Joy the Baker

I have a relationship with this pie.  That’s normal, right?  

The smell of this pie takes me back to the days six year old me would run screaming through our lime green, hallway shaped kitchen in anticipation of pie and ice cream and the imminent holiday festivities such a dessert suggested.   

My Dad has been making this pie, with more cinnamon, with less coriander, with two eggs, with four eggs, with all sorts of variations, for… oh, just my entire life.  

Believe it or not, it’s hard to write about something you’re so close to.  Two things here are strange.  One… I’m so close to a pie.  Two… I’m having trouble writing about dessert! Oooh Lordy. 

Here’s what I want you to know about this Sweet Potato Pie.  Excuse me while I stumble through this.  

     This pie is made with orange fleshed sweet potatoes.  Maybe you call them yams.  Maybe you call them sweet potatoes.  The difference continues to perplex and bore me.  

     If you’re wondering what heaven might smell like, whip this pie up, throw it in the oven, wait 20 minutes then take a deep breath somewhere near the oven.  There.  Heaven.  Coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon and brown sugar heaven.  

     This pie can be made with my Easy No-Roll Pie Crust.  You win.  I win.  Pillsbury pre-made pie crust loses.  It’s better this way.  Trust me. 

Sweet Potato Pie.  It’s beauty.  It’s love.  If you think I’m exaggerating… then we’re obviously not friends. 

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Friends.  

This is important.

I need you to hold your pinky up for me.  We’re about to make a very important promise to one another. 

I need you to promise me that you’ll never. ever.. ever… ever buy a store-bought pre-made pie crust again.  Don’t do it.  Promise me.  

Those store bought pie crusts are full of all sorts of mystery fats, trans fats, dirty fats, mean fats… you don’t want all that mess in your pie!  

Besides… I’ve come up with the pie crust recipe of your dreams.  Seriously.  Fluff the ingredients in a bowl, throw in some moisture, then press the dough directly into your pie pan.  No chilling.  No rolling.  No stress.  I’m looking out for you.  

If you’re scared of pie, I’ve got you’re back…. promise… lemme show you. 

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Is it just me, or is making a pie sorta like going to jury duty?

Don’t get me wrong… I sometimes (no.. not always) like throwing together a pie.  I also sometimes like trucking my rear downtown for jury duty…. that’s after kicking and screaming in the weeks prior to said dutying.

The process of going to jury  makes me feel super adult.  What?  You want me to sit in this crowded room with a bunch of angry people missing work, and you want me to possibly make decisions Law and Order style?  Ok.  I’ll play your game justice system.  I’m a tax paying adult… thanks for the recognition.

The process of making a pie also makes me feel all adult like.  Something about tacking a many layered recipe and busting out my pie plate tells me that yes… you’ve got bills to pay, but why not take a minute… ok, an hour… and show to world who’s in charge by making a pie?  Orange and Cream… done and done.

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I still write letters.

I still hand write letters in a festive card with a return address sticker.  I might even decorate the envelope with a rubbe-stamped dolphin stampede.

I still write letters and I still have pen pals.

My favorite pen pal?   My grandmother.  I call her Mommom.  She’s rad.  I don’t know how she would feel about me calling her rad.  She writes me short letters during the break she takes on her morning walk.  These letters are usually written from her favorite bagel shop.  Letters always include some sort of loving greeting, an update about her walking adventures and the bagel shop, something about an upcoming trailer trip, inquiries about my little sister, and an abrupt closing.  Short, sweet and to the point.

The best part about being pen pals with Mommom is that she will not let me slack off.  If  I haven’t written her a letter in a few weeks, I’ll get another letter urging me to, if I know what’s good for me, write my grandmother back.  If for some reason I don’t get to that letter in adequate time… well, I’m liable to hurt my grandmother’s feelings.  Hurt grandmother feelings, of course, leads to all sorts of guilt from all sorts of family members.  News of pen pal activity, or inactivity travels fast in my family.

Letter writing isn’t a chore.  It’s a nice break from simultaneously writing an email and checking my blog stats and watching stupid cat videos.   Letter writing is not technology multi-tasking.  It’s easy, breezy, simple… all about just sendin’ a little love.

Then there’s cobbler, which couldn’t be any more simple and delicious.  This easy cobbler is like letter writing, in baking form.  Spend a little time baking up a little love with this cobbler.  Sit down with a nice warm slice and write a letter to someone.  It’s supreme.

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I’ve been struggling for the past few hours with what to tell you in conjunction with these Blackberry Pie Bars.

I thought maybe we could talk about how I’m still totally dragging my feet about going to my ten year high school reunion.  No… that’s been done.  Boring.

