Sunbeam Mini Pie Maker spotted @ Target for $29.99

I’ve written about these before, but I thought I’d note that Mini Pie Makers are growing in popularity this holiday season. They were part of some door-buster sales for Black Friday, some running for $9.99.

It appears to me that it’s basically the same concept as the mini donut makers, cupcake makers, waffle makers, and heck, even a George Forman Grill, it’s just a heated, non-stick surface in the shape of pie.

A lot of people are arriving at my site looking for a review of the product. I’ve never used one and I’m not sure I ever would, because I’m kind of a pie snob and I’m not sure I support “fast” pie. I prefer the kind of pie that takes 45 minutes to an hour in the oven.

But, I suppose if you were a busy parent with a family to feed, mini pie makers could be a good option for you, as it cuts down on the time in the oven.

I’ve seen a variety of mini pie makers available this year, the most prominent is the Sunbeam one, but there was also one available on ThinkGeek.

Related posts:

1. Mini Pie Maker – For the Lazy Pie Lover

Update: Pacific Pie Co. will be hosting two more classes on Dec. 11 & 14. Same details as below apply.

If you want to lovingly make pies for your friends and family this holiday season instead of purchasing pies, there are a couple of options in town.

Pacific Pie Co. is trying its hand at pie-making classes. Classes will be held at their bakery on SE 7th Ave and taught by Pastry Chef Kate Withiam and co-owner Sarah Curtis-Fawley.

Pacific Pie Co. Classes:

• Wednesday November 16, 6pm-9pm
• Sunday, November 20, 1-4pm
• $50, includes wine + a pie
• Register by emailing sarah@pacificpieco.com or calling 503-381-6157

SweetWares in Hillsdale, which is owned by the same folks that own Baker & Spice, also offers a variety of baking classes on a regular basis and they also offer classes for private parties.

SweetWares Details: 

•  The next class is on Nov. 12 from 2-4:30 p.m. and is $75. Julie Richardson will teach the class.
• Visit http://www.bakerandspicebakery.com/sweetwares/classes.php for more information.

Related posts:

1. 10 Places to Order Your Holiday Pies in Portland
2. Pie Review: Baker & Spice – Blackberry Hand Pie
3. Pacific Pie Co. Moving into New Digs

It’s Guinness Week over at Serious Eats for St. Patrick’s Day, and I couldn’t help but notice this lovely Guinness Pork Hand Pie recipe from Oregon’s own Caroline Ford.

Clipped from: www.seriouseats.com (share this clip)

By all means, if you’re making it for St. Patrick’s Day, use Guinness, but, since we have such excellent beer selection here in Oregon, I’d recommend trying this recipe with one of the many fine stouts available from Oregon brewers.

Related posts:

1. Mad Pientist: Shepherd’s Pie
2. There Seems to be a Chicken in this Pie…
3. Review: Olympic Provisions – Pork Rillette Hand Pie

My lovely wife seems to have taken a shine to pie-making, and I must say, I couldn’t be more pleased. I guess she got the message of my website (Make Me Some Pie!).

Above is a picture of a chicken pot pie she made recently.

We’ve settled on a pretty simple butter crust recipe that is delicious and the edge of the crust is so crisp and buttery it honestly reminds me of a Ritz cracker.  This is the pie crust recipe we like: Mom’s Pie Crust (via allrecipes.com)

Making the filling for a pot pie, or any meat pie for that matter, really seems pretty easy. Just make a mixture of meat and veggies that you like and that tastes good & put it in the pie… simple enough!

In this case, she chopped and sautéed some carrots, potatoes, garlic, onion and peas together with some chicken broth. She cooked the chicken separately and then mixed it in with the veggies when it was done.

Then fill your pie, cover it with your top crust and I believe we bake at 425 for 25 minutes and then lower it to 375 for another 25-30 minutes.

Making pot pie rocks as well because it is a good leftover food for work, or for dinner the next day (preferably, as it’s better reheated in the oven).

Related posts:

1. Pecan & Chicken Pot Pies at Pine State Biscuits
2. Lovely Day for a Guinness Pork Pie
3. Review: Pacific Pie Co. – Creamy Chicken

UPDATE: If you’re looking for a Personal Pie Maker, check out this Personal Pie Factory available on ThinkGeek.

Do you love pie? But don’t know how to make it? Tired of struggling with “dough” and “filling” and “ovens”? Struggle no longer!

The good people at Tempo have reduced the fine art of pie-making to the simplicity of a hotel continental breakfast Belgian wafflemaker.

According to Tempo:

“Make all your favourite pies at home with this Tempo Mini Pie Maker, it’s easy and convenient to use and best of all you won’t have to eat those horrible frozen packaged pies anymore. Complete with recipes to all your favourite pies and even recipes for dessert pies, you’ll be eating all your favourite pie fillings in just minutes.”

You can find the Mini Pie Maker at DealsDirect.

If you’ve ever used one, tell me about your experience.

Frankly, this reminds me of George Bluthe’s “Cornballer” on Arrested Development.

Related posts:

1. Mini Pie Makers Take the World By Storm

There’s millions of people that probably swear by their mother’s apple pie, and I’m one of them. However, my sister-in-law Kristen was kind enough to provide the following “objective” review of mom’s pie, from the perspective of a non-pie person:

I’m not a pie kinda gal. I like cream pies, but fruit pies just have never been my preference. My mother-in-law, Debbie, has been making apple pies since the dawn of time [Editor's note: Mom's not that old] and from what I hear, they are to die for. I think I might have tried a bite of one of her apple pies a long time ago, but I don’t remember being swept away. And that was the last time I’d tried a bite until… a couple weekends ago.

