Seattle Pie Review

Re-defining "gluttony" every step of the way

This weekend, instead of actually contributing to the universe and baking a pie, I decided to do the opposite and just consume pie.  Have to scope out the competition, after all...

It all started on Friday after lunch, Nicole (enthusiastic pie connoisseur) and I met in Fremont to try out "Pie".  Now, my parents had already tried it and therefore biased my opinion by not liking the crust or small drop of filling in their mini-mini pies (about the size of a silver dollar, if that).

As far as I could tell, there were NO traditionally-sized pies at Pie at all (8-10").  Their specialty is savory, muffin-size pies for lunch and for the after-party at 2am, since they are open late.  At the time I visited, there was one sweet muffin-sized pie, and five or six varieties of silver-dollar sweet pies.  I opted for pecan, key lime, and chocolate-peanut butter with cookie crust.

The conceptual problem with teeny tiny pies is that the crust-to-filling ratio is off.  Inevitiably, you will exceed the amount of crust to be delicious in order to hold the filling in these small sizes.  So no matter how great your crust is, it will always appear too dry, because there isn't enough filling to complement it.
 

Key Lime:
The filling was too dense and solid for my taste.  No whip cream?  Come on, this might be a mini-mini pie, but a dollop of whip cream might have helped convince me.
The crust was baked the right amount of time (not tough or burnt), but not exceedingly flakey either.  In this form, it's difficult to really get a handle on the quality of crust.

Pecan:
Filling was both crunchy and soft, which was dish d'lish.  In fact, both Nicole and I liked it so much that I am now inspired to try my own pecan pie, in honor of rural-dwelling grandparents everywhere.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie:
Dry and dry and too dry!  Let's not dwell on it.

If you're going to make me eat more pie, at least make it a real pie, for crying out loud!

Seattle Pie Company

I really liked this place because it's run by a wife/husband team (and the wife is actually my age, so it's doubly inspirational), they were genuine and friendly (more than I can say for the hipsters at Pie), and they had a wide variety of home made fruit and cream pies by the slice, as God intended.

We tried the sour cherry, the chocolate cream, and the Desserted Island Pie (their signature), which were all dish d'lish.  Their pastry is made from pig lard and they sprinkle sugar on the top, which was a nice touch.

Mmmmm cherry....

The Desserted Island has a really nice crumbly crust top that absorbed the apply-fruityness.

Crumbly apply fruityness

Personally, my favorite was the chocolate cream because the texture was light and puddingy, it had a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and it was covered with a really soft whip cream, which was similar to how I imagine the "dessert topping" Betty talks about.

Chocoholics Anonymous

*Update March 15, 2012: Unfortunately, The Seattle Pie Company in Magnolia has since closed!  And cannot be located at any other locations*

Because we enjoyed these pies so much, we decided to trek all the way out to West Seattle to try Shoo Fly Pie before they close in thirty minutes.

Quick, I need some more sugar!

Even though Shoo Fly was almost closing, it was hopping and they still had a selection of pies to sample.  We could only handle two (coconut cream and shoo fly).

Shoo Fly's crust is made entirely from butter, but we didn't like it as much as the pig lard one at Seattle Pie Co.  It was a little bit over done for my taste.  However, the creamy coconut and whip cream combo was dish d'lish.

Toasty coconut inside and out

I don't think any of use had ever had a Shoo Fly pie before, and it turns out that it involves only ingredients that you already have around the house like molasses and nutmeg (no expensive fruit here!).  It was hyper-sweet, so be sure to have your diabetic shock medicine handy.  I would love to try some more of their pies later.

Overall, I am a sucker for coconut cream, so that may have been my favorite filling.  However, I think the lard crust pastry at Seattle Pie Company was the unanimous winner in the ongoing search for the ultimate pie crust.  It was also the winner in the category of un-pretentiousness.

Next time... I will chronicle my Black and Blue Mango pie for Hog Loppett weekend.

Always hold the camera at 45 degrees to avoid extra chins caused by too much pie!

Winter Time Pear with Cheesy Crust

Crumbly, cheesy crust... yum?

Just let me preface by saying that fruit pie encased in double crust causes double the anxiety of other pies.  However, a new filling AND a new crust are going to quadruple your heart palpitations.  So, learn from this experience, and only do a new filling OR a new crust at a time.  Or else you will find you anti-anxiety meds mysteriously depleted the next day.

