My last pie was a deep-dish monster of an apple pie with a thick flaky bottom and top crust, cut-out hearts on top and a filling of sliced McIntosh apples cooked with brown sugar into a sweet, syrupy skyscraper-high carbohydrate count. Too much of a good thing?
That depends.
Not for a big family dinner like our annual Thanksgiving-in-February bash for 25 people at the nearby hunting camp where many of our family are members. For that evening, we lower the hinged lid of the built-in firewood box and convert it to a dessert buffet.
That deep-dish apple pie plus a chocolate cake and a bowl of red-foil-wrapped chocolate hearts sweetly finish a big dinner with our extended family.
But with our big dinners on hold, it was the just the two of us left alone with that pie.
Pie for Breakfast
We are empty-nesters for now. My husband is determined not to waste food. A slice of “breakfast pie” likely shot his blood-sugar sky-high then drove it off a cliff. Not so good. (Especially if you adore your husband, as I do.)
While pie is meant to be shared, a big pie is too sloppy of a thing to share with our neighbors — at least not this oozy apple pie.
Yet my urge to make and share pie from scratch right now remains quite intense. Pie-making seems to be sponging up the energy I’d typically be spending on prepping for a big family dinner, and it’s a way to connect — so important!
I’m hoping to use this quiet time to become “pie-proficient” — meaning I can make a pie or two in a typical day without a lot of fuss, angst, or flour all over the kitchen and myself.
Someday, we’ll presumably return to lives full of engagements and potluck meals for which I’d like to feel more prepared, with a pie or two ready-to-go in the freezer. Like on those Sunday mornings when I realize I forgot all about the potluck lunch after the church service.
Maybe it’s this simple: I live in Amish country, so I should be able to make pie.
Ice Storm Ahead ~ We’ll Need Pie
On Monday morning, with an ice storm due to start any minute, we would need pie. Naturally. So I snuck in a half-hour to make pastry before heading up to the office.
I settled on smaller pies so they would be easier to share. My husband was relieved the plan left no pie behind in our kitchen.
I made four of the “All-Buttah” pie crusts from “The Book on PIE, Everything You Need to Know to Bake Perfect Pies” by Erin Jeanne McDowell, who answers every question about how to make exquisite pies before you even know you have them.
Since it was a big batch, I experimented with using the KitchenAid stand mixer, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. McDowell suggested still mixing the water in by hand and the stand mixer bowl isn’t well-suited for that.
The pastry rolled out beautifully on the kitchen counter, just like last week.
A single crust worked just fine for my 8 and 3/4 inch, shallow tin plates, with scraps to make cutout snowflakes.
That seemed fitting given the sleet that now encased our cars, clung to tree limbs and made the driveway an ice rink.
The sleet stopped overnight and by this afternoon, the sun had melted much of the ice off the trees. I hope the two neighbors who received surprise cherry pies on this icy day felt special.
I hope it wasn’t too much sugar, and trust they’ll in turn pass along some of that sweetness.They are doing me a favor. Tomorrow, on my lunch break, I’ll mix up more cherry filling for the final two crusts.
If we’re neighbors, you may want to lock up all the places I can sneak a pie into. Like when it’s raining zucchini in August. This February, it’s raining pie.
Coming Next: the Vegan / Dairy-Free Pie Dough, and playing with adding spices to doughs, like pumpkin spice or cinnamon or gingerbread.
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Who is that “pie person” in your life? Who brings the pie — or reliably brings the sweetness to any gathering? Leave a comment!
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Happy Thanksgiving!
