Category

Pies/Tarts

  • Pumpkin Pie That’ll Actually Make You Love Pumpkin Pie

    Pumpkin Pie That’ll Actually Make You Love Pumpkin Pie

    If there were a universal “meh” list, pumpkin pie would probably be at the very top. How many people are passionate about that odd combination of orange gunk, eggs, pumpkin pie spices (perhaps the most famous thing about it), in a pale, pallid crust? Not many! And yet, year after year, we make pumpkin pie…

  • How to Make the Perfect Apple Pie (Step-by-Step with Photos)

    How to Make the Perfect Apple Pie (Step-by-Step with Photos)

    First things first: there’s no such thing as the perfect apple pie. The perfect apple pie is whichever apple pie you love the most. That said: there are good apple pies and there are bad apple pies. Bad apple pies have a stiff, flavorless crustl a gooey, gloppy, synthetic filling. and they taste like something…

  • French Apple Tart

    French Apple Tart

    If you told me twenty years ago, when I first started cooking, that one day I would be able to spontaneously whip up a French apple tart, I would have balked. “What am I? A French grandmother?” But that was before I knew how to pinch together a pie dough in a matter of minutes,…

  • Banoffee Pie

    Banoffee Pie

    British baking wasn’t something I thought much about until I started watching The Great British Baking Show (or “Bake-Off” as it’s known in its mother country). Now all I think about is Swiss rolls and Hobnobs and soggy bottoms. Also I spend time wondering if the show’s stylist dresses everyone, including the contestants.

  • Stone Fruit Party Pie

    Stone Fruit Party Pie

    September is the perfect month to learn how to bake a pie. If you’ve never made one before, you’re still straddling two seasons: summer fruit tastes best in September and then, as the weather cools, you’ll transition into making apple pies, pumpkin pies, pecan pies, etc. So if your first few crusts are disasters, you’ll…

  • Mixed Berry Pie

    Mixed Berry Pie

    Generally I try to avoid neighborhood message boards / Facebook Groups because half the time people post things like “there’s a man with a machete standing outside the bodega” or “packs of wild dogs are roaming the streets.” Occasionally, though, someone will post something that’s not terrifying. Such was the case the other day when…

  • Lemon Meringue Pie

    Lemon Meringue Pie

    Cooking clichés are cliché for a reason: they usually contain some wisdom. Take this one: “The simplest things to make are often the hardest.” I had this lesson hammered home to me in Japan, where just a tiny wedge of sweet potato was somehow the most incredible sweet potato of my life. Or in Kyoto…

  • The Ultimate Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

    The Ultimate Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

    I’m a terrible dancer, though I enjoy dancing. In college, I was in a production of A Funny Thing Happened to the Way to the Forum (I played Hysterium; such typecasting) and learned the box step. That’s the extent of my dancing prowess. Give me a bouncy Sondheim score and a solid square of dance…

  • Nectarine Plum Pie with a Brown Sugar Crust

    Nectarine Plum Pie with a Brown Sugar Crust

    So I’ve been organizing all of my old posts into categories. It’s a huge process — over 3,500 posts covering a 15 year span — but it’s also oddly satisfying; like cleaning up a hoarder house. My goal is for you to be able to click “cakes” and to see every cake recipe I’ve ever…

  • The Best Apple Pie I’ve Ever Made

    The Best Apple Pie I’ve Ever Made

    Memorize this fact about apple pie making, and you’ll be set for life: it’s not about the recipe, it’s about your state of mind. That nugget comes from Craig’s dad, the master of apple pie (see here), who’s said to me, in the past: “I think you’re overthinking it.” And in the past I had…