My mom, who really isn’t a pie baker, baked my future dad a cherry pie and shipped it to Germany. As I remember this story, the pie wasn’t terribly recognizable when it arrived, but that didn’t stop my dad and his Army buddies from devouring it.

Some time after that, my father bought a diamond ring and mailed it to my mother, telling her she could take it as an engagement ring or a birthday gift. They were married in 1957.

True Love Double Cherry Pie

Pastry for a double crust pie

4 cups fresh cherries, washed, de-stemmed, pitted and sliced in half

1 cup tart dried cherries

1 cup sugar

4 tablespoons quick-acting tapioca

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons butter

Make the pastry for the crust and refrigerate. Wash, de-stem, pit and slice the cherries; set aside. (This is a messy, tedious job that leaves your workspace looking like a slasher flick. Recruit someone to enjoy the mess with you.) Mix the sugar and tapioca together and add the pinch of salt. Add the almond and vanilla extract to the cherries and mix gently with a spatula. Add the sugar mixture in, folding the cherries to incorporate. Set the cherry mixture aside for at least 15 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Roll out your bottom crust and place in a deep, 9″ pie plate, leaving plenty of overhang for crimping. Pour in the cherries. Chop the two tablespoons of butter into small chunks and scatter over the top. Now, roll out your top crust and upend over the filling. Crimp the edges together, removing any excess. Cut several vents in the top of the pie, brush with milk and sprinkle generously with sugar.

Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, rotate 180 degrees, then bake for another 30-35 minutes, until the filling bubbles. If the crust begins to get too brown, pop a piece of foil over the top for the last ten minutes or so of baking.

The girl requested I make one of the most complex pies in my repertoire for Thanksgiving. The Triple Layer Chocolate Pumpkin pie is not terribly hard to make, it just takes a lot of time and patience, because the layers require stages. First, I made the crust, using the Pioneer Woman’s Perfect Pie Crust recipe.

I used my brand-new pie plate, a gift from my sister for my birthday, the Emile Henry Auberge Pie Dish from Williams Sonoma.

There are three layers to the pie; a straight-up pumpkin pie layer with pumpkin, sugar and eggs, a chocolate layer and a sweetened sour cream top layer. You make the pumpkin mixture, separate out half, then blend melted unsweetened chocolate and butter with the pumpkin. The first layer is the chocolate layer which must be baked and cooled before the pumpkin layer can be added.

See that little dot of chocolate on the crust? Yeah. Whoops. Let a kid lick the spoon and she’ll love you forever.

This time I added a layer of finely chopped pecans between the chocolate and the pumpkin layers. I’m wacky like that.

Next, add the pumpkin layer and bake again. You’re almost done!

On the stovetop, you’ll warm sour cream and sugar till it’s thinned and a bit runny.

I like to gently glop the last layer onto the top, and swirl it around till it looks pretty.

Now comes the hardest part — you have to refrigerate this pie at least three hours before you can eat it. Better yet, make the pie the day before (because let’s face it, it takes about a day to make anyway!)

We like this pie for it’s gorgeous layered profile. Please excuse my husband’s finger in this photo. He’s such a ham, he had to sneak into this post somehow.

If you want a really impressive pie to make for the holidays, give this one a shot. It’s a rich, delicious beautiful pie.

Triple Layer Chocolate Pumpkin Pie

2 Tbsp. unsalted butter

4 oz. finely chopped unsweetened chocolate

1 cup pumpkin (canned is fine)

2 eggs at room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

1 cup full fat sour cream

1/2 cup sugar

Prepare the crust, and pre-bake for 15 min. at 350 degrees.  Melt chocolate and butter together at low temperature on the stovetop, stirring constantly. Blend pumpkin, sugar and eggs on medium speed using a stand mixer until thoroughly combined. Put half the pumpkin mixture in a separate bowl and mix in the chocolate until thoroughly blended. Pour the chocolate mixture into the pre-baked crust and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Cool the chocolate layer for 15 minutes, then add the pumpkin layer (add an optional layer of finely chopped pecans to the chocolate layer before adding the pumpkin). Bake the pie with the pumpkin layer for 30 minutes at 350 or until the top is puffy, but not cracked. Meanwhile, warm the sour cream and sugar on the stove until it is runny and thin (a bit warmer than room temperature). Pour the sour cream layer onto the pumpkin layer when it comes out of the oven. Cool at least three hours before serving.