Maybe we could talk about how I sat around a campfire with Andrea Zuckerman… a character from that show Beverly Hills 90210, but that was actually just a dream I had last night.  Not real.

We could chat about the weather?  Seen any good movies lately?

No?  Ok… let’s not fight this.

Let’s get on to the bars.  They’re good.  Really good.  Good enough to not need a silly introduction.

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My Mom used to crawl in the bed at night, after a long day of being a mail carrier, a wife and mother and exclaim “Best part of the day!” just before she drifted off to sleep.  To her,  it seemed like there was no greater reward that peaceful rest at the end of the day.

As a kid, I had a hard time relating to my Mom’s Ode to Bedtime.  I was sure that I could have, at the very least, squeezed one more episode of The Cosby Show into my night.  Nope.  Bedtime was bedtime, not because there were overly strict bedtime rules, but because my Mom was just dog tired.

Nowadays I feel like I have a better understanding of my Mom’s nighttime sentiments.  My head hits the pillow after a long day and I’m asleep before I can even turn the bedside lamp off… and I don’t even have little kids yet!

You were right Momma.  Sometimes crawling under the covers is the best part of the day.

Other times, quiche is the best part of the day.  True.

In exciting, not sleepy or quiche related news:  my Mom, after over 30 years of delivering mail, retires from the Post Office… today!  Holy heck Mom!  Way to go!  Thanks for working hard for the family all those years.   I couldn’t be happier for you.  I hope you find a new “best part of the day”.  For reals, I love you Mom!

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You mentioned once that you were an English major in college. What did you want to be when you grew up? Did you ever do it? How did you move from English major to Baker Extraordinaire?

I was an English major in college. Ironically enough, reading makes me fall asleep. Crazy, right? Somehow I managed to work my way through five (yes, it took me a while) years of college. I worked two jobs through college, always with food, often in kitchens. For those years, I either had my head (fast asleep) in a book, or my hands elbow deep in dough. When I finished college, I found that I loved baking so much that I didn’t want to stop working with food. I somehow wanted to find a way to incorporate my love of story telling with my passion for food. So far that journey has lead me here- cooking, photographing and writing for you fine folks. I honestly can’t think of any place I’d rather be!

Have you thought of making healthy versions of some of your recipes, or proposing a corpus of kid-friendly, healthier recipes that use fruit sugars and fat subs for a more conscious approach of your culinary art?

I think butter is beautiful. I think sugar is dreamy. I think cream is over the moon. I bake with ingredients that put a smile on my face. I certainly wouldn’t consider the treats on my site as everyday meal-time staples, but for a special occasion… when you need to reach out to that inner sugar fiend… this is a good place to come.

If you’re looking for fruit sugars and fat substitutes, I just may not be the baker for you. It’s just not what I’m passionate about these days. While I do have a handful of healthful recipes like my Gnarly Muffins… these recipes just don’t bring a sparkle to my eye like cream, butter and chocolate do.

What kind of camera do you use? Did you take classes or is it just the camera that creates those gorgeous shots?

I use a Canon XSi with a 100mm macro lens. It’s a lovely, easy to use camera, made even more awesome with the fancypants lens. Can I tell you a secret? There was a time when the lens to my camera was worth more money than the car I was driving. True…. that’s really true.

I also have to tell you that I’ve actually never take a photography class. A dear friend handed me a SLR camera, gave me a 15 minute lesson all about aperture and depth of field I think he might have mentioned shutter speed once or twice… but that was it. He knew what I wanted to shoot and he showed me exactly how to do it.

The 100mm macro lens It’s totally worth it, isn’t it?

Yes. Yes it is.

Did you go to culinary school? Do you currently work at a bakery? Have you been working at a bakery for your entire professional life?

Here’s the deal: I’m a self taught baker. I didn’t go to culinary school. Why? It was just too darn expensive. As a result, I’m no master at cream puffs, my bread baking is sometimes a comic tragedy and fancy French desserts make me break out in a cold sweat. But that stuff just isn’t where my passion lies. I’m more interested in getting in the kitchen with my Dad to recreate his favorite pie, or filling my kitchen with girlfriends to play with cookie recipes. My approach is all about food, stories, laughs and love and I didn’t feel like I needed culinary school to teach me that.

What recipe ingredients are worth splurging on?

Whatever you love… it’s worth splurging on. I love food, so I think the good stuff is worth seeking out. Recently I’ve come to love raw, artisanal honeys. The people at Ames Farm seem to know what they’re doing with bees. They have lovely honey that I usually eat by the spoonful. I also love love love good chocolate. I like to buy Valrhona when it comes to my chocolate baking needs. Expensive, yes… but the quality is absolutely worth the extra dough.

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Pie takes time.  Pie requires attentions.  Pie demands love and care.  Pie, even for an everyday baker like me, is a lost art.

