Pie turned out to be a topic that generated a lot of interest— and a great deal of pie-baking!  Ken Haedrich’s book is an exhaustive compendium of all things pie.  His explicit and extensive instructions help to allay pie crust fears, and he provides tasty filling recipes for every conceivable category of pie, whether fruit, custard, ice cream, or any combination thereof.  Most everyone made at least one pie, and several members brought samples to our meeting, which were enjoyed by all!  And for at least one of our group members, all that pie practice paid off: at the library’s apple pie baking contest Pat ‘s apple pie took second place.  Congratulations Pat!

We had a lively book group with lots of good ideas shared:

• Using a Kitchen Aid mixer to make a pie crust helps to keep the pie dough cold.
• Leave a little bit of the peel on the apple for taste and color.
• Frozen fancy mixed berries from Trader Joe’s make a good pie.
• Frozen blueberries from Wegmans are good but it helps to add more flour.

Pies baked from Ken Haedrich’s book were:

• Cranberry-Apple-Orange Freeform Pie, pg. 273 –  a lattice top was added, the crust was the combo of butter & shortening pg. 31.
• Shaker Lemon Pie, pg 582 – interesting it was made with the rind of the lemon – definitely tart.
• Chocolate Cream Pie with Cinnamon Meringue, pg 567 – a definite crowd pleaser.
• Liz Smothers’ Sugarless Apple-Berry Pie, pg 243 – amazingly good considering the lack of sugar. Apple juice was used as the sweetener.
• Honey Apple-Currant Pie in a Whole Wheat Crust, pg. 208 – the whole wheat crust did not stand out – it was just a good pie.

Favorite apples for apple pie :

• Cortland – preferred by some of us and recommended by Carmella from La Bella Dolce .  Carmella led a pie baking workshop for the library in October.
• Cortland / McIntosh – a mix of apples
• Macoun -a cross between a McIntosh and a Jersey Black was said to make a better pie than a McIntosh.
• Nothern Spy – Ken  Haedrich writes, “spies are for pies….this apple is perhaps the quintessential pie apple. ”
  ( see “pie Apples at a Glance on pages 232-233 for a more complete list)

Pies recommended from other cook books:

• Apple-Berry Galette from “Baking with Julia“
• Apple Slab pie for a Crowd from “King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.”

Other resources:

• Ken Haedrich has a website The Pie Academy.
• The Culinary Institute of America has a DVD which includes a demo of making a pie crust – The everyday gourmet [videorecording] / : baking pastries and desserts.

Next month we continue the baking theme with cookies.