Beware this cook book contains under-developed recipes, lacks helpful instructions and weight measurements are not listed. (How big is a medium peach? If you guess too small, your pie will be inadequate and look deflated; guess too big and your pie will either overflow the pan while baking or you'll have left-over filling.) These are not deal-breakers for experienced pie bakers, but if you're just starting out, indecisions like this might just put a halt to your enthusiasm. And what a shame that would be, because pie-making-baking is a feel-good experience, loaded with satisfaction.
If you have other pie cook books and are looking for some new ideas, I suppose this one would work for you as there are some great ideas here. But, fair warning: Due to misleading and unclear directions, and incorrect and vague measurements, be prepared to engage your brain, call upon your past pie-baking experiences, and be on your toes and ready to improvise and adapt as you assemble and bake your pie.
If you are new to pie-baking, steer clear of this book until you have more experience. A much better choice for new pie bakers is
Pie: 300 Tried-and-True Recipes for Delicious Homemade Pie: In it there are at least 21 crust recipes, 300 pie recipes, all kinds of toppings, and with over 600 pages, you've got to know that it's jammed with plenty of tips, very helpful information and loads of variety. It contains innovative recipes, twists on oldies but goodies, and specialty (of inns, B&Bs, restaurants, etc.) pies. If you are interested in what I consider excellent instructions, descriptions and explanations, take a look through
Rustic Fruit Desserts: Crumbles, Buckles, Cobblers, Pandowdies, and More. The authors have done, what I consider, 5-star communicating.
In this "Not-So-Humble Pies" the crust recipes and the topping recipes are in separate chapters from the pie recipes. That would be fine IF page numbers for the crusts and toppings were listed in the pie recipe. You are advised to "see Chapter 1", "see Chapter 2". It would not have been hard to list the page number...so why not help the reader out? Seems as if the author didn't spend much time thinking about her audience...
I approached this cook book--and my review--from two different points of view: Mine and my husband's. I consider myself an experienced cook and I've read a lot of information about baking pies and I've made a lot of pies in my lifetime. My husband is not experienced, but he is very meticulous; so when he tackles a recipe, he finds success--IF the ingredients and measurements are accurate and IF the instructions are straightforward and precise. He struggled greatly with the recipes in this book. I struggled, too, but not so much.
The above is my review, but if you've got the time and would like to delve further into why I wrote what I did above, feel free to keep reading:
Working together with my husband, we picked out two recipes that sounded terrific. We started with a ricotta and blueberry tart with a free form crust. "Free form" seemed less intimidating to him. And the following story is an example of what's wrong with this cook book:
I stood back and watched carefully as my husband tackled the crust recipe. As he progressed, I realized that helpful suggestions and tips were almost totally lacking in this book. Questions arose: Is it an egg or an egg yolk? (In many instances in the book, an ingredient is described one way in the list and a different way in the directions.) Do you cream sugar and butter by hand or in the mixer? What does it mean to mix the dough until smooth--what about treating it lightly and quickly? The instructions could have advised him to form his dough into a disc, but they didn't--he formed it into a ball, wrapped it in saran and stuck it in the frig. Watching him try to roll out the dough from a ball shape got us both in a tizzy....Why didn't the instructions suggest that the dough could be rolled out directly on the parchment paper on which it would bake? He started up the oven, but didn't know to adjust the shelf to a lower level--the instructions didn't tell him that. He tackled the butter crumble topping next (see Chapter 2...), then realized it also had to sit in the frig for 30 minutes--the tart instructions didn't tell him that.
Then he measured the blueberries--one cup. That's it? If you don't understand what I'm saying, take a cup full of blueberries and dump them into a 9" pie pan: You will realize that a cup of blueberries is totally inadequate. Not knowing how the ricotta filling would react in the heat, we eventually decided on a cup and a half of berries, plus a cut-up peach to add some excitement. The pie could have accepted even more fruit before overflowing its crust. All in all, we decided the flavor of the tart was a little dull, but it's got a lot of potential and we'll make it again with more adjustments. We even got excited talking about how we could make this a great tart.
We also tried to make a peach pie with sour cream. (That's where we ran into 8 medium peaches....) To make a miserable story short: We used five peaches and ended up with too much filling (no biggie, but...). Most importantly: The timing and/or the temperature is way off and, even with cooking it longer and covering the top, we ended up with an undercooked, inedible filling and a burnt butter crumble top. The extra filling went into a small casserole dish, was left in the oven for the same amount of time and tasted great. So there is potential in this recipe.
Other observations:
-- The fig tart on the cover: Figs being what they are, this tart will have to be consumed in a day; so you'd probably make it for company. It's not very practical: Immediately before serving you have to cut the figs, assemble them on the tart, heat the apricot jam, brush it on the figs, then serve. Surely not an effort I want to make between dinner and dessert.
--The chapter of savory pies: A lot of the recipes just have you arrange ingredients on the crust and serve. Knowing how tomatoes leech their water, no way I'm going to assemble a salad of tomatoes, basil and mozzarella on a pastry crust and serve it. And I don't find seared ahi tuna sitting in a tart crust appealing either.
--While making the cheese and mushroom tart, I had to read the directions over and over again to figure out I was ending up short 1/4 cup of mushroom liquid. I believe the instructions meant "mushroom mixture" and not "mushroom liquid".
