Home-Made Pie Recipes

Somehow "pie" has come to represent home cooking, cozy family meals and traditional get-togethers.  From dessert to dinner entrées, pies add a great deal of warmth and character to any meal.   Find the pie recipe that is just right for your special occasion.

Pies are essentially pastries with a filling.  Lattice top pies are a popular pastry pie design that are made of a bowl-shaped pastry and interlaced strips of dough as the pie top.  This is a rather elegant way to present a pie.  Colorful fillings such as wild berries work well with this design, allowing the deep colors of the berries to contrast with the golden strips of dough.  Other pie crust designs include a crust that completely encloses the filling, or a pie that has a crust only at the top, and the filling at the bottom.

The crust.  The most popular pie crusts are those that have a "crumbly" texture.  Pie crusts are generally made of flour, fat (such as butter or margarine), salt to taste and a liquid (water, milk or eggs).  Unlike other dessert dough, pie crust dough uses chilled fats that are mixed in with the flour, but not blended.  Flour and fat is mixed just enough for the flour to be well coated.  The result should be a lumpy texture; this is what gives the finished product its superb flakiness. 

Apple pie is one of the most famous pie flavors.  Filled with either fresh or preserved apples, this fruity dessert has become an American tradition.  Even the famous 1960's expression "as American as apple pie" has been coined to represent the important presence of this dessert in the American cuisine.  In fact, apple pies were very common among early American colonists.  For holidays and special occasions, nothing beats a warm and chewy home-made apple pie.

Smart baking.  Pies are a great way to recycle leftovers into new and delicious meals.  One of the best examples is Shepherd's Pie, made of a layer of minced meat fried with onions and a mashed potato crust at the top.  The mix of meat and potatoes is deliciously filling, and the flavor is incredible.  Use your leftover meat and potatoes to reincarnate yesterday's meal into a new sensation that is sure to go fast.

Pecan and other nutty pies have a sophisticated look, yet are simple and easy to make. Corn syrup and beaten eggs are commonly used to glaze the nuts and keep them in place.  The nuts can be toasted in butter prior to baking for added flavor. 

Pumpkins and sweet potatoes have a soft texture and sweet taste that make them ideal vegetables for pies.  They tend to be less sweet, and can be served as side dishes in dinner meals.  Pumpkin pie has become a traditional Thanksgiving side dish.  Sweet potatoes, pumpkins and carrots combine well with spices used for baking sweets – nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon and vanilla extract are great complements to these savory vegetable pies.