Three Dog Bakery

It’s a question that’s been debated by the likes of The Washington Post and on NPR: Why are cupcakes so popular? While the paper’s recipe editor theorizes that the cakes’ small size appeals to those seeking portion control, the radio pundits believe that the boutique cupcakes feel like affordable luxury in a time of recession. Perhaps the answer is simply that they’re delicious—especially those made inside Chicago’s dozens of noteworthy bakeries.

Until recently, for small-town Midwesterners moving to Chicago, the most stressful challenge wasn’t adjusting to public transit, avoiding vertigo when looking at skyscrapers, or refraining from shouting hello to everyone on the street. It was finding a quality slice of pie. Though a staple of heartland diners, grandmothers’ homes, and country-style restaurants, in city bakeries pies are often eclipsed by other dessert crazes (mojito cupcakes, maple-bacon donuts, etc.). Hoosier Mama Pie Company (1618 ½ W. Chicago Ave.), though, is solidly rooted in Midwestern tradition. Paula Haney, an Indiana native, a past judge at the Bucktown Apple Pie Contest (this year at 2 p.m. on October 20 at Holstein Park), and author of the brand-new The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie talks about the pie revival in Chicago and her tips for creating the perfect slice of apple pie. “Pie is huge at my house and in Indiana,” she says. “It was the first thing I learned how to bake.” Haney still believes in sticking to traditional recipes, and draws inspiration from Indiana picnics and the old pie companies of Chicago. For her, the most important thing when thinking about an apple pie is to master the basics first. “A mistake that a lot of people make,” she says, “is that they don’t get a good pie down before they start inventing. We have some variation in what we make here, and apple goes with so many flavors that there is so much you can do. But it’s best to get the basics and understand what makes that good before adding in all sorts of crazy ingredients.” THE CRUST The most important aspect of an apple pie is always the crust. Though the Bucktown Apple Pie Contest requires pies to have both top and bottom crusts, contestants are free to make their pastry dough however they choose. “We use butter [at Hoosier Mama], but I’ve had really good pie crusts with lard as well,” Haney says. “I don’t use it because I feel like it has less flavor.” She believes crusts should be flaky and just a little bit salty. Though she uses traditional flour for the base, it’s possible to make a healthier version too. “People like to add in whole-wheat flour, which can be nice, but they need to remember that it turns rancid very quickly. So they need to be sure to buy somewhere where it turns over quickly, and then store it in their freezer to keep it fresh.” THE APPLES Baking an apple pie isn’t a quick thing. “I’ve eaten a lot of raw pies,” Haney says. “Most apple pies should take at least an hour and twenty minutes to bake.” The choice of apple makes a big difference as well. “You need something that isn’t going to disintegrate. I use granny smiths, but before they’re ready I use a mix of a few varieties. It’s important to have that tartness to balance out that sweetness. That’s a mistake people make, where it is too one-note and flavors hit the same notes. A good pie should hit every spot in your mouth, with sweet, salty, and tart notes.” Hoosier Mama gets its apples in season from Ellis Family Farms in Benton Harbor, Michigan. “Last year,” she says, “all the granny smiths froze early in spring, so we ended up using prairie spy apples. It was actually really good, so we’re going to do more of a mix of apples this year.” There’s only one problem with this mix: the unusual shape of the prairie spies. “We have this floor-mounted hand-crank apple peeler,” she says. “This one guy in upstate New York makes them. But the prairie spy apples aren’t round so we end up having to do them by hand.” THE ADD-INS Once you’ve mastered the crust and nailed down the baking time for gooey yet slightly resistant apples, you can venture into less traditional apple-pie territory. “It’s really important that your spices are fresh and good,” she says. “It’s great that we can get ours locally from The Spice House (1512 N. Wells St.). It makes an incredible difference, and is a way to improve pies by 100% with no other skills necessary.” At her own shop, Haney experiments with whatever is in season to add a bit of novelty to her pies. “We do apple and raspberry with rosewater, apple with buckwheat honey, and apple crumb pies with whatever is seasonal. Apple is so great in that it really carries whatever flavor you put with it.” For those with three hours to spare and the desire to become a pie master, Haney’s new book, The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie, is an excellent starting point. Everyone else can stop by for a slice or the infamous Friday Night Pie Flights at Haney’s shops at 1618 West Chicago Avenue in Chicago or the soon-to-be-opened shop at 749 Chicago Avenue in Evanston. The Bucktown Apple Pie Contest returns for its ninth pie-tasting smorgasbord this year on October 20 in Holstein Park. Check back later this month for a special apple-pie recipe. Photo: © Brian M. Heiser

