For those of you who missed it, I recently wrote an article for Fine Cooking magazine that began like so: This might ruffle some feathers, but I have a bone to pick with whoever coined the expression “as easy as pie.” As a pie instructor, the author of four pie cookbooks, and the dean of The Pie Academy, an online community of passionate pie makers, I can assure you that a majority of home cooks believe there’s almost nothing easy…

I’d like to talk about pie pans this week, but I totally understand if you’re thinking we should have had this conversation about a month ago, when you were carrying around wads of holiday cash, and everyone you know was asking what you wanted for Christmas. Now you’re stuck with that deluxe 10-pack of herbal-scented candles when what you really wanted was one of the seven pans I talk about in my latest video. Sorry about that. Still, the hope…

This past week I put out the word that I was curious to learn more about your apple prepping routine when you make an apple pie. I wanted to know if you peeled your apples or not, sliced them thick or thin, how you cored them – all that good stuff. And you didn’t disappoint. My inbox was quickly flooded with responses, more than one hundred of them. And while it’s going to be a challenge to answer all of…

  Blind baking – or baking your pie shell before the filling goes into the crust – is one of the most confusing and conflicting issues pie makers face. I know this because as Dean of The Pie Academy I get a ton of emails on the subject and they’re not, typically, about how well things are working out. Frustration reigns. Indeed, one Pie Academy member wrote just the other day to say that he’d consulted twenty different websites about…

In last week’s video, I asked you to send me your thoughts about the one thing you’d like to see more of at The Pie Academy. Hundreds of you did. It probably didn’t hurt matters that – as I mentioned – everyone who responded would go into a drawing for three great prizes. I’ve announced the winners at the end of the following video. No fair skipping ahead to see if you’ve won. Besides, if you do, you’ll miss my…

I’m a lousy shopper – too impatient, for one thing – but I had a few minutes to kill last week while my oil was being changed, so I walked into the nearby Target, which I thought would look a lot more respectable than walking into the brew pub next door, especially given the fact that it was 9:30 in the morning. For a non-shopper, I like Target, and especially their kitchen section because – unlike, say, Williams Sonoma, where…

Since becoming the Ann Landers of pie, a fellow whose virtual doorstep is stacked high with assorted pie baggage and tales of woe from home bakers around the globe, I’m spending a good deal of time answering individual emails from Pie Academy members. I like this. I really do. It’s a chance to get to know you, make new friends, and find out what makes you tick as pie makers…and human beings. The best thing about your emails is that…

Have you ever heard of a floating top pie? Even if you haven’t, you’ve probably seen one before: it’s a pie whose crust just “floats” on top of the filling without being anchored or attached to the sides. It makes for a very pretty pie and in the short video above you’ll see just how simple it is to do this on your own…and just how good looking the results are. I hope you’ll watch it because I know you’ll…