Pies: Everybody Wants A Slice

Pies are baked foods consisting of a baked pastry shell that completely covers a filling. Pies for desserts contain sweet fillings such as fruits, creams, and chocolates and other food items that add flavor or texture such as cheeses and nuts. There are also pies that have only a top crust covering a filling, usually fruits, placed on a dish. These pie versions are known as cobbler, crumble or crisps. Pies with a crust only at the bottom have sweet fillings that often do not have to be cooked. These are better known as tarts.

Popular pies for dessert include apple pies, apricot pies, blueberry pies, cherry pies, cream pies, peach pies, strawberry pies and, of course, pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving dessert. It is also common for pie desserts to combine more than one fruit. Some examples are cherry lemon pies and cranberry apple pies. Aside from fruit pies, pies that also make wonderful desserts make use of other sweet and savory ingredients such as peanut butter, meringue, sour cream, flavored creams, coconut, and ice cream.

Ice cream pies are delightful and easy-to-make frozen desserts. Simply spread ice cream and sherbet into the pie crust, freeze, and top with whipped cream and then freeze again. Remove the ice cream pie from your freezer about 30 minutes before you serve it. Lastly, top with fruit slices and coconut flakes. You can use vanilla ice cream and orange sherbet and orange slices for toppings or choose your flavors. Fruit pies that are served with a scoop or scoops of ice cream are known in the United States as “à la mode”, the most popular kind is apple pie à la mode.

Here are some tips in making fruit pies:

Make two-crust pies on the night before you will use them. Refrigerate them overnight and you will have perfect crusts to bake with in the morning. Brush some milk over a two-crust pie to get a pleasant browned look.

Make pumpkin pie topping sweeter by layering marshmallows in the bottom of the pie. When baked, the marshmallows will expand to the top. Prevent fruit juice from oozing from the pie into the oven by inserting short drinking straws into the openings in the crust to let steam out when baking.

With the thousands of pie recipes available from classic fruit pies to modern cream pies and gourmet pies, you will surely the find the perfect pie dessert to make for simple family gatherings to special occasions.