Yes, that slice of pear is trying to escape my pie!

Personally, I both ran away from the pie and locked myself in the closet (two separate freak outs) before I was able to let anyone else see this monstrosity.  However, it was edible (and even enjoyable?) in the end.  Moral of the story: don't get in over your head and the ugliest pies are often the best-tasting.

Thank goodness for enthusiastic pie connoisseurs like Nicole!

For this pie, I used the cheese crust for fruit pies in Carole's book, and the pear pie filling in Betty (instead of mace, whatever that is supposed to be, I used ginger and cinnamon for spice).

Does cheese really make everything better?

My advice is to just melt a slice of cheddar on top of the pie and call it good, if you must have cheese involved in your fruit pie at all.  However, I just had to get all fancy and try a cheddar-incorporated crust.  I also tried the food processor (guilt over the graham cracker crust earlier, I guess) and butter, neither of which are involved in my usual pie pastry.

What I would do differently next time with the crust:

• Use only Crisco.  
• Skip the food processor and cut that s**t by hand, with a fork, the way you were meant to do!  
• Add at least five tablespoons of ice water, because it was drier than I thought.

What I would do differently next time with the pear filling:

• Ummm, remember the lemon juice and butter drops before putting on the top crust, instead of getting carried away by just wanting to close the thing up ASAP. 
• For 9" aluminum pan, just use five medium to large pears

I thought that using under-ripe pears was good, because the consistency was still a little firm, even after fifty minutes in the oven.  Unless you want squishy fruit, I guess.

So, if you have a hankering for fruit pie, don't want apple, and enjoy a good challenge, then this is a great pie for you to make.  Just make sure you have a lot of time (2+ hours) and a lot of patience (and a carton a vanilla ice cream to help you out, just in case).

Eating this pie reminded me of all the projects I've gotten frustrated by.  And anyone who knows me can tell you, I only like to do things that I'm good at.  And I wasn't very good at this pie.  However, I was able to overcome my frustration, exit the closet, and look bravely toward the pie future!

With great (pie) power comes great (pie) responsibility...

Valentine's Day Key Lime Pie

Step One: New pie places pop up all over Seattle (cupcakes are so 2009).

Step Two: The Stranger writes a questionable article on these new pie places.

Step Three: Enthusiastic Pie Connoisseur skims the article and zeroes in on the accompanying picture of a key lime pie (with a sloppy-looking whip cream job, might I add).

Step Four:  Enthusiastic Pie Connoisseur enthusiastically requests a Key Lime Pie from me, That Pie Girl.

For the pie I had to buy two limes (one for the zest, one for the decorative slices on top), and one little plastic bottle of lime juice (those plastic bottles are just over 1/2 cup).  In the baking aisle, I found condensed sweetened milk.  In the refrigerated section, I got some heavy whipping cream (why is the phrase, "you are what you eat", running through my head right now?!) and some cage free eggs for the yolks.

And yes, that is a fancy (and not too complicated) home made whip cream device, complete with miniature gas canisters.  Fun, but whip cream made without the device would be just as good, and would require reading fewer instructions with WARNING: May cause blindness messages.

Gas canister is cute, but not cuddly!

It's all about the crust (or "pie shell" as the pros say)...

At home, I followed the recipe in Carole's book for making the crust.  I have a food processor, but I was feeling really lazy about washing it out afterward, so I used the disposable  ziplock-bag-and-rolling-pin method.  In the end, I'm sure this was way more effort and time than just washing the darn food processor, but at least now you all know you don't need a food processor to make the crust.  You're welcome.

Maybe food photography is my next blog topic...

A long-term abusive relationship...

After baking the crust, I beat the egg yolks.  Now, Carole called for beating them "until they are a light color", but she also warns not to overbeat them either.  Ummm....?  I beat them for probably five or six good minutes, decided that the color had not changed at all, and went ahead with the next step anyway, adding the sweetened condensed milk, lime zest and lime juice.  Hint: Five or six minutes was perfect!  I'm wondering if yolks ever can get to be a lighter color...

At first I was worried that the filling only took up about half the pan.  Then I locked and loaded my whip cream canister, made some "rosettes", and it all made sense.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Final thoughts:

• This pie is fast to make and bake (a little over one hour total) because the crust is simpler and more fool-proof than traditional pie shells.  
• It was a little tart for my taste the night it was made, but after two days in the fridge it was just right.    
• Use the lime juice in little plastic lime-shaped bottles, but do not use pre-made crumbs or crust.  