Because you asked really nicely, here is the recipe for Peaches and Cream Pie:

Crust:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups Crisco shortening
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp. white vinegar
3-4 tbsps. ice water

Work the shortening into the crust with a pastry blender until the mixture is crumbly — 4-5 minutes. Beat egg and add to mixture. Add vinegar and cold water. Mix until incorporated. Recipe makes three single crusts. Separate into thirds, make “snowballs” and place in Ziploc freezer bags. Freeze for 20 minutes or for up to a month.

When dough is ready to be handled, roll out and place in a 9″ pie plate. Form an upstanding crust. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Filling:
3 cups yellow peaches
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup brown sugar

Blanch and peel about three cups of ripe yellow peaches. Slice peaches and fill the crust by layering the slices in a spiral until the crust is almost filled. In a chilled bowl, whisk cream and sugar together. Add vanilla. Pour mixture over the peaches. Bake at 400 for 30 minutes, reduce temperature to 350 and sprinkle brown sugar over the top of the pie. Bake another 20-25 minutes. Refrigerate pie when cooled.

Adapted from a recipe by Ken Haedrich in Pie

One was offered to a reader of this blog via a random number generator giveaway.

I brought a couple to a friend who I forced to eat right in front of me, giving me honest, wine-fueled feedback.

Two more went to the unsuspecting father of a friend of the girl’s. He was in the right place at the right time, and mentioned pie. He was also forced to provide thoughtful feedback.

I brought one to my buddy Dan because it was his birthday (and, BONUS, he mentioned it on-air during the evening news!). I brought another to my buddy Rick because I knew it was his favorite kind of pie (blueberry).

And then I showed up on the doorstep of another friend (who wasn’t home from work, yet) and handed one peach and one Butterscotch Pecan pie over to her very shocked husband.

The reactions were delicious.

I am keeping the rest of the stockpile for a bit, but I think we can expect more random acts of pie in the future.

Saturday morning I bought three pounds of peaches from the farmers’ market. They weren’t quite ripe so they sat in brown paper bags preparing themselves for their destiny. This morning I blanched and peeled them, thinking of my friend Rusty who has been craving peach pie for about a week now.

Peaches, peeled and diced, coated in lemon juice, flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg.

The peach pies I’m making today are Jars of Pie, a little project I’m developing in my spare time.

Here are the sinful little guys just before getting their crumb topping and going into the oven. Can I tell you what they smell like while they’re baking?

No?

It’s really just not right, or fair to do this to you.

One more look then I’ll stop.

They just came out of the oven and are all bubbly hot goodness.

Want one? I’m giving a Jar of Pie away over here.

Don’t hate me for torturing you.

Love,

The Pie Lady

I have spent the early morning hours of this holiday weekend baking dozens of pies. People who follow me on Twitter are, by now, puzzled. I’ve been tweeting about baking pies eight at a time. They must think I’ve lost my mind.

What I neglected to mention is that these pies are individually sized — pies for personal enjoyment. These pies are not meant for sharing!

The jars are half-pint Mason jars, just the right size for a pie that can be created, baked, cooled, sealed and stored in the freezer — or shipped, if need be.

A batch of my super flaky crust recipe makes about 16 jars of pie. Lining the jars with crust is the most time-consuming part of this project.

I made a test batch of Butterscotch Pecan pies a couple of weeks ago. I was overzealous and filled the jars too high. They spilled over and couldn’t be sealed in their jars. My neighbors loved them.

This weekend I have been busy making blueberry pies, Butterscotch Pecan (capitalized because it is my signature pie) and dozens of gorgeous little peach pies.

And now, I want YOU to have one. Leave a comment below and tell me whether you like peach, pecan or blueberry. I will choose a winner at 4pm Eastern on Tuesday, July 6, 2010 using a random number generator. Depending on where you live, I will decide how the pie is delivered to you and when. (Yes, I can ship a pie in a jar.)

Good luck, pie people!

****Pie Giveaway ended at 4pm Eastern****

*****We have a winner*****

Congratulations Jeff Gaffney! There’s a Jar of Butterscotch Pecan Pie heading your way!

I didn’t win.

Whatever.

My pies still rock and nothing will stop me from baking. As I sit here, the chocolatey-bourbon scent of my signature pie is wafting from the oven. The Chocolate Town Pie, a recipe from my mother-in-law that I’ve tweaked and played with in the dozens of times I’ve made it, is still my all-time favorite pie to make and to eat.   Tonight’s pie is one I’m baking specifically for my pie guys. We’re gathering tomorrow at a secret location to talk about the next C’ville Pie Fest.

I didn’t win the last C’ville Pie Fest, either. But I contributed SEVEN pies to the community that day. So take that.

I’ll admit, some of the pies I bake don’t turn out very well, and sometimes a serious setback will keep me out of the kitchen for a bit, but I always come back and pie again.

