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I finally got mini pies into my repertoire! It took some experimenting, but I’m delighted with the result. Aren’t they adorable?   I’ve been making lots of bigger pies for years–the standard, round 9- and 10-inch ones, and even a few big rectangular “slab pies.” But all the while, I’ve been watching my fellow bakers churn out cute little individual pies. They’

I’ve seen the light: You can make great pie dough in the food processor. Anyone who’s baked with me will [gasp!] to hear of my conversion. As long as I’ve been making pie, I’ve preached the wisdom of making dough completely by hand, avoiding the Cuisinart. But I’ve discovered a recipe and method that come out terrific–consistently–in the food processor. So I’ve got

Let the pig fat rock your world. That’s my most heartfelt advice for pie bakers. When I waded into the world of piemaking, I did it ever-so-gently, to get over my sheer terror of rolling dough. I tried a half-Crisco, half-butter recipe, since Crisco makes dough easier to handle. When I stopped hyperventilating and got more comfortable with making dough, I graduated to an all-butter crust. I wanted to&

It was an ambush. There I was, walking innocently through my neighborhood market, when these folksy little boxes of miniature plums winked at me. They were tiny and round; some were deep red and some were a mellow yellow. They had been brought in that morning from a local farm. I couldn’t say no. Clearly, there would have to be pie within a few hours. I hurried home with the new objects of my affection, wa

“I want you to be pie makers, not recipe followers.” That’s how Kate McDermott opened the first of two Washington, D.C., pie making workshops today. As you probably already know from reading in this space, Kate agreed to leave behind her scenic little pie cottage on Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula to give two workshops here in my kitchen. She’s blogging about them in her Art of the