Tag Archives: holiday pie recipe

Light and Bright Dot’s Lemon Sponge Pie

This lemon pie is just what your taste buds need after a big heavy holiday meal.
This lemon pie is just what your taste buds need after a big heavy holiday meal.

Anyone who knows me knows that I turn up my nose at pumpkin pie.

Yes, that may be sacrilege at this time of year.

But before you think me a pie snob, it’s just that pumpkin filling is too one-note for me. Instead, I prefer a pie with a little more spunk and personality.

Something exactly along the lines of “Dot’s Lemon Sponge Pie.”

This lovely pie with its light and bright character is just what you want to reset the palate after all that heavy turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes.

The recipe is from “Pie is Messy” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy.

It’s by pie doyenne Rebecca Grasley, with an assist from food writer Willy Blackmore.

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Cranberry-Pomegranate Mousse Pie For the Holidays

The perfect ending to Thanksgiving.
The perfect ending to Thanksgiving.

Dessert Person.

That’s the name of the new cookbook by Claire Saffitz, a New York-based pastry chef and former Bon Appetit test kitchen on-air personality.

It’s also how I would very much define myself.

Yes, I am one of those people, the kind who wholeheartedly doesn’t think a meal is complete without dessert — even if 20 savory courses preceded it. So, even after a mega feast like on Thanksgiving, I always look forward most to the sweet finale.

“Cranberry-Pomegranate Mousse Pie” is worth that wait, too.

As Saffitz acknowledges in her “Dessert Person: Recipes and Guidance for Baking with Confidence” (Clarkson Potter), of which I received a review copy, after a groaning holiday meal, you don’t necessarily want something especially heavy at the end. Nope, now that is not the time for bread pudding or cheesecake. What you want is something a little lighter, a little brighter, yet still pleasingly indulgent.

This pie is all that.

This recipe includes the best tip for making a graham cracker crust, too.
This recipe includes the best tip for making a graham cracker crust, too.

It’s one of the more than 100 exceptionally detailed recipes in the cookbook, which are imminently doable, and beyond tempting.

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Honey Pie For the Holidays

Imagine this on the Thanksgiving table.

Imagine this on the Thanksgiving table.

 

Call this the antidote to pecan pie.

Or at the very least, a most worthy alternative.

“Olivia’s Honey Pie” is plenty sweet and nutty. But not as dense and heavy as pecan pie. It also the added bonus of tasting gloriously of buttery, caramelized honey.

The recipe is from the new “The Beetlebung Farm Cookbook” (Little, Brown and Company) by Chris Fischer, of which I received a review copy.

Spanning five acres on Martha’s Vineyard, Beetlebung Farm is run by Fischer, who took it over when his grandfather passed away.

BeetlebungCookbook

Fischer is both a farmer and a cook. And what a cook, indeed. He was a sous chef at Mario Batali’s Babbo in New York City, and previously had stints at Fergus Henderson’s St. John Bread & Wine, and at the River Cafe in London. Fischer hosted dinners cooked over an open-fire at the farm before becoming head chef at Beach Plum Inn & Restaurant.

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