Page 15 - Pie Squared

THE SUM OF ALL PARTS

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,
you must first invent the universe.

—CARL SAGAN

I’ve toted my signature sour cherry pie everywhere. I’ve made this
pie for summer parties and winter birthdays. It’s been double-

crusted, streusel-topped, or decorated with lattice or cutout stars.
The filling is barely sweetened. The cherries are suspended in a
glaze, clear and never gloppy. The bottom crust is crisp, not soggy. I
won a blue ribbon with that cherry pie. I am that person who makes
four, and more often six, pies for Thanksgiving. Until recently, every

one of those pies has been unapologetically round. It never occurred
to me to make a pie in any other shape.
In June 2016, while tossing around story ideas with Bonnie

Benwick, my editor at the Washington Post, she said, “How about a
slab pie?” A pie baked in a baking sheet. Even though I am an
experienced pie maker, I feared slab pie. I wasn’t sure I could
successfully roll out even my own trusted pie dough into a rectangle
large enough to drape over a baking sheet. As it turned out, it was

easier than I thought, and in many ways, more straightforward than a
round pie. For a few weeks, I became obsessed with slab pies. In
time, I wrote a story for the Post with a recipe that tucked fruit and

almond paste between two all-butter crusts (similar to Absolutely
Peachy Slab Pie, here).
The story made a splash. We heard from pie makers far and wide
sharing their admiration for the sheer functionality of a slab pie.
Certainly, I wasn’t the first to make a slab pie. Years earlier, Martha

Stewart rolled out a slab pie on her television show. They’ve