Christmas brought me wonderful gifts – one of them being a big book of The New Pie: Modern Techniques for the Classic American Dessert. So far I have only made one pie from this book. My pie, Spiced Apple Cider is from the New Fruit Pies category, and there are many beautiful pies to make.THE NEW PIE is an amazing cookbook. The first section gives great information about the kinds of pies, and the kinds of ingredients and equipment for making the pies. Then come a whole section on The New Pie Crusts and writers Chris Taylor and Paul Arguin give really wonderful about how to make different kinds of pie crust. Then the list of pie types – Cream Pies, Cocktail Pies, Nut Pies and more.
This is my Spiced Apple Cider Pie with ingredients from raisins, dried apricots, crystalized ginger, seasonings, apple cider, Calvados and LOTS of apples, Macintosh apples to get really soft, and Granny Smith apples to hold their shape. My photo does not give a great view of the soft and firm. The biggest problem I had was when I realized I could not find my deep pottery pie dish. There was a lot of pie filling – what was I going to do? Well, of course I just had to do with pyrex pie dish, 9 inches, and it did the job. Our son stopped by on his way home from work and he took a generous quarter home. We gave another quarter to a neighbor, and shared some over tea with another neighbor, and then finished it off ourselves. The filling was very good and so was the pie crust. I’m not going to tell you how to make that crust except to say that my food processor did a great job – as per instructions.
Sherry Raisin Pie is in the New Cocktail Pies chapter. The authors tell us that “sherry and raisins go together like rainbows and unicorn.” It’s on my list!
This pie falls under the the category of New Custard Pies. Ingredients include egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk, heavy cream, etcetera. There are special recipes for the finishing.
Apparently there is a “current trend for surprise-inside cakes” which would keep a baker on her toes – but wouldn’t you try this for a wedding event?
The book ends with Frills, Garnishes and Other Accessories for the New Pies from Royal Icing and Chocolate Mirror Glaze to Chocolate Ganache! This book gives great advice for everything a pie baker would want to make.
Those pies look amazing!
Mary – It is so good to hear from you! I think of you often. Early in the days of a Garden Bloggers gathering you gave me great advice about getting readers. You said that I should take a Sunday NYT appropriate garden story and use that as a post. I did and got a huge! number of readers. The NYT did a story about women and their chickens that included the title called Femivores in 2010. That was my inspiration and I have never had an equally exciting post. Unfortunately, that post seems to have disappeared. Drats!