Category

Pies/Tarts

  • The World’s Easiest Chocolate Tart

    The World’s Easiest Chocolate Tart

    When we were in Berlin this past July, at a restaurant called Renger-Patzsch, our dinner ended with the perfect punctuation mark of a dessert: a chocolate tart with apricots and vanilla ice cream. It was memorable for its combination of elegance and simplicity; a tart isn’t easy to do, but this one, somehow, seemed effortless.…

  • Casual Crostata

    Casual Crostata

    If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know I tend to make a huge stink about pie dough. How I can’t roll it out, how I don’t have the magic touch (like Craig’s dad), how even after learning all of the rules–keep things cold, move the dough around as you roll it–it rarely…

  • Foolproof Apple Pie

    Foolproof Apple Pie

    I’m a pie fool which isn’t the same thing as being a fool for pie. Julie Klausner recently pointed out in her podcast that Jews are cake people, Christians are pie people. From my own life experience, I find that to be true: my Jewish parents and grandparents, when at a social gathering, would put…

  • Key Lime Pie

    Key Lime Pie

    It’s Father’s Day this weekend and no dessert makes me think more of my dad than Key Lime Pie. The association isn’t based on any particular memory; it’s based on a series of memories of dinners at steakhouses or seafood restaurants where my mom would be taking too long tearing apart her lobster, my dad…

  • Lindsey Shere’s Legendary Almond Tart

    Lindsey Shere’s Legendary Almond Tart

    I suppose I must really like a challenge because, on the night that I made the bouillabaisse, I also attempted a famously difficult dessert: Lindsey Shere’s Almond Tart. Lindsey Shere, in case you don’t know, helped open Chez Panisse in 1971 and stayed there as pastry chef until 1998. I first heard about her famous…

  • Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No it’s me, The Amateur Gourmet, blogging to you live from Delta flight 2243, en route to Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, this is an absolute first for me, my first blog post written from a plane. And I choose, as my subject matter, a dessert that I made back in…

  • Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie

    Bourbon Chocolate Pecan Pie

    So that dinner I made for my friend Alex’s birthday (the one with the soup) began a few days earlier when I e-mailed Alex a very important question: “Dear Alex,” I wrote, “what are your Top 5 favorite desserts of all time?” Alex wrote back: “Hmmm…top five favorite desserts…I’ll do this w/o thinking too much:…

  • Operation: Pie Rescue

    Operation: Pie Rescue

    When I write about pie on my blog, it’s usually for comic relief. Apparently, my friend Morgan thought it was hilarious when I wrote about my “Patched-Together Rhubarb Pie.” It’s true: I’m comically bad at rolling out pie dough. (Though Pim’s latest post “One Pie Dough To Rule Them All” makes me think I’ll have…

  • Patched-Together Rhubarb Pie

    Patched-Together Rhubarb Pie

    Delusional isn’t a word I’d use to describe myself. Sure, I have my flights of fancy and my exaggerated sense of what’s happening at any given moment, but am I so-out-of-touch that I deserve the “D” word? Doubtful! But I was delusional on Saturday when I took a bunch of rhubarb–rhubarb that I’d purchased with…

  • Meyer Lemon Meringue Pie

    Meyer Lemon Meringue Pie

    Ok, I promise, this is it with the Meyer lemons. You’re sick of them–after this post, and that post–I know, I know. And when Lindy drew lemons (that sort of look like Meyer lemons) into my banner this month, who knew I’d be writing so much about them? Unless this was Lindy’s master plan? What…