly. I warned you! This is a high-investment pie.) For the crust: *Make crust and firm up in fridge* Adjust oven rack to lowest position, place rimmed baking sheet on rack, and heat oven to 400°F. Remove dough from refrigerator and roll out on generously floured (up to 1/4 cup) work surface to 12-inch circle about 1/8 inch thick. Roll dough loosely around rolling pin and unroll into pie plate, leaving at least 1-inch overhang on each side. Working around circumference, ease dough into plate by gently lifting edge of dough with one hand while pressing into plate bottom with other hand. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Trim overhang to 1/2 inch beyond lip of pie plate. Fold overhang under itself; folded edge should be flush with edge of pie plate. Using thumb and forefinger, flute edge of dough. Refrigerate dough-lined plate until firm, about 15 minutes. Remove pie pan from refrigerator, line crust with foil, and fill with pie weights or pennies. Bake on rimmed baking sheet 15 minutes. Remove foil and weights, rotate plate, and bake 5 to 10 additional minutes until crust is golden brown and crisp. Remove pie plate and baking sheet from oven. For the filling: While pie shell is baking, whisk cream, milk, eggs, yolks, and vanilla together in medium bowl. Combine pumpkin puree, yams, sugar, maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt in large heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring to sputtering simmer over medium heat, 5 to 7 minutes. Continue to simmer pumpkin mixture, stirring constantly and mashing yams against sides of pot, until thick and shiny, 10 to 15 minutes. Remove pan from heat and whisk in cream mixture until fully incorporated. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer set over medium bowl, using back of ladle or spatula to press solids through strainer. Rewhisk mixture and transfer to warm prebaked pie shell. Return pie plate with baking sheet to oven and bake pie for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 300°F and continue baking until edges of pie are set (instant-read thermometer inserted in center registers 175 degrees), 20 to 35 minutes longer (Clare note - historically, it takes about 50 minutes here. This could be that I always make it around Thanksgiving when I ask a lot of my oven). Transfer pie to wire rack and cool to room temperature, 2 to 3 hours. Cut into wedges and serve. I promise I did make pie during the month of October. The month passed by steadily, the leaves sort of turned color, it was chilly in the morning and summery in the afternoon, and I made pie and ate it with friends. I just didn't post it! Perhaps my goal was to build anticipation for November, pie's biggest month. This apple pie has cheddar and whiskey in it. I knew I wanted to try it amongst adventurous friends. Before the pie, we had lemon pasta and a kale salad with pomegranates, toasted almonds, parmesan and a punchy little vinaigrette. I waited too long to cover the pie, and thus the flecks of cheddar in the crust (blessed) browned too quickly, resulting in a dark, somewhat ominous looking pie. The lesson of this pie was don't judge a pie by its browning. The filling was wonderful - the apples strong, the spices warm, and the whiskey quite apparent. The crust was also good, albeit dark. There were certainly moments when I thought "I want the cheddar to be stronger." We did notice, though, that the cheddar was easier to taste when you did not have ice cream or lots of filling in your bite (not sure what world that bite would exist in...make the crust you want for every bite). Either way, the pie was good. It combined some of my favorite parts of life - cheese, apples, spices, and all of my pleasant memories in Vermont. Apple Cheddar Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2-3 hours Recipe from Bon Appétit Ingredients Crust: 2½ cups all-purpose flour 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar 1 tsp. kosher salt 5 oz. sharp cheddar cheese, finely grated 1¾ sticks chilled butter, cut into pieces ¼ cup chilled whiskey Filling: About 7 sweet-tart firm baking apples, thinly sliced ¾ cup dark brown sugar ¼ cup whiskey 1 tsp. lemon zest 2 Tbsp. lemon juice 2 tsp. ground cinnamon ¼ tsp. ground allspice ¼ tsp. ground cloves ½ tsp. kosher salt 3 Tbsp. butter 1 Tbsp. plus 1 tsp. cornstarch All-purpose flour 1 egg 1 Tbsp demerara sugar Directions Make dough and chill in two disks while you prepare the filling. Combine apples, sugar, whiskey, lemon, spices and salt and let marinate while you prepare the brown butter. Preheat the oven to 400°. Cook butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat, stirring often, until it foams, then browns, 3–4 minutes. Add brown butter and cornstarch to apple mixture and juices and toss to coat. Roll dough out and fit into pie dish. Arrange apples into crust and pour remaining juices over the top. Crimp edge and brush whole top with egg wash. Sprinkle with demerara sugar. Cut a few 3" slits in top to let steam escape. Place pie dish on a foil-lined rimmed baking sheet and chill 20 minutes. Bake pie at 400° until crust is beginning to take on color, 15–20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350° and continue to bake, tenting with foil if crust is getting too dark (ha!), until crust is deep golden brown and juices are thick and bubbling, 85-100 minutes longer. When I first tasted the pie filling for this balsamic-blueberry-plum pie I thought "that is TOO MUCH balsamic." I had decided to make a pie with balsamic vinegar knowing that the people who would be eating it were adventurous, sophisticated diners. But when the filling's acidity hit the top of my mouth I thought "no one, not even the