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Pen and Pie Results

The winning entries, as well as all of the participants wonderful work, are viewable online at www.roastingpigeons.com.
Surprisingly, the judges picked a tie for first place! The winners are:
Andrea Deekin, "Our Year of Pies"

(Here she is receiving her prize money and pie)

Josh Gross, "The Rise and Fall of the Wally Johnson Act"
(no pic of Josh- our bad!)
The other entries, in no particular order (again, you really should go read these for yourself. I can't believe people put these together in just a few hours):
Jane Endacott, "Elements"
Kevin Weaver, "Garden School"
Heather Ogren, "Mountains of Time"
Mae Culbertson, "The Accidental Criminal"
Naga Nataka, "The Cave"
Maya Culbertson, "The Professor"
Liz Fairchild, "The Reader"

Congratulations again to everyone; we hope to see you next time.

Autumn Specials

We're developing our autumn specials right now. First on the list is an apple pie with a cheese-infused crust, and possibly a little rosemary or sage in the filling.
We'll also be offering traditional holiday pies for Thanksgiving, but I'm experimenting with some fresh takes on the classics- probably introducing our gingersnap crust to the menu.
I'm also a fan of baking with brown butter in the fall- if you've never made it, click here for a how-to. The nutty flavour is also good fresh out of the pan on dough biscuits and pasta.

Pen and Pie Pics

As promised, pictures from Saturday. Congrats again to everyone.

Pie Baking Tips

I just had a friend ask me for some crust tips so I thought I'd throw out a few random-but-helpful ones for home bakers:

-Try to manipulate your crust as little as possible. Seriously, the more you touch it, the tougher it gets. Doesn't matter with crumb crusts, however.

-If your crust is getting too dark while your filling is still cooking, cover the edges with foil.

-When making a custard pie, one easy way to tell if it's finished is to give it a delicate shake. The edges should be still, the very center should just jiggle.

-If you're serving whipping cream with a very sweet pie (like peanut butter), make it at home and leave out almost all of the sugar (just add a little vanilla) to balance out the sweetness.

-Use salted butter in crumb crusts- the salty/sweet combo is the best.

-If your crusts are turning out mushy, you might want to invest in a vented aluminum pie plate- it had little holes in the bottom- which makes an extra-crispy bottom crust.

Pen and Pie Success

The first Pen and Pie fiction writing marathon went really well- an awesome group of writers. I can't wait to read their stuff after the judges pick a winner. We went through almost 6 whole pies (the most popular seemed to be the cherry-marzipan). We also took a lot of action shots (by action shot I mean people staring at computers looking focused)- I promise I'll be posting them soon.

S'mores

We're winding down to the last days of summer, so I felt it would be appropriate to add a new pie to our repetoire- a S'more Pie. Graham cracker crust, creamy chocolate filling, and a marshmallow top. This will be best freshly browned in the oven so the marshmallow is nice and gooey and warm.