New York. She offers a special
pie of the month throughout
the year. One, a light and fluffy
peanut butter pie with a layer of
chocolate topped with chopped
salted peanuts and bananas,
was so popular it has become
a regular menu item. Karmel
likes to innovate when it comes
to pie. Her take on Key lime
pie, for example, begins with a
crushed pretzel crust. The filling
is a combination of lime juice,
orange juice, Grand Marnier and
silver tequila. She calls it “salted
margarita pie.” “It tastes like a
margarita, right down to the
salt,” she says.
Karmel doesn’t believe pies
necessarily have to be tied to a
season. While she sometimes
uses fresh fruit, she more often
opts for IQF (individually quick
frozen) fruit. “The fruit is picked
at the height of ripeness and
flash frozen,” she says. “It often
tastes better than fresh fruit.”
Tiffany MacIsaac’s apple pie is
a best-seller. As executive chef
for Neighborhood Restaurant
Group, which operates a bakery
and 10 other foodservice outlets
in the Washington, D.C., area,
she bakes a lot of them, along
with a wide range of other fruit
and cream pies.
She prefers fresh apples for
making pie, and cooks them and
all fruit fillings before they go in
the crust. Because fruit shrinks
when it cooks, using raw fruit
may leave gaps between the
crust and the filling after the
pie is baked, she says.
beyond
the slice
Pies make great snacks, and
snacking is definitely “in” these
days. To take advantage of
that, today’s pie makers don’t
limit pies to the traditional 9 or
10-inch round pans. They are
using tart or muffin pans,
small mason jars and sheet
pans to produce pies of all
shapes and sizes.
Pie shakes are another trendy
item in some restaurants. To
make them, Shahvar cuts up pie
and combines it with different
ice cream flavors, drizzles the
shake with chocolate and adds
a small piece of pie on top.
Barista Dani Cone, owner of
several Fuel Coffee shops in
Seattle, became a pie maker in
2008 when she opened High 5
Pie. She used her grandmother
Molly’s crust recipe for inspiration and let her imagination
go wild when it came to shapes.
Her first offerings were Flipsides,
folded-over pies that can be
eaten with one hand. She also
makes Piepops from two circles
of raw dough cut with a cookie
cutter. After putting a dollop of
Presentation is everything,
even for pies. Consider
these suggestions:
Cool pie thoroughly
on a rack.
Chill pie before cutting.
Slice two pieces instead
of one and remove the
second one first.
When berry pies are served
a la mode, a little juice on
the plate is OK.
Garnish the pie or serving
plate with ingredients from
the pie, such as fresh
berries, chocolate or
peanut butter chips, nuts, a
dusting of cocoa or a drizzle
of chocolate.
opposite left: High 5 Pie’s
handheld turnovers are
known as “Flipsides.”
opposite middle: Assorted pie
cups from Hill Country Chicken.
opposite right: High 5
Pie’s “Piejar.”
above: Peanut buttercup pie
from Buttercup Grill and Bar.
