Bakery Pies

jlmarta

I'm not much of a 'cake guy' but I do love a good piece of pie occasionally. 

Anybody ever notice how bakery pies are slowly going the way of the dodo bird?  I mean good bakery pies as opposed to those that are mass-produced and frozen. They're gradually regressing almost to the point of being inedible. 

I grew up in the era of homemade pies. The kind with the thin, flaky, buttery crust. That was before you could buy mass produced pies in many varieties. Have you looked at the crust of a bakery pie nowadays?  The piece of pumpkin pie I just finished had a crust about 1/4" thick. That's not a crust - it's a mortar bed. 

In our area there are a couple major supermarkets. They're both owned by the same company but they each have different names. Actually, the company owns a third line of markets but we don't have one of those around here. The two that we have each have a bakery and a deli. One of the stores is a little more upscale than the other, price wise. You'd think that a pie produced in either of these bakeries would be better than a frozen pie that's mass produced by some company but that's not the case. They're all about equal, crustwise. Thick slabs of dough with no buttery flakiness to be had. It's a crying shame. 

Are people simply unlearning how to make an edible piecrust?  Maybe bakeries have figured out that the ingredients to make a crust are less expensive in terms of volume than the ingredients to make a filling and they're just filling up space with the cheaper material. 

Anybody have any opinions regarding pies and/or piecrusts?  

LiquidChaos66

I no longer eat pies that aren't homemade anymore. I used to enjoy Marie Calendars frozen pies from time to time but their quality has dropped along with the rest of them. Sheri's pies aren't too bad but not great.... they get the job done in a pinch.

My wife started to bake pies a while back and has since developed an amazing pie crust recipe. She learned off of several different recipes.... Julia Child and I want to say one from Americas Test Kitchen.  She has since twisted and changed it to her own likings. By far the best crust I have ever had in a pie.

Kids these days need to learn how to bake. IMO.

peter4jc

I'm at a Perkins every Wed for a Bible study, and they make all their own pies, cookies, and muffins in house.  But it's so obvious that they don't make the pie crusts from scratch; you can tell just by looking at them.  The sad part is that it doesn't take much to make a great crust.  Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Yakster

I'm lucky, my youngest likes to bake pies. 

miller65rod

I like "Pie"

twistedstem

miller65rod said:

I like "Pie"

cbuck

I knew this was going there! It was just a question of when!

jlmarta

cbuck said:

I knew this was going there! It was just a question of when!

Yeah. Some of these guys only think about something to eat.. 

Albinfk

My wife makes the best pie and pie crust in the world. Handed down from her grandmother. Totally from scratch.

MikeTodd

There is only one kind of pie for me...

Amos_Umwhat

Amos_Umwhat

Made this one a couple years ago, home-grown cherries.  My first attempt.

jlmarta

Amos_Umwhat said:

Made this one a couple years ago, home-grown cherries.  My first attempt.

Looks pretty yummy, my friend. Definitely not a bakery pie....  

Amos_Umwhat

What's funny is that the reason I made it was the same as your reason for starting this thread.  No good pies out there.

jlmarta

Guess I'm gonna have to learn to make a decent crust. I watched my mother enough times - you'd think I would have learned something. But noooooo, young macho me wasn't gonna do any cooking......  

Usaf06