Talk about scrumptious! I don’t know what my problem was (probably taste buds that didn’t know any better), but this is the best apple pie EVER! The double crust is so flaky that it melts in your mouth, but it’s strong enough to hold its own against the pie filling. And, oh, the pie filling – fresh, local apples that are so gooey, you don’t want to stop eating the slice.

This is one fabulous pie. Try as some might, it cannot be duplicated. The love, patience, and experience that she puts into her pie makes the end result beg to be eaten in one sitting.

I give her pie 8 out of 5 pies. (That’s right – it’s that good)

Recipe
Well, mom’s not so good about actually sending me recipes, but she told me that she basically uses the recipe out of her old Betty Crocker Cookbook. I found one online from Betty that sounds similar here.

Mom also mentioned something about “the tupperware method” for her pie-crust. I’m going to make her write a post about that later, though. She’s a product of the times when tupperware parties were the the candle parties of today, so that should be an interesting post.

Related posts:

1. Turn your Apple Gadgets into Apple Pie
2. Review: Banning’s Restaurant & Pie House – French Apple
3. Tillamook Baked Apple Pie Yogurt

With all the talk about Shepherd’s Pie lately, I decided maybe making one would help me understand it better.

I didn’t use a specific recipe, but I borrowed the idea of using Guinness and cheese from Kells (which I just recently wrote about). I heard that a friend of mine makes a version of this, so I figured I’d give it a shot, too – since it was St. Patrick’s Day.

Here’s my “Shepherd’s Pie” recipe, inspired by Kells and my buddy who was already inspired by Kells, with a little addition of my own:

1. Made mashed potatoes with butter, salt, sour cream and a little bit of Tillamook cheddar cheese.
2. Sauteed garlic, onions, carrots and peas together with Guinness
3. Browned ground beef with onions
4. Simmered vegetables and beef in Guinness
5. Lined bottom of pan with vegetables and beef, added some salt and pepper
6. Spread mashed potatoes over filling
7. My own “touch” to add something more crust-like was to spread a light amount of olive oil over the top and I sprinkled some crushed up croutons (bread crumbs) over top
8. Baked at 400 for 10 minutes and 350 for 10 more,
9. Spread a little more cheese on top for a final touch

It turned out pretty good, I guess I’d give myself a 2.5 2 out out of 5 rating… not crazy good, but it made for a good meal (plus leftovers)! But, once again, it really was just mashed potatoes with beef and veggies… not much semblance to the standard “pie”, even though it had a touch more crispiness thanks to the bread crumbs. I couldn’t slice it, like a pie – I had to kind of scoop it. So was it a pie? Seems like more of a casserole to me.

But… it occurred to me that when you let it cool more, it really does setup more like a traditional pie and it does become more sliceable. So, I think I feel okay about Shepherd’s Pie being labeled a pie, and I’m sure there are versions of it that seem even more pie-like.

What are your thoughts on Shepherd’s Pie (or things that are called pie, but aren’t pie in the traditional sense?)

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Related posts:

1. Kells Irish Festival – Shepherd’s Pie
2. When Irish Pies Are Smiling
3. Lovely Day for a Guinness Pork Pie

My wife and I (mostly my wife) recently ventured into the world of pie-making.

Our pie adventures started with a simple apple pie.

Crust: For the crust, we used the “Mom’s Pie Crust” recipe from allrecipes.com. Contrary to the title, it was not my mother’s pie crust. However, the recipe was relatively easy and worked well, although my wife had to add more water than the recipe called for.

Here’s a slideshow of our first pie-making experience:

Filling: It doesn’t get much simpler than this filling. We used about seven Golden Delicious apples, cinnamon and sugar. We used the following websites to guide the way, though:

- http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Making-Apple-Pie-Filling/detail.aspx

Notes: Some apple pie filling calls for lemon juice. We didn’t use it because it is only recommended for apples that are too sweet and we didn’t think the Golden Delicious were too sweet.

Assembly: This website was very helpful in the actual “assembly” process of making a pie:

- http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Making-a-Pie-Crust-Step-by-Step/detail.aspx
- http://www.wikihow.com/Bake-an-Apple-Pie-from-Scratch

Notes: I hadn’t ever given the assembly process much thought, but it was interesting to read the different strategies for getting the bottom crust into the pan and carefully unfolding it.

Baking: Having never baked a pie, we were a bit freaked out by how long you bake it, but we found that pie crust is very resilient to the high temperatures (we started it at 400 (F) and then brought it down to 375 (F) for the remainder).

Also, this is a pretty common tip, but we almost forgot about it – make sure to put a cookie sheet under the pie in order to catch any filling that might bubble over.

The Result: We turned out with a pretty decent apple pie. Mistakes were made and lessons were learned, but overall, it wasn’t bad for first timers.

The Bad:

- Too much crust:  I really liked the crust, but it was too thick, so next time, we’ll probably try to roll it thinner.

- Not enough filling: We didn’t pack it with enough filling. We had made too much filling overall, so we tried to stretch it into two batches, one which we would freeze and use at a later time. We didn’t follow the filling ½ inch above the crust rule, and it showed in the end result.

The Good:

- Good flavor. Though the levels of crust and filling weren’t right, it doesn’t mean it didn’t taste good! The crust had a nice level of flakiness and the outer edge was nice and crispy. And the filling, well, I think apple pie filling would be hard to mess up!

- Sugar on top. We used an egg wash on top, along with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top. It was a nice touch! We thought we may have done the egg wash wrong because we just beat an egg and some recipes indicate that you should mix it with water, but it turned out fine.

- Leftover crust! I had forgotten that the best part of making pie is the leftover crust! We baked up a few pieces with egg wash and cinnamon and sugar and they were rad. I used them as a nice morning pastry to have with my coffee.

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