Pint-sized pie: Make them in miniature jelly jars and muffin tins

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Pint-sized pie: Make them in miniature jelly jars and muffin tins

Are you tired of the same old, boring, full-size, homemade pie?

Of course you’re not. How ridiculous.

Hardly anybody makes real pies anymore, and good luck trying to find a good one at most local bakeries, groceries and restaurants.

The world needs more pie!

That’s why we here at the Food Flavor section always like to publish something promoting pie in conjunction with National Pie Day, which is coming up on Monday, Jan. 23.

Any excuse to celebrate and preserve the tradition of pie. We think that the best way to do that is to actually make some, and from scratch. It’s not nearly as difficult as some people are convinced, and a pie need not turn out perfect to be good.

The “holiday” is promoted by The American Pie Council, which has commercial and professional as well as amateur members (a lifetime membership is $40). The group — “the only organization committed to maintaining America’s pie heritage” — encourages Americans to hold pie parties at home or work or to benefit charity.

The day is as good excuse as any for celebrating pie, even if just by buying one and eating it. The group also holds its APC/Crisco National Pie Championships and the Great America Pie Festival each April in Celebration, Fla.

For recipes and ideas and more, visit piecouncil.org

One business that is marking the occasion locally is The Pie Place in Upper St. Clair. Its holding its second annual Random Acts of Pie-ness by giving a free pie Jan. 21 to every 10th paying customer over age 18. That morning, the shop is offering two classes on creating a lattice-top pie. The 10 a.m. class is for children ages 4 to 10 and the 11 a.m. class is for all ages. Cost is $20 per person, and includes a lattice-top apple pie to take home and bake. Classes are limited to 10 participants; preregister by calling 412-835-4410 (thepieplace.net).

If you’d like to get in on this, and try something different than a 9-inch, single- or double-crust pie made in a pie pan, how about trying pie in a different, and smaller, configuration?

Ever hear of jar pies?

They’re just what they sound like: Individual pies made and served in canning jars.

That’s just one of the small styles in “Handheld Pies,” the new cookbook co-authored by Pittsburgh native and former Post-Gazette writer Sarah Billingsley with New York City food writer Rachel Wharton. The book is published by Chronicle Books, where Ms. Billingsley works as an editor, and which in 2010 published another book she co-authored: “Whoopie Pies.”

This book continues to ride and perhaps push along the trend of cute li’l desserts. It’s subtitled “Dozens of Pint-Sized Sweets Savories.”

Technically, Ms. Billingsley’s “jar pies” are half pints. She calls for composing, baking and serving them in half-pint jars that are wider at mouth than the sides and base, so you can slide the pies out if you want. The wide-mouthed jars were a little harder to find locally than straight-sided jars, but I was able to buy a dozen Kerr jars at Miller’s Hardware in Peters for $11.99.

Ms. Billingsley lines the reusable, freezer-safe jars with pastry or crumb crust but only three-quarters of the way up the sides of the jar; that way, you can still put on the lids — either once the pie is ready to eat so you can transport it, or before the pie is baked, so you can store it in the freezer.

Cool enough, and she and “Handheld Pies” do their best to hold readers’ hands through the process, with plenty of tips in the chapter, “Equipment, Ingredients, and Techniques.” But as I learned, getting the little pastry crusts into the little jars takes some patience and some practice and more than a little patching, but that’s OK.

To keep her Flaky Butter Crust from collapsing as it blind bakes for coconut cream jar pies, you will need pie weights — small ceramic beads that keep the crust pressed against the glass while it bakes. And if you think not enough people bake pie, even fewer people own pie weights. One could, and I have, however, satisfactorily substitute dried beans.

My little crusts weren’t perfect by any means, but once I filled them with the coconut cream and topped them with fresh whipped cream and toasted coconut, they were delicious. And cute as all get out. I transported some to some neighbors who devoured them.

Ms. Billingsley provides ideas and recipes for others in the “small-pie pantheon,” which she divides into “free-form” and “structured.” Free-form are the hand pies more people might be familiar with, with a relatively sturdy top crust and a bottom crust filled and sealed on the edges, in all sorts of shapes.

Having made those before, I was more interested in her ideas for the structured minis — “pies” that you make in muffin trays, even mini-muffin trays. So I tried a tray of the Farmer Cheese Pies, a recipe from Four Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn, N.Y. That’s one of the business around the country profiled throughout the cookbook by Ms. Billingsley’s co-author, Ms. Wharton.

