Pie 101 - Pumpkin

              Pumpkin Pie should quiver, shiver, and shimmer. 

If your pie is solid and unmoving--like old jello-it's overdone or old.  If  the filling is pulling away from the crust, it's too old.  If it's cracked, well, that just happens once in a while (it's overbaked)--but next time bake it for less time.  Stay away from store pies.  While, big, easy, available, and portable, they were baked....when?  And are in the stores how far ahead?  This pie, full of eggs and cream, should be absolutely fresh.  Nearly right out of your oven.  Almost warm.  And, if not, at least at room temperature.  It's custard.  Plain and simple.   And, if you don't want to make pie dough or want a Gluten-Free Pumpkin "Pie," you can bake the filling in a greased pie pan or casserole without any pastry.  Just call it pumpkin custard; that's what it is.

Helen's Cherry Pie- Constructed, Deconstructed and Reconstructed -- Pie 101

"Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy, Billy Boy?  Can she bake a cherry pie, charming Billy?"

She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother....  is poor Billy's lament.  She can, however, bake a cherry pie quick as a cat can blink an eye!  (Click on above link to hear the song; guitar chords included.)


 I was just minding my own business.  I had stuck the hot cherry pie on a rack on an empty shelf in a kitchen cupboard.  A good place to cool pie if you have two golden retrievers. (I made four different pies for Thanksgiving; everyone deserves their favorite once a year.  I'm convinced.  Cherry is my sister Helen's favorite.   Hence "Helen's Cherry Pie."  Also my loved "niece," Kathy's.)

Tucker up front in the kitchen, Gabby retreating into the dining room.

38 Power Foods, Week 18 -- Citrus -- Step-by-Step Pear or Apple Crostata (Pie 101)

Scroll down for recipe.

Come fall, I make crostatas regularly.  They're beautiful, terribly good to eat, and generally make folks quite happy.  A free-form fruit pie (often made with homemade jam in Italy), they're easier to make than traditional American pie and are show-stoppers when you have friends to dinner.  I've blogged the crostatas before, and have taught them several times for the Italian classes I've done at home.  But I didn't think of them in terms of citrus until our Power Foods list came up this week.  While citrus (lemon particularly) is a huge part of my cooking, I think about it less in terms of baking.   


  For instance:  I rarely make a green salad without squeezing a lemon over it.  Either I have lemon and oil, lemon alone, or lemon before a vinaigrette.  Whatever choice I make, lemon, as an acid, is always followed by salt and pepper on my salads because salt dissolves best in acid.  For that reason, if I'm making a vinaigrette, I always put the salt in the acid -- whether citrus or vinegar-- before adding the oil. 

Pie 101 - Derby Pie

"Derby" Pie or  Pecan-Chocolate-Bourbon Pie.  Can you say decadent?

When someone needs something baked, I do it if I can.  If I have the time.  Not everyone bakes.  I love to bake and need an excuse now that there are only two of us in the house.  If I bake for an event, I somehow always manage to make enough so that we can share a sample or even have a tiny sweetness for ourselves.  (If it's pie, it's usually for Dave; I eat a bite, that's it.  He loves pie too much for me to eat much.)

(Aside:  After I saw how many people read my basic Pie 101 post, I thought I'd begin a series (quite intermittent) on pies.  I hope  you like them.  Anywho, read on.)

Pie 101 - Alyce's Step by Step Instructions for Making and Baking Pie (Rhubarb is the Sample Lesson Pie)

R for Rhubarb

This post now featured on Rachel Rappaport's PIE FAIR LADY blog!  

Thanks, Rachel.  Bake pie! 

I don't know why you want to make pie and searched for Pie 101.  Me-oh-my.  You love pie? (I adore the movie "Michael")  Someone you love loves pie, maybe?  You want to make beautiful things and don't paint--right.  You want to bring pie to Thanksgiving dinner:  "Oh, I'll bring the pie," would be fun to say. You'd like to celebrate Pi Day in a more meaningful way.    Making pie, or wanting to make or eat pie, is sort of a passion.  It's not anything like, "I think I'll scramble eggs and make toast because I'm hungry."  Or even "Let's make a pot of vegetable soup; it's cold outside and sounds good."   I mean, no one really needs pie.  People, do, however, desire (is not too strong a word) pie and are sort of sometimes heart-starved and/or breathless for it.  Think of the look on your uncle's (aunt, cousin, boyfriend, co-worker, super) when words like, "coconut cream" or "strawberry-rhubarb" cross their lips.  Or the rush through a potluck meal if a pie sits alone, waiting, down at the end of the counter in the kitchen.    Is it fond memories of  your aunt's pumpkin from Thanksgiving of 1967 or your best friend's apple (from her own tree) in 2009?  Is it the crappy diner crust on a short, slim piece of pecan late one night after a restaurant shift when you had to have something sweet and that's all there was?

If, by chance you're looking for gluten-free pie dough, please just go to Gluten-Free Girl...a great blog; here's one post on pie dough there.

I'm just guessing that usually there's a lot of love goes into pie.  Making it is not an endeavor one embarks on lightly.  Like weeding the flower bed out back or picking up a gallon of milk at the store.  It's kind of a devoted, warm-fuzzy, all around commitment.  Bake with a band on sort of thing.  (Being both a cook and musician gives me license for such sentences.)

Whatever reason brings  you to pie, I hope this little (not really so little) tutorial will be of help.  It contains the story of my own pie-making, a photo-essay on making the rhubarb pie (including crust), and the recipes/basic info you'll need to make it all happen.  FYI:  This long pie post is truly a work in progress.

No fear.  Pie is near.