most refined pie-taster, should be subject to the anger of that vinegar." Luckily, the intensity of the balsamic burned out while the pie baked, leaving the pie with a pleasant layer of flavor and no top-of-mouth assault. If I were to make the pie again, I would put even more balsamic and would practice some self-control while working on the filling. That would be a perfect scenario. While relaying the story of my filling-tasting to general silence, it was revealed that very few of my immediate peers knew how balsamic vinegar is made. Here is a list of what ingredient various vinegars are made from: white vinegar is made from grain, apple cider vinegar is made from apples, wine vinegar is made from grapes, balsamic vinegar is made with grapes from Modena, and rice vinegar is made from rice. Most of these vinegars have what they are made from right in the title. Nice. The blueberries and the plums were luscious and the crust was sturdy. We ate the pie alongside a vanilla ice cream taste-test of Double Rainbow. The group generally thought that the ice cream was good but the packaging was not. One brave attendee claimed that she loved the packaging in its chaos and camp. Leave your thoughts in the comments. Blueberry Plum Balsamic Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2 hours Recipe from the Sister Pie Cookbook Ingredients Pie dough (double-crust) 1/4 cup turbinado sugar 1/4 cup brown sugar 2 tsp balsamic vinegar (I say GO BIGGER) 1/8 tsp freshly cracked ground pepper 1/4 tsp kosher salt 1 1/4 pounds blueberries 1 3/4 pounds late summer plums, sliced 1/4 cup cornstarch Directions Preheat the oven to 450°. Combine the turbinado sugar, brown sugar, balsamic, pepper, and salt. Mix to combine, and then toss in blueberries and plums. Place filling into crust and build lattice. Egg wash the crust and sprinkle with more turbinado sugar. Bake the pie at 450° for 15-20 moinutes, and then lower the temperature to 350° and bake until juices bubble, 1-1 1/2 hours. Making a peach pie was intimidating. Because the words “peach pie” are so satisfying, it makes one worry that the ultimate product will never outshine the simple act of saying that you are going to make, have made, or are ready to eat some peeeach pie. I do think that a simple peach pie with a rich crust and a simple filling is hard to beat. However, I wanted to try something exciting for this round of pie. I was originally going to try a paprika peach pie, but decided against it at the last second. While many of my spicy popsicles were great, I wasn’t ready to jazz the pie genre this early. Instead, I went with a recipe from my southern pie cookbook (it felt appropriate given the fruit) for peaches and cream pie. The recipe really is just that - peaches, with a bit of citrus to brighten them, and cream. A lot of cream. It felt strange putting straight cream into the oven, but the outcome was not strange. It was tasty. One of my passions as a child was the cheese danishes available at hotel buffets. My eight-year-old metabolism could put those danishes away with great ease. This pie was a bit like that - rich, flaky pastry, with a buttery dairy component. The fragrant peaches were added to the mix and it was really good. You have to be ready to eat what I would lovingly refer to as “kinda wet pie.” If you can do that, you will find great happiness. Peaches and Cream Pie
Yield: 1 pie | Total Time: 2 hours Recipe from Southern Pies Cookbook Ingredients Pie dough (single-crust) 3/4 cup sugar 1/2 cup flour 2 cups sliced peaches 1 tbsp lemon juice 1 cup heavy cream Directions Preheat the oven to 350°. Combine the sugar and flour. Pour lemon juice over peaches, toss to combine. Add dry ingredients, toss to combine. Place into crust. Pour the cream over the peaches and move around as necessary to cover all of the peach pieces. Bake the pie until the cream has formed a soft custard, 35-40 minutes. I wrote about my storied past with the humble apricot during the popsicle project. Here is a quick overview: I spent a summer working on an apricot orchard. I was in charge of slicing apricots in half. I didn't enjoy it but I learned some valuable lessons. As the father in Calvin and Hobbes would appreciate, I developed a bit of character. I also have a storied past with tiny things. The story is much longer, much happier, and much harder to distill. I can't say exactly when I started loving tiny things. I think it began when Eve and I drifted into a three year long sticker phase, where a perfect weekend would include taking a trip to a local stationary store, spending our savings on tiny stickers (or sometimes other tiny things like tiny pencils or tiny notebooks), taking our things home and then admiring them. A drawing of a pig is always cute, in my opinion, but a tiny pig? That is unbeatable. My mother thinks that my love for tiny things began with beanie babies. To me now, in 2019, beanie babies don't seem tiny enough for me. Make them smaller, I say! Whatever the origin, the love has carried with me to today. Any tiny version of an item moves my heart into a squeal of love. I had to make a tiny pie. I predict there will be more future tiny pies. I was inspired by Alison Roman's salted apricot-honey cobbler recipe. I thought that putting cobbler biscuits on top of a pie crust would be, as we say in the world of pastry, "too much," so I went with a crumble topping rather than a cobbler topping (summer is so wonderful. I am such a big fan). I still kept big notes of honey and even bigger notes of salt and it turned into a wonderfully syrupy, complex little pie. Note that the amounts below are very loose. You should figure out just how tiny you want your pie to be and go from there.