Another American classic pie (surprisingly does not appear in Betty!) that reminded me of drinking Coronas with lime in Mexico.  Hmmmm.... maybe I need to rethink what "American classic" really means...

Literature

Because my mom makes great pies, especially cherry, I decided to start with her Betty Crocker circa 1970.  My original idea was to just bake a cherry pie, feel good about myself, and go back to Duncan Hines brownie mixes for "homemade" dessert.  However, after baking one passable cherry pie on my own, I was hooked!

Betty Crocker (just "Betty" from here on out) circa 1970 is awesome because apparently the prose hasn't been updated since 1900.  Here is the opening statement of the pie section:

My favorite parts are: "What's the American man's favorite dessert? Most people would agree -- it's pie." She continues on to admonish us, "If you care about pleasing a man -- bake a pie.  But make sure it's a perfect pie."

I'm hoping that most American men in this day and age are happy to have anything that wasn't ordered over the phone half an hour earlier.  I'm still researching to see if the current edition of Betty has changed this inspirational pie introduction.

In addition to Betty, I'm also using a book I found at Powell's in Portland the other weekend on sale.  It's called Great Pies and Tarts, by Carole Walter.  I really like this book because of its sizable tips and trouble-shooting section.

 She gives really really really detailed instructions for each element of pastries, from the different protein content of flour and how that affects the pies, to how to know if pears are in season or not, to the correct type of rolling pin to use.  It's so fascinating and well-written that I finally feel like I've compensated for skipping home ec in high school.

She also has a lot of different types of crusts.  I'm going to try her cheddar pie pastry crust this weekend on the winter pear pie I'm making on Sunday!

Other than that, I have looked at lots of pie books at Powells (about an hour's worth of browsing two lower shelves, actually), and wasn't too impressed by them.  But maybe I'm a complete snob, too.  It seems to be true that pie is like sewing -- something women did regularly in 1960 when they didn't have to go to work and pizza delivery and the internet hadn't been invented yet.  Now, we are all so intimidated by the idea that it's easier to just to go without.  Hopefully after reading about my (mis)adventures, you will feel buoyed to try at least one pie.  How about the next cold rainy afternoon when you need a reason to get off the couch (and want to impress your man, of course)?

Orange Meringue

This is a Betty Crocker recipe I borrowed from my mom's old-school cook book.  (See "Literature" post).  If you want the whole recipe, you can find it in her book.

Why orange and not lemon?

Now, pie is all about the classics, but after much scientific observation (of my friends enjoying it) and analysis (of me eating it), we have decided that orange is funner than lemon because it is sweeter and not as tart.  Plus, orange zest is always a welcome treat!

The torturous part...

Is beating the g****mn egg whites into submission!  "Firm peaks" indeed.  At least Betty provided color pictures.  My other pie book divides the stages of whipped egg whites in four different categories!

It took me between 35 and 40 minutes on medium and high to get the egg whites to the right consistency.  So if you have that man you're trying to please, get him to the do the heavy lifting.

In the meantime, you can start on the filling.  I recommend mixing up the lemon juice, zest and butter ahead of starting to heat the flour/OJ mixture, because once the flour/OJ gets to boiling, there's no time to waste.  This is why it pays to read (and comprehend!) the recipe ahead of time.

Shrinkage...

Another problem I had when using the aluminum disposable pie pan (for giving away to your friends) is that the pre-baked crust shrank like crazy.  That is why in the pictures it is virtually crust-free.  However, in my glass pie pan, it didn't shrink hardly at all.  So, poke a lot of holes in those pastries with aluminum pans, conform the pastry to the pan before baking, and leave at least a half inch beyond the edge of the pan.  Some people also claim that you can put the aluminum pan inside of a glass one for better baking.  I'll let you know how that goes next time.

The final product...

Was beautiful coming out of the oven, but as it cooled of course the meringue condensed and shrank.  It didn't' look bad, but it wasn't the colossus you see in pictures.  And after driving it three hours to Portland, the meringue separated in some places.  However, it didn't get watery and it still looked and tasted great when we cut into it.

The moral of the story...

If you have 2+ hours to spare and want to work on your upper arm strength, go for a citrus meringue!