She doesn’t profile Seattle’s High 5 Pie, but that’s the pie shop of the author of another little pie book: “Cutie Pies,” which was published in October by Andrew McMeel. That book, subtitled “40 Sweet, Savory and Adorable Recipes,” is by Dani Cone, another pie missionary. She sells her creations at High 5 Pie and Fuel Coffee shops in Seattle.

What she calls “piejars” she makes in jars but with the crusts clinging to and extending above the rims, as in a pie pan.

Ms. Cone, too, provides a number of different crusts and configurations, which readers can mix and match. Both books require some careful reading and some math as you translate the recipes to the kind of pie you’re making.

Ms. Cone creatively calls her pies made in mini-muffin trays “petit-5s.” “Cutie pies” are the ones made in regular muffin trays. She also offers ideas and recipes for “flipsides” (handheld turnovers), “piepops” (pie on a stick) and full-size pies.

I haven’t yet tried pie on a stick, though a friend who had some in Minnesota this summer assures me that it can be made so that it doesn’t fall off.

I did make a couple of trays of her petit-5s — key lime — and it wasn’t easy to uniformly fill all those little cups with the press-in graham cracker crusts. The results, however, were really good and, again, super cute.

In the end, I may never like any pie better than the same old, boring, full-size homemade pie. But I did enjoy experimenting with these little ones, which do offer fewer calories — if you can just eat one.

Pittsburgh is not as far from some of these trends as you might think. Since soon after it opened last spring, Meat Potatoes, Downtown, has been serving pies and almost all of its other desserts in canning jars. In addition to blueberry, key lime, coconut cream and lemon meringue pie, they’ve served various flavors of panna cotta and pot au creme and more.

The glass jars are “a little tricky” to get the crust into, and cook differently than ceramics for, say, creme brulee, says chef/owner Richard Deshantz. But once he tried the jars, they fit the feel of the restaurant and turned out to be convenient for serving.

One plus: For to-go orders, they simply screw on the lids.

Coconut Cream Jar Pies

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“Coconut cream pie is one of my favorites,” writes Sarah Billingsley in her new cookbook, “Handheld Pies.” “When I was little girl growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, our family would sometimes go to a restaurant called Gullifty’s, a sort of striving-to-be-high-end cosmopolitan diner with a huge rotating case of the sort of over-the-top desserts featured in trendy establishments in the 1980s. I always ordered something big and creamy, and if memory serves, it was coconut.”

Flaky Butter Crust (halved recipe follows)

1 1/2 cup shredded or flaked unsweetened dried coconut
4 large egg yolks
1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk (not light)
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2/3 cup plus 1/4 cup sugar
5 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cold heavy/double cream

Line 6 half-pint jars with the butter crust pastry. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 days.

Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Spread the dried coconut evenly on a rimmed baking sheet/tray, place in the oven, and toast until golden, about 5 minutes. Once the coconut starts to brown, it can overdarken quickly, so watch closely. Immediately transfer to a shallow bowl or plate and let cool completely (do not leave it on the hot pan or it will continue to brown). Increase the oven temperature to 400 degrees.

Fit a piece of parchment paper into each pastry-lined jar, extending it beyond the rim, and fill with pie weights. Arrange the jars on a rimmed baking sheet/tray, place in the oven and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, lift out the paper and weights, return the jars to the oven, and continue baking until the pastry looks dry and is golden, about 5 minutes more. Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a baking rack before filling.

Meanwhile, in a bowl, whisk the egg yolks until blended. Set aside. Set a fine-mesh sieve over a bowl.

In a saucepan, whisk together the coconut milk, milk, 2/3 cup of the sugar, the cornstarch and the salt. Place over medium heat and cook, whisking constantly, until mixture begins to steam and bubble at the edges of the pan, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Gradually add about 1/2 cup of the hot milk mixture to the egg yolks, whisking constantly. Pour this mixture into the saucepan while stirring constantly. Return the pan to medium heat and cook, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thickened to a pudding-like consistency and is just beginning to bubble, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain through the sieve into the bowl. Stir in the vanilla and 1 cup of the toasted coconut (reserve the remainder for topping the pies). Cover with plastic wrap, pressing the wrap directly onto the surface of the mixture, and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 3 hours or up to 3 days.

