Erin Jeanne McDowell - The Book on Pie

Copyright 2020 by Erin Jeanne McDowell

Photographs 2020 by Mark Weinberg

Illustrations by Heath Goldman

Watercolor background by iStock.com/kentarcajuan

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: McDowell, Erin Jeanne, author. | Weinberg, Mark (Photographer), photographer.

Title: The book on pie : everything you need to know to bake perfect pies / Erin Jeanne McDowell; photographs by Mark Weinberg.

Description: Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020023318 (print) | LCCN 2020023319 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358229285 (hardback) | ISBN 9780358229292 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Pies. | Desserts. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX773 .M19 2020 (print) | LCC TX773 (ebook) | DDC 641.86/52dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023318

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020023319

Book design by Allison Chi and Eugenie S. Delaney

Cover design by Allison Chi

v1.1020

For my dear friend Andrew Algren,
and in tribute to our shared love of the movie Tampopo.

First, observe the whole pie: Appreciate its gestalt, savor the aromas. Then, caress the surface of the slice with your fork tines...

What for?

To express affection.

Recipes

The book journey starts with my agent, Doe Cooverthank you, always, for your persistent faith that I have something special to put on a page. To Sarah Kwak for being a true partner in this process, Im so grateful to have worked with you (twice!) and to have your careful eye guiding this project at every step. Thank you to Rux Martin for believing in this project. Thank you to Judith Sutton for lending us your sharp, expert eyes. To Tai Blanche, Allison Chi, and their design team, thank you for incorporating any idea I had and making it better, and for so expertly making this book come to life.

I continue to be thankful to Ben Fink for encouraging me from the start and offering every form of help he could give me. Thank you for telling me to pass it onI try my hardest to do so. Thank you to my mentor and guidepost, Rose Levy Beranbaum, who is one of the only people in my life who is fluent in every language I speak: baking, writing, and teaching, and loving it all with a meticulous precision I will forever aspire to.

To my husband, Derek, for his support in this process, even when our home was full of far too many people and far too many pies. Thank you for all the times you ate pie for breakfast, lunch, and/or dinner. To Kaitlin Wayne, my girl Friday, who contributed recipes, endless insight, beautiful styling, and so much more to this bookI absolutely couldnt have done it without you. To Jase Kingsland-Shim, for testing recipes, contributing your baking talents, and working so hard during the photo shoot. To my friend Evan Coben, for her constant support, including (but not limited to!) being willing to provide two weeks of priceless assistance for only the cost of a plane ticketand for giving us all marshmallow heart, then teaching us how to cure it. To my fellow baking Erin, Erin Clarkson, for her friendship, support, and the ability to make me belly laugh even when Im drowning in lists (and to her husband, Rich, for the amazing stencils, including the Brimley stencil of my dreams). To Shilpa Uskokovic, for recipe testing so beautiful I had to have her hands at the photo shoot too. To Chris Hurte for your support, encouragement, and the emergency cotton candy run.

Thank you to Mark Weinberg, who is as wonderful to work with as his work is beautiful. Im so grateful that we met photographing piesit was a sign of all the flaky, delicious things to come! And Im so grateful for how above and beyond you went for this project; thank you for all your contributions. To Nico Schinco, who snapped behind-the-scenes photos and offered tons of photographic assistance throughout the shootIm thankful for your calming presence and sharp eye for beautiful moments. To Amy Stringer-Mowat of American Heirloom for developing beautiful custom stencils and boards for the photo shoot. To Julia Mitchell and Marine Leman, from my favorite chocolate company, the incredible Valrhona USA, for providing all the chocolate for recipe testing and the photo shoot. Thank you to Lucy Heath, for shipping her amazing surfaces extra-fast so they arrived in time for the shoot.

To my amazing family for being the inspiration for so much of what I do. Im forever thankful to my parents for all theyve given me, from wisdom to guidance to the freedom to be whatever I wanted to be. Thank you to my brothers, Willie, Jason, and Matt, and my wonderful nieces, Maisy, Joci, and Lucy, and my awesome nephew, Arlo. To my cousins Sarah and Abby, thank you for your friendship and strong, independent-lady vibes. In my first book, my editor teased me for thanking everyone under the sun but leaving out someone very important. So the final thank-you goes to my best friend, Brimley, who cant read this but still deserves to know hes a very good boy.

I have five favorite things about pie: The first is making itfrom the moment my hands start cutting cold butter into flour, it just feels indescribably good. The second is baking it: The aroma is better than any scented candle Ive ever purchased. The third is, of course, eating it, or even watching others eat a pie that Ive made. Pie has a miraculous ability to be simultaneously comforting and special occasion worthy, both homey and fancy. Its delicious for dessert, but also fit for a meal in itselfeven for breakfast, my personal ideal time for pie.

My fourth favorite thing about pie is its adaptability. I started baking pies as a teenager, alongside my Grandma Jeanne. We baked pies whenever I visited her, simply because we loved to eat them. Id show up in the morning, and shed casually bring out a big bowl of apples and say, Lets bake a pie, as if shed just had the idea, rather than admitting shed been planning it since yesterdays trip to the grocery store. Because of those frequent and delicious baking sessions, pie was one of the first things I knew how to make well. It was one of the first things I learned to bake using my senses. Understanding what a pie should look like, smell like, and feel like at any given stage gave me the flexibility I hadnt had with any other type of baking. Suddenly I didnt even need a recipeI could just whip up whatever idea came to mind with whatever I had on hand. Ever since, Ive been baking fruit pies year-round with whatever is in season. Ive dreamt up towering cream pies that elicit swoons when they are set on the table. Ive made hundreds of savory pies, just so I could justify eating pie for dinner. And Ive gabbed about pie to anyone who will listenin classes and demos, on radio and TV, and by answering the questions that roll in on Instagram (my brother nicknamed the week around Thanksgiving when I answer pie questions via the internet the 24-Hour Pie-Sis Hotline).