I’m not too much of a baker. I can wait while beers ferment and while cheeses brine, but I’m always vaguely suspicious of what’s happening in an oven when I’m not looking. I keep my baguettes to a sleek four or five ingredients. A pie recipe the length and complexity of a New Yorker article felt beyond my abilities. But that’s exactly why I wanted to challenge myself and recreate one of Paula Haney’s pies. We recently talked to Haney, owner of Hoosier Mama Pie Company (1618 W. Chicago Ave.), about what it takes to make the perfect apple pie. To illustrate some of her points, she gave us a recipe from her new cookbook, The Hoosier Mama Book of Pie: Recipes, Techniques, and Wisdom from the Hoosier Mama Pie Company. The recipe (which we’ve included in full at the end of the article) weighs in at around 1,000 words, but I’ve done my best to prove that non-bakers need not be intimidated. Luckily, it starts with a whole lot of not baking. Haney told us that she uses a lot of granny smith apples at Hoosier Mama. I don’t mind a fair bit of sweetness in a pie, though, so I chopped equal parts honeycrisp and granny smith apples with the doors to my kitchen open and Neil Young’s Journey Through the Past on the stereo. Next, you have to let those apples mingle with the sugar, lemon juice, starches, and spices that will pull out juice and give them added flavor. My apples seemed dry, and I was not at all confident any juice would come out of them. I’d skipped ahead and knew that I was supposed to have enough to put in a saucepan and bring to a boil, so I was concerned with the pathetic slick of juice at the bottom of the bowl. I left it all in a colander over a bowl for the recommended half hour and went to plant some daffodil bulbs in the freakishly warm October afternoon. When I got back, I found the bowl full of sweet juice, the smell of the Chinese five-spice powder coming playfully to life. (A note on this stuff: there are lots of websites that will tell you what you can substitute for it, but you can find it at most real grocery stores. If you put a bunch of Altoids or cinnamon in here instead, the pie is not going to taste right.) I’d been working on the pie for about 90 minutes at this point, and was well past “Are You Ready for the Country” and into Neil’s weird B-sides. The next step was thickening up that juice. Since it was already full of the corn and tapioca starches (added along with the sugar earlier), bringing the juice up to a gentle boil for a few minutes turned it a nice caramel color and gave it a surprising thickness. The whole house was already filling with the smell of the apple-and-spice syrup. This is around the time when people will start popping into your kitchen to see what’s cooking (possibly even if you live alone.) After boiling, you have to cool the stuff back down in the fridge. More waiting. While that was chilling, I prepared the crust dust and crust wash, which maintain the firmness of the bottom crust and help brown the top crust, respectively. I also got the bottom crust situated in my pie pan and preheated the oven. Getting the apples and cooled juice into the pie was easy. Personally, I rounded up Haney’s recommended tablespoon of butter for lining the tops of the apples. Then, I connected the top and bottom crusts. I started out crimping the edges too timidly, but that can leave the pie falling apart and without that nice crusty shelf of dough at the edge. Really get your thumbs in there and make sure you’re getting both halves of the crust. I debated cutting into the top crust of the pie festive seasonal shapes such as leaves or the inventor of the pumpkin-spice latte, but it seemed like too many things could go wrong. I’ll post pictures if I’m braver on my second attempt. Once the crust is attached, the whole thing goes in the freezer to firm up. You’ll want to look in there every once in a while and see if it’s doing anything exciting. But trust me, it’s not, and this pie takes long enough without the freezer opening every couple of minutes. Finally, it is time to kiss this chilly pie that you’ve spent about four hours on and send it off into the oven (preferably on top of a baking tray, my pie was leaking rather seriously). Remember to turn it every 20 minutes or so, but again, no need to leave that door hanging open. The success of this pie is pretty much out of your hands at this point. Then comes the first test. Take it out of the oven, and see if your kitchen smells amazing. It will. Mine also turned out surprisingly aesthetically pleasing. Not quite as nice as the ones at Hoosier Mama’s, but that is some fine crimping if I may say so. The hardest part, other than the five hours of work that will have gone into making the pie, is waiting another two hours to eat the pie. Haney recommends this in her recipe, and I can vouch that the pie will still be warm and delicious after two hours. Especially with a scoop of black-walnut ice cream on top. It’ll feel pretty nice to sit down, too. [Click here for Paula Haney’s full recipe.] Photo: © Groupon