Salted Honey-Apricot Pie Yield: 1 mini pie | Total Time: 1 hour Ingredients Already-made pie dough 4 apricots 1 tbsp honey (adjust this based on how ripe your apricots are) 2 tsp lemon juice Healthy pinch of kosher salt 1/4 cup rolled oats Healthy pinch of flour 1 tsp butter or coconut oil More kosher salt Directions Preheat the oven to 400°. Cut off an appropriately small amount of pie crust from your in-the-fridge crust. To make the filling, slice your apricots and toss them with honey, lemon juice and salt. Place into crust. Cut together the oats, flour, fat and salt. Crumble over the top of the pie. Bake the baby pie until the apricot juice bubbles and the topping is golden-brown, around 25-35 minutes (depending on how tiny you went). Everyone, William Carlos Williams included, loves to celebrate the joys of a cold plum. This pie shows how exciting and poetic a hot plum can be. As it should be on a summer Thursday, I found myself with too many plums. I made plum jam with some of the excess plums. Then I chopped up some more plums. Then I thinly sliced the final plums. All of those plum preparations went into the plum pie, which gave it concentrated sweetness, great texture, and elegance, respectively. I felt pleased and justified when I opened the July/August Cook's Illustrated and found a whole wheat plum pie smiling up from its pages. This is not the recipe I used (I didn't use a recipe! I just put three types of plums into a whole wheat crust I had made earlier) but it SHOULD be the recipe you use, if you make a plum pie.
Tomato season has finally landed in northern California. The tired joy of biting into a sweet, warm tomato is the purest sensation of summer, rivaled only by playing tennis at dusk until you can no longer see the ball, spooning the puddle-juice at the bottom of a cobbler or crisp dish over vanilla ice cream, or screaming at your friend that your method of building a s'mores fire is better than theirs (team tepee for life). I knew I wanted to make a savory hand-pie as part of the project. This one is loosely based on a recipe from my new Sister Pie cookbook. I used their hand pie dough, but swapped most of the AP flour for wheat (for more of a RUSTIC feel. I bring rustic energy to suburbia! and I can't apologize for that) and took out the olives (some of my closest friendships have taught me to never make an olive-heavy dish for a dinner event). Instead, I smeared some creamy goat cheese on the base of the dough and then piled the tomatoes high. I also mixed the tomatoes with some basil that I had packed into oil about a month ago (again, the decadence of summer and what-not). They were, according to Miles, "very good." Heirloom Tomato Hand Pies
Yield: 10 hand pies | Total Time: 1 hour Ingredients For the dough: 1 cup all purpose flour 2 3/4 cups whole wheat flour 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt 3 sticks unsalted, very cold butter 3/4 cup very cold water, with some (live your truth) apple cider vinegar mixed in For the filling: 4 heirloom tomatoes 2 tbsp julienned basil 1/3 cup spreadable goat cheese Directions Preheat the oven to 450°. To make the dough, combine the dry ingredients and then, in a pastry blender, cut the butter in until small lumps form. Add in the water mixture and pulse until loosely formed. Transfer to cling wrap and smush into a ball. Chill the dough while you prepare the filling. To make the filling, roughly chop your tomatoes. Mix in the basil. If your goat cheese is not pre-spreadable, gently mix milk into your goat cheese until it can be easily spread with the back of a spoon. Once your goat cheese and filling are ready, take your dough out of the fridge and roll it out. Choose a glass that is the size you want your hand pies to be and stamp out circles for the pies. Spread goat cheese on the bottom round, pile some tomato mixture on top, and place the second round on top. Use the tines of a fork to crimp the hand pies. Egg wash them if you are feeling fancy. Bake the hand pies until golden brown, around 25-35 minutes (depending on size). |