“I love Kate Lebo’s Pie School so much. It’s reassuringly detailed for new cooks yet full of nuance that make veteran cooks like me say, ‘Oh wow, right!’ But it’s Kate’s writing—graceful and considered, yet funny and intimate—that makes you want to spend time with the book, along with a cup of tea and time for contemplation.” —MARTHA HOLMBERG, James Beard Award–winning co-author of Six Seasons: A New Way with Vegetables “With recipes and words that spotlight tradi- tional pie-making both savory and sweet, Kate Lebo’s Pie School is a definite keeper for any pie-maker’s bookshelf.” —KATE McDERMOTT, James Beard Award–nominated author of Art of the Pie “Kate Lebo’s prose is rich and spiky, her voice spiced with wit and undergirded with tender- ness. To call this ‘a book about pie’ is like calling Moby-Dick ‘a book about a whale.’” —KATE CHRISTENSEN, PEN/Faulkner Award–winning author of The Great Man and Blue Plate Special Cooking US $29.95 / $29.95 CAN ISBN: 978-1-63217-467-3 PIE SCHOOL Les sons in Fruit, Flour & But ter REVI SED & EXPANDED Author of The Book of Difficult Fruit Kate Lebo Pie School Is Now in Session Since the first publication of Pie School in 2014, Kate Lebo has inspired bakers everywhere with her witty and encouraging lessons on all things flaky and sweet. This completely revised edition includes 20 brand-new pies—including two new chapters, one on savory pies and one on pies with “difficult” (lesser-known) fruit— plus updates to the originals. Her proven process to achieve flakiness and structure, along with 60 recipes for delicious, inspired fillings, will give home cooks all the skills they need to make the best pie of their lives. Beyond the bake, Lebo also invites us to ruminate on the social history and meaning of pie in the pantheon of favorite foods. RECIPES INCLUDE: • Brandied Apple and Cracked Cardamom Pie • Rosemary Rhubarb and Vanilla- Chèvre Galette • Winter Luxury Pumpkin Pie • Huckleberry Pie • Lamb, Pumpkin, and Quince Pie • Chicken Potpie Kate Lebo is the author of the essay collection The Book of Difficult Fruit, which won the Washington State Book Award. She is also co-editor with Samuel Ligon of Pie & Whiskey: Writers Under the Influence of Butter and Booze. Her poems and essays have appeared in Best American Essays, Harper’s Magazine, Crazyhorse, New England Review, Ecotone, The Inlander, and elsewhere. She lives and bakes in Spokane, Washington, where she is an apprenticed cheesemaker to Lora Lea Misterly of Quillisascut Farm. Front cover photo by Amy Johnson Back cover photo by Rina Jordan Cover design by Anna Goldstein Author photo by Adriana Janovich US $29.95 / $29.95 CAN Ka te Lebo P IE SCH OO LCONTENTS Introductions 1 THE ART AND SCIENCE OF PIE How to Make Piecrust by Hand 21 I How to Choose Your Best Tools 29 How to Make a Double-Crust Fruit Pie 32 I How to Make a Galette 38 How to Be a Pie Roller 40 I How to Be Fruitful 44 I How to Keep Your Cool 45 How to Bake 46 I How to Bake Blind 48 I How to Parbake 49 How to Weave a Classic Lattice 50 I How to Put a Bird on It 53 I How to Be Scrappy 53 I How to Multiply 54 WHAT MAKES A PIE A PIE (or, Recipes for Piecrust) All-Butter Piecrust 59 I Extra-Flaky Piecrust 61 Purple-Ribbon Piecrust 68 I Cheese Crust 70 I Galette Dough 72 Whole Grain Piecrust with Sonora Wheat or Spelt Flours 74 Einkorn Piecrust 80 | Gluten-Free Buckwheat Piecrust 82 Gluten-Free Almond Flour Piecrust 85 A HUBBUB OF RHUBARB Rhubarb Custard Pie 90 I Rhubarb Ginger Pie 91 Raspberry Rhubarb Pie 93 I Bluebarb Pie 95 Rosemary Rhubarb and Vanilla-Chèvre Galette 98 BLUEBERRY BEAUREGARDE Blueberry Lemon Verbena Galette 105 Maple Blueberry Pie 107 I Blue Peach Pie 109 Blue Goose Pie 111SHE’S MY CHERRY PIE (She’s My) Sour Cherry Pie 117 I Cherry Jack Pie 120 Apricot and Sour Cherry Pie 122 Cardamom Cherry-Apple Pie 124 | Extra Cherry Galette 126 THE PERFECT PEACH Peach Potpie 133 I Peach Whiskey Pie 135 Peach Ginger Pie 137 I White Peach and Raspberry Galette 139 A TYRANNY OF PLUMS Plum Thyme Pie 147 I Pluot and Elderflower Galette 148 Lavender Aprium Pie 150 Apricot, Plum, and Raspberry Galette with Chambord Glaze 152 Apricot and Vanilla-Chèvre Galette with Almond Crumble 154 BLACKBERRY, BLACKBERRY, BLACKBERRY Blackberry Pie 160 I Marionberry Pie with Hazelnut Crumble 162 Mumbleberry (Mixed Berry) Pie 164 I Free-Form Gravenstein and Blackberry Galette 167 I Gluten-Free Blackberry and Honeyed Mascarpone Pie with Almond Flour Crust 169 AN EVERLASTING APPLE PIE Apple Pie 175 I What Does It Mean to be American as Apple Pie? 176 I Brandied Apple and Cracked Cardamom Pie 178 Cheddar-Crusted Apple Pie 180 I Whiskey Crumble Apple Pie 182 Ginger-Honey Apple Pie 184 I Three Pear and Gouda Pie 186 Apple Pear Cranberry Pie 188 I Apple, Pork