Pies & Tarts | Gourmandistan

Slice-resisting Strawberry Pretzel Icebox Pie straddles both sides of beach vacation

June 2, 2019 by Steve

Once again Gourmandistan was lucky enough to experience Dewees Island, a place we have grown to love over many years. Our route to this small South Carolina island always includes an overnight stay in Asheville, North Carolina, possibly the hippest place in the Tarheel State and now home to one of Michelle’s mother’s dear friends who was also Michelle’s favorite high school English teacher. In Asheville, we enjoyed another dinner at Chai Pani and left with homemade bread and Kilwins […]

Categories: Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit, Fruit Desserts, Pies & Tarts, Strawberries, Vacation

Possibly not concord grape jam tart puts Pop-Tarts® to shame

August 15, 2018 by Steve

We Gourmandistanis are quite the fans of Concord grapes. However, feeling it rude to shove our noses into the neatly closed boxes on offer at a farmers’ market, we failed to discover how un-aromatic some recently-purchased “Concords” were until we returned home. While the flavor of the purple globes was fine, they lacked the deep purple sheen, leathery skin and profound smell of true Concord grapes. It may be that folks around here describe every homegrown purple grape as a Concord. […]

Categories: Baking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit, Fruit Desserts, Grapes, Jams & Preserves, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

Blueberry crumble pie deliciously deals with juicy blueberries

July 10, 2018 by Steve

When it comes to fruit, “juicy” is usually a good thing. But we all know at times one can have too much of a good thing—and cooked blueberries are a prime example. A crisp, buttery cobbler or pie crust can be lost in an ocean of blue juice, quickly becoming a soggy mess. This crumble-pie combo does a nice job of balancing sweet blueberry ooze with crunchy crust and a crumb topping. It works equally well, if even more juicy, […]

Categories: Baking, Blueberries, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

Atlantic Beach Pie easily evokes the seashore with citrus and saltines

May 28, 2018 by Steve

We recently returned from another lovely trip with Michelle’s family to Dewees Island, South Carolina, where Michelle once again tried to eat fresh local shrimp each day. Charleston restaurants were of course happy to help, but as usual Michelle turned out several shrimp dishes herself, including shrimp and grits casserole, shrimp salad and, of course, our annual Low Country Boil. Peeling, deveining and cleaning the crustaceans is something Michelle finds especially distasteful, and we generally abstain from eating seafood away […]

Categories: Baking, Cooking, Crackers, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Lemon, Lime, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vacation

Hand jive, hand pies, doin’ that crazy good sour cherry hand pie

June 13, 2017 by Steve

While we do host both felines and poultry, Gourmandistan does not have a cat named Way-Out Willie, or a cool little chick named Rockin’ Billie. We’ll let others do that hand jive all over town. We’ll keep scarfing sour cherry hand pies down. We spotted sour cherries at the market a while back, and once again bought every last remaining carton from the farmer. Steve sat down and made an afternoon out of pitting cherries, reserving most of the fruit for […]

Categories: Baking, Cherries, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

St.-Paul de Vence walnut tart requires new pan, rewards much work

April 5, 2017 by Steve

Maida Heatter, in Maida Heatter’s Cakes, first published in 1982, says this walnut tart is “really a fancy cake.” While Gourmandistan is not about to jump into the fray between cakes and tarts (yes, we’re looking in your direction, tortes), we will say this walnut dessert is delicious—though somewhat of a pain in the ass. The tart (or cake, whatever) recipe caught Michelle’s eye ages ago because it supposedly came from St.-Paul de Vence. In 2007, during a wonderful splurge side trip from Provence, we spent some […]

Categories: Baking, Cake, Desserts & Sweets, Food, France, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Pies & Tarts, Vacation

Pecan Kumquat Tarts spring from salad, parking shortage

April 1, 2015 by Michelle

These lovely bits of sweet and citrus began with a recipe from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco we were unable to visit last time we were there because there was no place to park, a problem the wonderful city is still figuring out how to manage. They also arrived because of a salad Michelle told Steve about some time ago. Steve remembers it had lentils and/or cabbage and citrus, but as she described its potential deliciousness, Michelle took exception to the inclusion of raw citrus peel. Asked what he […]

Categories: Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Kumquats, Nuts, Pies & Tarts

Damson plums make some damn fine plum pie

September 12, 2014 by Steve

Except during our brief jaunt to Michigan, Gourmandistan has not seen many plums this year. While both of us remember plums picked from Kentucky trees in our youths, we don’t see them often in the markets—and we’ve been too lazy to ask the farmers why. (Though should any of you be reading this, we’d be happy to hear about it.) But we spotted a basket labeled “damson plums” at last week’s market and decided to ask about them. Our question turned into […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Old cookbooks, Pies & Tarts, Plums, Recipes

A pecan Patronus, surprisingly from the school of dark tarts

May 8, 2014 by Michelle

Before the Harry Potter police descend on Gourmandistan like a pack of Dementors at a Quidditch match, let it be said that Gourmandistan understands Patronus charms are not usually uttered by pecans. But we do feel pecans need some protection. Too often well-meaning kitchen wizards whip up pecan pies, imprisoning the nuts in sickly sweet sugar goo that sucks the soul from the nut. Especially if we’re shelling them ourselves, we Gourmandistanis want our pecans to be the star when we use them. […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Nuts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vegetarian