Pie Squared

THE SUM OF ALL PARTS

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 appeared in magazines and on blogs, and Pinterest is packed with slab pie images. It could be argued that baking sheet quiches, a staple of ’80s cocktail parties, were the precursor to savory slab pies.

It’s no wonder slab pies are welcome at potlucks, church socials, and neighborhood parties. In so many ways, there is no better contribution to a gathering than a slab pie. Slab pies are economical, easily transportable, and easy to portion out to serve a crowd.

Without even realizing it, I began to abandon the glass and ceramic round pie pans stacked in a drawer. The first slab pies I made were baked in a half sheet pan, 18 by 13 inches. Soon I realized that, while it might be the perfect size for a huge crowd, I wanted a slab pie that better suited the family dinner table. A different rectangular baking sheet, a quarter sheet pan 9 by 13 inches and just an inch high, fit the bill. And from that day forward, all my pies had corners: pie-squared.

I began to create recipes, playing with sweet and savory options. Over four months, I made 193 slab pies. At the end of my experimentation, after more than 70 pounds of all-purpose flour and nearly 60 pounds of unsalted butter, I had tweaked and nudged, tested and retested, until the crusts and fillings in the recipes that follow became utterly dependable and positively delicious.

To make a slab pie is not as straightforward as just doubling any old pie recipe. It’s a different pie altogether. Right off the bat, the ratio is different: It’s twice as much crust but only half as much filling. Along the way, I learned to approach pie making differently. I tweaked the seasonings, tinkered with the dough recipe, and learned to rely on a pattern of frequent chilling during the pie-making process.

Fruit pies were clear cut—add more fruit. Other sweet pies worked the same way, with more pudding, nuts, chocolate, or chiffon. The sweet pie recipes just needed a mathematical nudge.

Savory pies were different. Too much salt was catastrophic and too little was a crying shame. Seasonings had to be assertive. The fillings had to cook for just the right amount of time. And I wanted these mealtime pies packed with vegetables that were crisp and flavorful, not mushy and indistinguishable.

I set out to rework old favorites into Ham and Gruyère Slab Pie (here) and Chicken Pot Slab Pie (here) and soon moved on to other flavors I love at dinner, wondering how they might work when slipped between two layers of flaky crust. And while I considered sweet slab pies the ideal option for larger gatherings, savory pies were dinner and then the next day’s lunch (Beefy Empanada Slab Pie, here). Or savory slab pies were the phoenix rising out of a stingy collection of leftovers (Cowboy Beef Stew Slab Pie, here, and “The Reuben” Slab Pie, here). We learned to love pie for lunch, as though we were eating in a proper London pub.

Along with savory pies came savory crusts: cheddar-flecked, studded with caramelized onion, decorated with seeds, or with cheese scattered over the top. And then came the combinations. That’s the thing about pie. It’s very adaptable.

Each recipe offers suggestions for Swaps for alternate crusts, filling ingredients, and toppings. Consider the Southern-Style Tomato Slab Pie (here), where an alternative to the Cheddar Cheese Crust (here) is an All-Butter Crust (here). Or the Loaded Baked Potato Slab Pie (here), where a Pretzel Crust (here), pressed in, can substitute for the Caramelized Onion Crust (here), which is rolled out. The Banana Pudding Slab Pie (here) is luscious and traditional in a Vanilla Wafer Crust (here), but a Chocolate Wafer Crust (here) with a swipe of caramel raises this pie to a whole new level of indulgence.

A beautifully turned out pie is challenging without the right dough—one that is pliable, reliable, and, of course, delicious. My pie crust recipes are sized to fit the pan precisely, with a tidy crimp around the edges. The crust is flaky and crispy, sturdy yet tender, easy to manage, lattice, slice, and crimp. My favorite All-Butter Crust (here) swings from sweet to savory without skipping a beat and takes on flavorings generously. I hope it will become your favorite crust, too.

I am aware that there are doughphobics that walk among us. People for whom a terrible experience has so shaken them that they swear never again to make a pie. Slab pies may be a way back to pie. Keep in mind, pie making is a skill, not a talent. A person can learn a skill and perfect it with practice. I hope the Tools and Techniques section (here) will help you find your own personal rhythm in pie crust, the steady motion of the pin, the easy crimping, the insouciant slashing, all greeted with comfort and ease.

Nevertheless, I realize that some of you are not jumping on the rolled-out pie dough bandwagon no matter what I say. I’ve got you covered. Press-in crusts (here) will fit both sweet and savory recipes. Whether speculoos or Ritz, amaretti or saltines, crumb crusts stand in with no rolling pin involved. An Olive Oil Crust (here) is flaky and complements most savory fillings, and the Shortbread Crust (here) works magic with the sweet pie fillings.

While 4 cups of filling makes for a perfectly plump 9-inch round pie, a slab pie demands a generous 5 or 6 cups to assure a sufficiency of satisfying filling. Slab pies are 2 to 3 inches deep at the most, with squared edges and corners. They’re not like a round pie, where the filling might be twice as deep and the bottom crust is very slightly sloped at the edges. Some filling recipes tended to dry out when slabified. It took plenty of trial and error to find the sweet spot for thickeners where the filling has body, isn’t watery, and is never pasty or gummy. Seasoning is vital. Without salt, the filling can be lost in a sea of crust.

Many of these pies sport a top crust which makes for a much sturdier slice, particularly if you’re serving on paper plates. Lattice or cutout lids are icing on the pie, especially when the filling is extra juicy, as with cherries and blackberries. Turn to lattice or cutouts when a peek into the pie is part of the fun, as in the Just-Like-Artichoke-Dip Slab Pie (here). I’ve shown you some of my favorite lattices and coverings in the pages of this book, and how to do them here. Go ahead. Get fancy.

Slab pies are easier to portion, unlike extracting equal pieces from a round pie where the filling tumbles out and the top crust goes askew. And guests who want “just a sliver” create a whole other situation. Not so with a slab pie where pieces are square or rectangular and easily slivered or slabbed, portioning to meet the appetite. When your partner, roommate, kids, or neighbors show up at the table with a friend, I’ve given you a template for How to Slice a Slab Pie (here) to see just how easily these pies accommodate a crowd.

Change up your pie game with slab pies. Soggy Bottoms begone. Runny fillings won’t do. Tough, pale crusts are history. I’ve honed a few techniques along the way and they appear as tips throughout the book: tricks that make slab pies roll off your pin, bake up deliciously, and lift right out of the pan.

You might wonder what a cookbook author does when baking so many pies. So did I. Coinciding with my deep dive into slab pie, we moved to a condominium in a building with more than forty other units. In the first weeks, I was turning out three or four pies a day and soon began to send all-building emails with subject lines like Coconut Cream Pie on the way to the mailroom. Bring a plate. If you are planning a move, consider slab pie. It’s the ultimate in icebreakers; slab pies are community builders.

Make a pie, make a friend.