Sausage, and Rosemary Pie 190 Crab/Apple Pie 192 I Rose Family Pie 194 Pear-Balsamic Galette with Pecan Crumble 196 DIFFICULT FRUITS Sarvisberry Pie 202 | Gooseberry and Elderflower Pie 204 Black Currant Custard Pie 207 | Elderberry Pie 209 Black Chokeberry Pie 211 | What Is a Pie Lady? 213 Huckleberry Pie 217 SNOW CUPBOARD PIES Winter Luxury Pumpkin Pie 223 | Banana Cream Pie 225 Shaker Lemon Pie 227 I Coconut Chess Pie 229 | Whiskey Maple Pecan Pie 230 I Cherry Cranberry Pie 232 | Funeral Pie 234 PIE FOR DINNER Fennel Sausage, Cabbage, Beets, and Apple Pie 241 Lamb, Pumpkin, and Quince Pie 244 | Chanterelle, Goat Cheese, Delicata, and Tomato Pie 246 | Sam’s Veggie Pie 248 The Life of a Chicken Potpie: A Recipe Cycle 251 Pantry Staples 264 | The Gift of Pie 269 Acknowledgments 271 | Suggested Reading 273 | Index 274 1 INTRODUCTIONS Dear Reader, When I started writing the first edition of Pie School , I lived alone in a duplex in Seattle, one of eight squat buildings I’d heard were built to house last cen- tury’s cannery men. After I lived there, I repeated this apocrypha as if it were fact. It gave me a sense of history. It helped me imagine a place within that his- tory. Or at least within the rumor of that history. It was six years since I’d made my first piecrust, five years after the subprime mortgage crisis began, one year since I’d founded the Pie & Whiskey reading series with my then- friend Sam Ligon, five years before I’d marry him, and seven before the COVID pandemic canceled all parties and forced us to cook most of our meals at home. It was 2013, and my kitchen was at the center of my apartment. To leave the bedroom and walk into the living room, I had to pass through the kitchen. To leave the house at all, I had to pass through the kitchen. The kitchen was narrow as a hallway, with ancient appliances and scuffed wood floors that reminded me I was one of many residents who’d worn the same route through this place. The oven was electric, ancient, unreliable. A lump of lard crust once fell to the hot oven floor and lit there, and would not go out. I watched the flame as if it were a candle, then scooped the char into an aluminum pie pan and tossed it into the rain. Still, that oven baked twenty- four pies a day when I needed it to— a huge number for someone who had no culinary training, who’d never worked in a bakery, who was baking in a shoebox. That oven and I, we got to know each other. I knew when to over- or under- turn the temperature dials, when to shift pies so they wouldn’t scorch, when I could walk away, and when I needed to hover. I’d been learning how to bake pie the hard way (through ugly but edible mistakes) and the easy way (through reading cookbooks and looking for mentors). Online, I found a network of people who called themselves pie ladies. I began hosting pie sales at home.The Art and Science of Pie / 17 The Art and Science of Pie When it comes to cake, if one follows the rules, perfection is inevitable. But for pastry you must be somewhat of an interpretive artist as well as a disciplined technician. You have to develop a sense of the dough. —ROSE LEVY BERANBAUM, THE PIE AND PASTRY BIBLEThe Art and Science of Pie / 21 HOW TO MAKE PIECRUST BY HAND Good pastry is flaky, tender, delicate and evenly browned. It is not crumbly, but when broken, shows layers of flat flakes, piled one above the other with air spaces between. To achieve this result the cook must be quick and “lighthanded,” since pastry cannot be good if handled roughly or slowly. —THE VICTORY BINDING OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN’S COOK BOOK, WARTIME EDITION, 1942 Folk arts are best taught in person. Since I can’t be there with you in the kitchen, I’ve written down as much of the process as I can, as clearly as I can, and included a few illustrations to explain what’s too visual to describe. These are narrative instructions for the process of making crust. The next chapter contains seven crust recipes that will use this method, and each will include an abbreviated version of these instructions to help you remember the process. A WORD ON FLOUR All-purpose flour is best. Pastry flour is low in gluten; bread flour is high. Pie requires a Goldilocks-style balance of just the right amount of gluten—enough to give piecrust structure, but not so much that it toughens the crust. I’ve found that mixing pastry and bread flours still doesn’t produce the right blend. Stick to all-purpose and you won’t go wrong. Since we’ve mentioned bread, let’s talk about kneading. We never knead. Ever. That verb is banished from the pie kitchen. Kneading is a bread verb. It helps develop a strong gluten structure that yeast can make its tiny explosions into, creating a lovely matrix of nooks and Next >