The America Eats Project's Vermont Spiced Pie

writing by Emily sent from New England, illustrations by Elizabeth Graeber

4th Annual Portland Thanksgiving

Here it is boxing day and I have not yet posted about pies from Thanksgiving! Here they are, presented in rhyming couplets...

For the 4th year in a row to Portland I did go,
Well, let's get this straight, it is really SoPo.
Though it took 13 hours through great traffic trials,
It was well worth the trip to meet sweet baby Miles.

I opted to make apple cranberry pie,
The recipe for which Laura Dove won the Washington Post prize.
I used the ingenious apple core-cut-skin machine

cut out circles of crust and brushed on an egg sheen
After fire, singing, and dinner we set up our pie bar,
A dessert buffet of the highest par.Talya's pie was the richest chocolate diner
The recipe from Mav's friend Martha (a fabulous cook, though a bit of a whiner)
Jamie made a pumpkin, with no use of can
Mav's dessert was one of ginger--the bread, not the man.
Along with the apple cran, I added a pie of maple,
Which may well become a Thanksgiving staple.

At this bar, Talya couldn't believe her sight

It fueled Saiyid's ocean swim on that cold November night
And made Mav want to just take a big bite!Oh, what fun times this crew does create,
And so much pie for one little plate!

Portland Pies: Thanksgiving 2007

apple and maple pie, fresh from the oven

For the third year in a row, I spent The #1 Pie Day of the Year (Thanksgiving) in Portland, ME with Robert & Talya and the Portland crew. The first year I made a maple walnut pie, last year I made a cranberry pie, and this year I baked two: a maple pie and an apple pie. Talya made a delicious pumpkin.


The apple pie was pretty standard...I used Northern Spy apples and improvised the filling--brown sugar, a bit of flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and lemon juice. For the crust decor, I cut out and added a turkey with my turkey cookie cutter.

I got the recipe for the maple pie from Epicurious, but modified it just a tad. Here's the recipe I used: 

Maple Syrup Pie 
Ingredients: 
Pie crust 
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup heavy cream (I used 1/2 half and half, 1/2 whipping cream)
1/3 cup pure maple syrup, grade B
2 teaspoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Roll out crust and place in pie dish. I used a turkey cookie cutter and placed cut-out turkeys all around the perimeter of the crust.
3. Whisk together brown sugar and eggs. Add cream, syrup, and butter, and whisk until smooth. Pour filling into pie shell.
4. Bake pie until crust is golden and filling is puffed and looks dry but still shakes, 50 to 60 minutes. Cool, Enjoy!

We topped ours with whipped cream. The pie is already so sweet, I would recommend not sweetening the whipped cream.

Everyone LOVED this pie, which was a pleasant surprise! Next time I'd like to try making it with all maple syrup and no brown sugar.

The dessert table, with the maple and apple pies and Talya's amazing Ukranian cookies. The pumpkin pie was on the 2nd tier of the dessert table!

High on pie, we made up a little song about them: