D-I-Y Pie

Recipes for pumpkin pie and beyond...

We’re now officially on countdown to Thanksgiving; and one of the very best things about that is the tangible, incontrovertible excuse to lean into all things pie. And by pie, for the benefit of my British friends and readers, I don’t mean steak and kidney (delectable, as that is), I mean: apple; I mean: pumpkin; I mean: chocolate and pecan with whipped cream on top; I mean proper American, girdle-busting, thigh-slapping pie.

So, let’s talk pie; and how to make it.

When I first starting working on this piece, I had in mind I would share a recipe with you: something you could read about here, bake at home and then enjoy eating, possibly on Thanksgiving (if you celebrate Thanksgiving) but also beyond the holidays too. But then that felt limiting, just the one pie recipe that is. The beauty of pie, you see, is it’s a kind of baking that is very easy to make your own: pie can be whatever you want it to be. Once you’ve got your pastry crust, for example, you can fill it with whatever you fancy. But then, even better, you can play around with the crust itself: did you say chocolate biscuit base? Or flaky warm pastry? Do we think puff, maybe? Or buttery shortcrust? Then better STILL, you can add toppings!! Seriously: toasted marshmallow? Cream? Sticky pecans? See what I mean, folks: pie is fun.

So what we’ve ended up with here is a method rather than a recipe; but my hope is that you can you use it like a recipe. Just it will be your recipe, not mine.

So, pick a base; pick a filling; think about a topping, and DIY your own pie. And if you feel like it, please do share your flavour combinations and your recipes in the comments, so the rest of us can enjoy them too!

Here we go:

The Pie Base

As with everything in life, you want to start with a good foundation. When you choose your base, you’re basically choosing a direction for the pie: do you want to go chilled? Or are you thinking warm-from-the-oven? Are we going to commit to fully baking something? Or are we going for more of a throw-together-a-few-ingredients sort of a situation? All excellent options, and there’s a good pie base for each of them.

No Bake Biscuit Base

I’m a big fan of the no-bake pie for ease; but also for flavour. I love a biscuit-y almost cheesecake-y base under pretty much all circumstances but most especially in a pie. As an added bonus, a no-bake pie is designed to be enjoyed chilled, so you can make it in advance and do away with the whole would-it-be-more-delicious-straight-from-the-oven-but-also-I-don’t-really-want-to-be-fussing-about-baking-at-the-last-minute quandary. So it’s a hard sell from me on the no-bake pie.

Here is a recipe of sorts (based on a 25cm fluted pie dish, so tweak up and down as you need and like): 500g biscuits (any kind you like) + 100g salted butter, softened. Blitz the biscuits to crumbs in a food processor; add the butter and blitz until it all starts to clump together and you have something that feels like wet sand; press into the pie dish and freeze for 10-15 mins (or chill in the fridge for at least 30 mins) to harden before carefully lifting the base out of its tin.

And here are a few ideas on what sorts of biscuits you can make your no-bake base out of (though by no means is this an exhaustive list): shortbread for a plain, buttery crust; chocolate bourbons or chocolate biscuits of your choosing (I just really like bourbons) for a chocolate crust; digestive biscuits for something less sweet; ginger nut biscuits for a little warmth and spice; Speculoos for a dash of cinnamon, spice and all things nice; Oreos for my twelve year old’s dream pie; and so on and so forth… The world is your oyster.

Also, a hot tip: to get the pie base out of its tin, pop it on top of a tin or jar (something sturdy and cylindrical) then very gently slide the fluted tin down. Now, use a palette knife or knife-knife (just be extra careful with the knife-knife) to loosen the crust from the bottom of the tin and very gently slide it off the base and onto its dish. Also, categorically do NOT butter the pie tin. It’s going to feel like you should butter the tin, but don’t do it.

Homemade Pastry

I don’t often bother making my own pastry, but when I do, I almost always make it to this recipe because it’s THAT good that I (greedily) think it’s more than worth the extra bit of effort of starting from scratch. The recipe is the same one as my Apple & Walnut Crumble Pie in A Table for Friends (it’s a goodie), but am replicating the pastry bit here in case you want to combine it with another kind of filling and/or topping for your own pie.