Tag: pie filling

Guest Writer: Maija Inveiss, Badger Herald

As long as I can remember, I’ve been in the kitchen. Imagine a little girl sitting on a kitchen counter, licking batter off of a spatula with chocolate smeared all over. That was me (slash that’s still me). I love baking pie. My signature recipe is this caramel apple streusel pie. It’s honestly one of the best pies in the world because it’s not too sweet or oily like some other pies you may try. It was one of the first recipes I developed on my own (well with the help of my mom’s streusel).

In my family, food means love, so by baking for someone it shows you care about them. We share everything food wise. If you came to our house, you would always be fed. It doesn’t matter if you ate already, you will eat something once you step through our door. I do the same thing to my friends whenever they come to my little college apartment. Most often they will get pie or other baked goods shoved into their mouths.

One of the things I remember always wanting when I was younger was cherry pie. Something about my mom’s cherry pie was the absolute best. Cherry pie is never the first dessert I order, but when it’s my mom’s, everything changes. We never made homemade pie filling, but still, it was always a good day when we had cherry pie. I remember thinking it was the most complicated recipe in the whole world – as if it was something super top secret – but in reality, it’s super easy.

Whenever we go to Michigan for summer camp, we always made a pit stop at Das Dutchman Essenhaus in Middlebury, Indiana. They have the best pie in the whole world. Essenhaus knows how to make amazing filling with fresh fruit. They’ve officially messed me up for all other pies. This is where my pie obsession began.

To me, the best part of a pie is the filling. In the end, as long as the crust is thin, the taste doesn’t really matter. You eat a pie for the filling. Making your own pie filling will always, 100 percent of the time produce a better pie. You should want to eat your filling with a spoon. If you don’t want to eat it plain, you’re doing something wrong.

While canned filling is still good, it’s just not the same. My number one pie tip for anyone considering making a pie is to make your own filling and just have fun with it. While some combinations are not the best, it’s fun to try new things. I tried putting bacon in my homemade blueberry filling, while it was not the best addition, it was interesting to think about and became a highly talked about topic among my friends. By far the best combination is chocolate banana peanut butter cream pie. Essenhaus got me hooked and now there is nothing better.

Pies are one of the avenues where bakers can be the most creative. Just think about the movie Waitress – it’s literally a movie about a person making weird pie flavors. Most people think of the classics: pumpkin, apple, key lime, lemon meringue and so many others. It’s so much more fun to just take ingredients and try something new. I am thinking that a s’mores pie could be really good, so that might be my next adventure either that or a funfetti birthday cake mash-up basically something that will satisfy my killer 22-year-old sweet tooth. End of the day, the secret to a great pie is delicious filling, creative combinations and friends or family who are ready to go on baking adventures with you.

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About the Author

Maija Inveiss is a senior studying journalism, strategic communications and French at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Taking her love of baking and journalism, she has created the column “Get Baked” in the Badger Herald, which features her misadventures in baking and love. On a weekly basis, she creates brand new recipes. She loves cheesy baking puns, laying out in the sunshine, stress baking whenever possible, trying to convince her roommates to let me get a cat and trying new restaurants around Madison!

Follow Inveiss on Twitter.

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