American Pies

All of the pies for my first book on baking are done, but we didn’t have a cover girl.  Katie and I have been talking about this pie for a long time now – the one that would be perfect for The Fourth of July.  Sure, there’s nothing more American than Apple Pie – except – maybe if it’s Strawberry (Red) Apple (White) Bluebbery (Blue) and embellished with starfruit.  That’s what we did.  That’s what I just baked.

This is a breakthrough moment – maybe. This is the first recipe for a pie that I created on my own.  It’s the first time we’ve blended fruits, sifted ingredients, and created something brand new.  I am pretty certain that, before today, this pie has never existed.  It is cooling in my kitchen.  I have no idea if it will be good, but I know I spent a lot of time on it, was very careful, and that it was beautiful (they are never quite as pretty AFTER you bake them).  Anyway…below is the gallery.  Soon?  The verdict…I give you… The All American Pie…

This is another of those pies that came about from questioning what would, and would not make good pies.  Admittedly, starting this quest in the winter time has limited my options, but at the same time it’s forced some creativity that might otherwise have lain dormant.

I will say that with nectarines, ripeness counts a lot.  They are – in general – crunchier than peaches, and though they taste very similar, they don’t ‘melt’ in the pie in the same way.  This was a very tasty pie, and very filling, but the next time I try it  I will either use riper nectarines, or mix in some peaches or plums to change the consistency.

Another note from this pie – this is one of those where I learned that there are some pretty standardized rules on how long you bake things, and these rules bear paying attention to.  The instructions on Internet recipes are VERY often cobbled together from odd sources, untested, and incorrect.  I suspect the five star reviews on them come from bakers who already know how to fix what is wrong, but have not taken the time to fix the problems.  In my book, I will cover all the ins and outs of pie recipes – why each part is important, and some basic “rules of the road”.  Now – The Nectarine pie gallery:

On a website called American Pies, it would be almost criminal not to have an apple pie.  I held off on this one to number seven to be sure I got it right.  Thee was another reason for it though, and that’s what I think I’ll share here.

I love pie.  Not everyone in my family does.  Trish, the love of my life, likes some pies, Stephanie, our oldest, will eat any of them with me, Katie, the youngest will eat select pies.  The boys almost never want to try it…which is actually fine.  Like I said…I love pie.

The honey-crisp apple pie I made because I knew EVERYONE would eat it.  I got vanilla ice-cream, I put my best effort into it, and – as I’d hoped – the family gathered and that pie disappeared.  Nothing is American like apple pie, and family.  Gallery below.

Here is another pie we discovered by starting with the simple question…can you make a pie from Kiwi fruit?  The answer, of course, is that you can make a pie from nearly anything.  If you don’t know how to make pies it becomes less simple, because then the question doubles.  Can you do it, and how, exactly would you go about doing it?

I found a lot of Kiwi pie recipes.  What I ended up doing was modifying a recipe from the California Kiwifruit Commission.  I have modified ALL the recipes in this book – often because the change sounded as if it would taste good, though at other times because I was certain from experience that either something was missing, the baking time was off, or – and this is most likely – I just didn’t believe they included enough fruit.  I’m funny that way.  If I wanted a Pop-Tart, I’d buy one…if I want a pie it better have FILLING.

The Kiwi pie was surprisingly good.  I made two of them and took one to work, where it disappeared rather quickly (much to my satisfaction.  Below is the gallery for this pie:

One of the things it had never occurred to me would make a good pie, and that I now know WILL make a good pie, is grapes.  Of course, as you may have guessed, making grape pie came with its own set of lessons.  For one thing, they are VERY JUICY.  There are things you do when making a pie to thicken the filling – and they are very important for this particular pie.

If I was going to compare this pie to any other pie, I’d have to go with Cherry.  The way cherries and grapes look and feel in a pie is very similar.  Cherries, of course, have the tangier flavor, and grapes are sweeter.  You can make the pie with green or red seedless grapes – we went with red.  You can also make pie with seeded grapes, but it’s a lot more trouble, and didn’t sound as good to me when I perused the hundreds of available recipes.   What follows is the gallery for our first fresh grape pie.

Remember – all the recipes, instructions, and full stories will be available soon in the book “AMERICAN PIES – Baking Pies with Dave the Pie Guy”

This was a fun pie.  The tools are unique – of course – as you need a “Pineapple Princess” to core the pineapple properly.  This was also a favorite of my daughter, Katie, who got to eat a whole lot of fresh pineapple that was left over.

You see, ingredients (particularly when you have cobbled your recipes together from a variety of sources of varying repute) are ambiguous.  When someone says one pineapple, one small, large, medium, etc. pineapple – and that is ALL they say – well, you get the gist of the problem, I’m sure.  One thing I am adamant about in pies – they should be thick.  They should curve up and slope back to the edges…there should never be a concave pie, or even a flat one.  With that in mind, I bought two of the only size of pineapple that was available and took what I needed.

We have plans in future books to try some more exotic things, like Pineapple Upside Down Cake pie…but the fresh pineapple worked out wonderfully, was tasty, and is one we will make again…

Behold, the gallery…