Just before assembling the pie, in a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, whip the cream until about tripled in volume. Add the sugar and whip until soft peaks form. (Or, use a large bowl and a handheld mixer or whisk.)

Spoon about 3/4 cup of coconut filling into each jar and smooth the tops. Top the filling with 2 to 3 tablespoons of the whipped cream, then sprinkle the reserved toasted coconut evenly over the cream.

Serve immediately, or cover and refrigerate for up to 2 days then serve chilled or at room temperature. These pies cannot be frozen.

Makes 6 pies.

– “Handheld Pies: Dozens of Pint-Size Sweets Savories” by Sarah Billingsley and Rachel Wharton (Chronicle, January 2012, $19.95)

Flaky Butter Crust

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1/2 cup (1 stick) cold unsalted butter
1 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 to 5 tablespoons ice water

Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes, and freeze them while you measure and mix the dry ingredients.

To make the dough in a food processor, combine the flour, sugar and salt in the processor and pulse 3 or 4 times to mix. Retrieve the butter cubes from the freezer, scatter them over the flour mixture and pulse until the mixture forms pea-size clumps. Add the ice water, 1 tablespoons at a time, and pulse to mix, adding just enough water for the dough to come together.

Turn the dough out onto a clean, floured work surface or sheet of parchment paper. Gather the dough together in a mound, then knead it a few times to smooth it out. Divide it in half, and gently pat and press each half into a rough rectangle, circle, or square about 1 inch thick. The shape you choose depends on what shape you will be rolling out the dough. If you don’t know how you will be using the dough at this point, opt for a circle. Wrap in plastic wrap or in the parchment paper and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days.

Makes enough for 12 to 16 free-form, structured or jar pies.

– “Handheld Pies: Dozens of Pint-Size Sweets Savories” by Sarah Billingsley and Rachel Wharton (Chronicle, January 2012, $19.95)

Farmer Cheese Pie from Four Twenty Blackbirds, Brooklyn, N. Y.

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“This pie is one of Rachel’s favorites from Four Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn,” writes Sarah Billingsley, who notes that these also could be made with butter or lard crust, with ricotta or cottage cheese if you can’t find soft farmer cheese, and they also could be made in jars.

Versatile Cornmeal Crust (recipe follows)
All-purpose flour for dusting
12/3 cups farmer cheese
3 eggs
1/2 cup half-and-half
3 tablespoons honey
Pinch of kosher salt
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves

Have 2 12-cup standard muffin tins ready. Remove the dough from the refrigerator.

Lightly flour a clean work surface. Unwrap the dough, place it on the floured work surface, and flour the top lightly. Roll out the dough into a large circle about 1/8-inch thick. It will be about 14 inches in diameter. Using a round biscuit or cookie cutter, cut out as many circles 4 inches in diameter as possible.

Handling the dough circles gently, lift each circle and press it into a muffin cup, leaving a 1/8- to 1/4-inch overhang and patching any tears by pinching them together or plugging them with a dough scrap. You can crimp the dough that extends beyond the edge of the cup with fork tines or your fingers so it adheres to the top of the tin and forms a rim, if you like, but it is not necessary.

Gather the dough scraps, form into a ball, roll out, and cut out more circles. (Reroll the dough only once or it will bake up tough.) You should have 12 to 16 circles total. If you don’t have enough dough circles to fill every cup in a muffin tin, stagger the crusts rather than clustering all of them at one end of the tin. If you’ve filled one tin, refrigerate it while you line the cups in a second tin, then refrigerate the second tin.

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the cheese and eggs until smooth. Add the half-and-half, honey and salt and beat until thoroughly combined. (Or, use a large bowl and a handheld mixer or a wooden spoon.) Generously sprinkle in the thyme and stir to mix. (The filling can be made up to 24 hours in advance and refrigerated.)

Remove the dough-lined cups from the refrigerator. Place 3 to 4 tablespoons filling in each cup. Refrigerate the assembled pies for at least 30 minutes or up to 24 hours. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Bake the pies until the filling is slightly puffed and golden, about 20 minutes. The filling should jiggle slightly when a tin is gently shaken. Be careful not to overbake or the filling will crack.