I have met and made some seriously good friends during this year of pie-related activities. One of these friends is Mollie Cox Bryan, a kindred spirit in so many ways, and one I may not have known if it weren’t for pie. The others (Mary, Sara, Brian, Melanie, Cindy, Bill, Joe, Steve, Coy, Sean, the other Brian and oh so many more) have made this year better by their love of pie and their willingness to come together over something as simple as crust and filling.

I love you guys, almost as much as I love pie.

There are a few pie seasons every year, but this time of the year is fresh fruit pie season, where fresh picked or local farmers’ market berries and fruits make their way into pies the very day they are acquired. Strawberries are in season here in central Virginia, so we stocked up on some at the City Market over the weekend. I baked my first strawberry pie.

Strawberry pie was never my favorite; it reminds me of glass encased pies too sweet and gloppy with an excess of glaze the texture of hair gel. My Granny is who I think of when I think of stawberry pie. There was a restaurant we’d take her to when I was growing up; the restaurant with the glass case enclosing the glossy, plastic-looking strawberry pies. “Oh!” she’d say, “That strawberry pie looks delicious. I’ve never had strawberry pie.”  And without fail, my father would buy a strawberry pie to bring home for his mother-in-law. Every single time. Gran must have loved that pie because every time we went there, she’d never had strawberry pie before.

My memories of strawberry pie are of that decidedly not fresh, rather mass-produced confections. Not the glorious berries I hulled and sliced myself, coated with cornstarch and sugar, and bathed in a bit of lemon juice, finally, sprinking with nutmeg.

The berries were so gorgeous, I couldn’t bear to cover them with a top crust, so I baked the pie half way, then added a crumb topping.

Crumb toppings are simple; sugar, flour, cinnamon and butter — crumb it up in a food processor, rub with your fingers then spread over the top. Put that bad boy back in the oven to finish baking.

Keep in mind, I’d never before smelled a strawberry pie in the oven. The sum total of my strawberry pie experience was from a refrigerated case with thick, gelled together strawberries. My goodness strawberry pie smells good baking and fresh from the oven.

Finally, a video, because I know you can’t smell it or even taste it, but I want you to see that hot pie bubbling, fresh from the oven.

Now go get yourself some strawberries, bake a pie and forget everything you ever knew about strawberry pie, before.

And now, I bring you to the Life of Pasta . . .  for Christmas, my gifts included a pasta maker and The Complete Book of Pasta and Noodles. I predict a new era on this blog, as I learn to make not only delicous Italian dishes but Thai, Japanese, Chinese and Indian noodles. I’m so excited to get started and could not wait to tell my buddy Brian, aka The Food Geek about my cooking haul. (No competitions! But I do want to have Brian over for dinner.)

Who knows, though — there could be a Pasta Fest in my future.

In a last minute sprint I scoured the town for leftover bits to create a Halloween costume. I scared myself with a flapper costume two sizes too small and my first pair of crazy false eyelashes. At some point I thought, OH! I’m Cabaret-era Liza, and went with it, sporting black fishnets, fringe and some bright red lipstick. (BTW, how weird is it that three times as many people wanted to see me with my hair in foils as wanted to see the fishnet and fringe photo? You guys are a strange bunch.)

There were awkward moments at the party, as any adult Halloween party, I imagine (this was my first). I didn’t know anyone but the hosts and of course no one looked as they normally do. (Is that her real hair? Is that guy really that creepy or is he just being “in character”) I had fun, though, and even broke into a Charleston with fringe a-flyin’.

And then I won the best “adult” costume award. I think this mortified my daughter who said my costume was pushing the limits of mom-appropriateness. (Yes, it was tight. Yes, it was short — I didn’t sit down all evening). But I won! A PRIZE! For dressing up like Liza and pretending that 77 strangers were friends!

On another note:

You must read this post by my blogger friend Jaelithe. It is about pie and love and family and it’s touched me so much I’ve read it three times and want to save it in a Big Book of Best Blog Posts Ever.

Also:

This book, which I pre-ordered before PW even started writing it, arrived in the mail.

I have mentioned it before, but I love, love, love Ree Drummond, her blog, her recipes, her photos – and now I have this gorgeous cookbook. You should buy one, too. And another for someone you love who loves to cook. I’m not being paid for this. I think I just thought of three women I love who would like this book for the holidays. Bet you did, too.

OK. Let’s review. Awkward Halloween story. Awesome pie post. Pioneer Woman cookbook.

One more thing: thank you all for your guidance in the Family Photo War. I am trying to let go of my inner control freak, but I’m also eager to hear what Grandma has to say. I’ll let you all know how the whole mess turns out.