I needed a good, old fashioned, pie contest to help me slow down, take a breath, and dream up the most delicious pie I could.

The most delicious thing I could dream up was this:  bananas, homemade peanut butter, chocolate, graham crackers, butter, whipped cream, and as much sugar as I could reasonably pack into a single pie dish…. and some chocolate shavings for good measure.

The result:  one mad Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie.  The contest:  inspired by Whitney and several bottles of wine.  The contestants:  as serious about pie as they are about being incredibly fashionable and audaciously cool.  The competition:  stiff.  The winner:  one devastating, delicious and perfectly tart Key Lime Pie.

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I want to show you how to bake a pie.  I’ve got step by step pictures.  I’ve got instructions.  I’ve got encouraging words.  I’ll even hold your hand if you need me to.  This isn’t anything to be scared of… but I do have a secret.

See, there’s a secret to making the best apple pie in the world.  Love.   Any way you can get it or give it, the secret to apple pie is love.

Love is a funny thing.  (Ok, you should totally call me out- that’s just a silly thing to say.)  While I don’t contend to be any sort of expert on the subject, I do take comfort in the knowledge that getting love, and giving love, without a doubt, the best feeling in the world.

I’d like to think of my apple pie as a pure and unadulterated delivery device for love.

You know how cupcakes are actually a delivery device for sweet and fluffy frosting? How cheeseburgers are just an excuse to go crazy with the french fries?  How movie theater tortilla chips are merely edible spoons for gobs of fake yummy, cheesy nacho sauce?  Well this apple pie, I cross my heart and hope to die, is just an excuse to pour all of my love right into a pie crust and into the oven.

It’s perfect.  There isn’t a more perfect thing in the world… ok, except maybe babies and puppies and snowflakes and kate spade flats (but WHY so expensive kate!?  $300, seriously!?)

I will warn you, this pie is a labor of love.  It takes time.  It takes commitment.  It takes a personal outpouring of love and support.  I’ll just say it now, there’s cutting and pressing, chilling, peeling, macerating, boiling, tossing, rolling, preheating, baking, slitting and slicing…. almost in that order.

If I haven’t yet scared you away.  If you’re so full of love that you just might burst, throw it into this pie, and send it out into the world.  It’s important.

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Some recipes are good enough to serve at the church picnic. Some recipes are fine enough to take to the family barbecue. Other recipes you know will satisfy your office coworkers. Those savages will eat just about anything.

Then there’s the recipe that you pull out of your back pocket when you’re looking for love.

This beautifully simple Apple Crisp recipe is that “get a man (or woman!) and hold on to him (or her!) recipe”. If you already have that man, consider this your “it’s time for a ring” recipe, or your “sorry I scratched the bumper of our new car” recipe, maybe even the “thanks for working so hard today honey… I made the house smell like warm apples with this apple crisp just for you” recipe. See, I’m looking out for you.

This recipe is the perfect balance of warm memories and good love. The warm apples tossed with sugar and cinnamon beautifully collide with the toasted, crunchy topping.

It’s a dream come true.

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Update: I just got a lovely note from Barbara Duke, one of the authors of Panache at Rose Hill.  Here’s what she has to say about this lovely pie!

I just woke up from one of those sloppy weekend naps. It was the kind of nap that left my face barely recognizable from marks from the pillow case folds. It was the kind of nap that might very well have taken place in the back seat of my car, at 173 degrees F. I feel like, lying here in my bedroom on this summer afternoon I may have justed baked my brain. I can’t blog bout that, that’s not good for you.

I just took the kind of nap that makes me wish I could take it all back. It now feels like a mistake. I might have just felt better if I stood in the road and waited for Mac truck to hit me. I just took the kind of tragic, unforgiving nap that can only be healed with creamy coffee and buttermilk pie with warm blackberry sauce.

Keep reading, I have a story to tell you about this pie.

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Ok everyone… take a deep breath.  It’s time for pie!

This beast of a pie is Peabody’s Grandmother’s Lime Conspiracy Pie with marshmallows.

It is a result of the convergence of several things in my mind and in my pantry.

A friend mentioned a pie topped with tiny colorful marshmallows.  Sounds like a great idea, right?  On the same day, Peabody posted a recipe for the most amazing and bizarre lime jello salad.  The fruity marshmallows were on sale at the grocery and the rest of the ingredients practically jumped out of the pantry.  I put everything on hold.  I just had to make this pie.

And then, this pie took on a life of it’s own.  I felt like Dr Frankenstein, except my pie didn’t learn compassion or love.  Nonetheless it sat there in my fridge with it’s colorful marshmallows and sweet oozing topping, practically begging to be touched up and gawked at.  And what a camera whore… don’t even get me started on that!

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