Let cool on a baking rack for 10 minutes. Run a sharp, thin knife around the edge of each pie to loosen it from the cup. Then, using the knife tip or a fork, gently pry each pie upward so you can grab it with your fingertips and lift it out of the tin. Serve warm or at room temperature.

The pies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days or frozen for up to 2 months. Reheat in a 375-degree oven for about 10 minutes before serving.

Makes 12 to 16 pies.

– “Handheld Pies: Dozens of Pint-Size Sweets Savories” by Sarah Billingsley and Rachel Wharton (Chronicle, Jan. 2012, $19.95)

Substitute ricotta or cottage cheese in the same amount for the farmer cheese. Scoop into a sieve placed over a bowl and drain in the refrigerator for 2 hours before using.

Versatile Cornmeal Crust

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“This is a crumbly dough, which means that free-form pies with juicy fillings larger than 4-inch squares or circles are hard to handle when baked,” writes Sarah Billingsley. “Four-inch pies are the sweet spot. The crumbly character also means this is a great pat-into-the-pan dough for structured pies. You can use yellow, white or blue cornmeal, though yellow makes the most attractive pies by far.”

The amounts below are halved from the full recipe in the book.

6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 egg yolk
1/2 to 2 tablespoons ice water

Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes and freeze them while you measure and mix the dry ingredients.

To make the dough in a food processor, combine the flour, cornmeal, sugar and salt in the processor and pulse 3 or 4 times to mix. Retrieve the butter cubes from the freezer, scatter them over the flour mixture, and pulse until the mixture forms pea-size clumps.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg yolks and 2 tablespoons of the ice water. Drizzle the yolk mixture into the flour mixture and pulse just until the dough holds together. If the mixture won’t come together, add the remaining 1 tablespoon ice water.

Turn out the dough onto a clean work surface or sheet of parchment paper. Gather together in a mound, then knead it a few times to smooth it out. Divide it in half and gently pat and press each half into a rough circle about 1 inch thick. The shape you choose depends on what shape you will be rolling out the dough. If you don’t know, opt for a circle. Wrap in plastic wrap or in the parchment paper and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

To roll out, cut, shape, and fill the dough and bake the pies, see the master recipes for free-form pies, structured pies, and jar pies.

Makes enough for 12 to 16 free-form, structured or jar pies.

– “Handheld Pies: Dozens of Pint-Size Sweets Savories” by Sarah Billingsley and Rachel Wharton (Chronicle, January 2012, $19.95)

Key Lime Petit-5s

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2 tablespoons finely grated lime zest, plus more for garnish
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup fresh lime juice (from 2 large limes or about 15 Key limes), plus additional 1/2 teaspoon for the whipping cream
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk
Graham Cracker Crust, double batch (recipe follows)
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Raspberries, optional, for garnish

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place a rack in the center of the oven. Spray the cups of mini-muffin pans with nonstick pan spray.

To make the filling, in a large bowl, whisk together the lime zest and egg yolks.

Beat in the lime juice, cinnamon, and condensed milk. Set aside until it thickens, 20 to 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, to make the crust, follow the Graham Cracker Crust recipe that follows, making a double batch, enough for 36 Petit-5s.

Place the Graham Cracker Crust evenly into 36 mini-muffin cups. For each one, use your fingers to press and evenly distribute the crust around the bottom and up the sides.

Bake the Graham Cracker Crust Petit-5 shells for 10 to 12 minutes, until lightly browned. Let the crust shells cool completely.

Spoon the filling evenly into the pie shells, and bake the Petit-5s for 12 to 15 minutes. Look for the filling to be slightly set, not soupy, but perhaps still a bit wobbly.

Chill Petit-5s for 3 hours. (You can then use a knife to loosen and remove them from the cups.)

In a medium bowl with an electric mixer, whip together the whipping cream, sugar and vanilla (and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon lime juice) until light and fluffy. Top each Petit-5 with whipped cream. Garnish with a few curls of the remaining lime zest and a few raspberries if desired.

– “Cutie Pies: 40 Sweet, Savory, and Adorable Recipes” by Dani Cone (Andrews McMeel, October 2011, $16.99)

Graham Cracker Pie Crust

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Dani Cone writes, “To crush them into crumbs without making a huge mess (I learned this the hard way!), place the grahams in a plastic sandwich bag and roll over them with your rolling pin.”