So I got this crazy idea to bake 100 types of pies. Started with high hopes last Monday morning. Figured I’d knock ’em out easy since pie crust ain’t rocket science. Boy was I wrong.
First thing – made my shopping list. Needed mountains of flour. Mountains. Went through my whole neighborhood buying butter like some butter hoarder. Cashier eyed me funny when I dumped twelve blocks on the conveyor. Fruits? Don’t get me started. Blueberries, rhubarb, peaches – cart looked like a rainbow puked on it.
Set up my kitchen like a war zone Monday night. Rolling pins standing by, pie tins stacked taller than my toddler. Started simple with apple pie. Crust came out decent. Felt like a baking champ. Then tried pecan – burnt the nuts blacker than charcoal. Smelled like Satan’s kitchen.
Things got messy fast. Shepherd’s pie filling exploded everywhere when I pulled it out. Like a meat volcano all over my oven. Chicken pot pie? Couldn’t get the damn crust to stay put – kept sagging into the filling. Looked like sad soup in a dish.
Had some weird wins though. That vinegar pie thing? Tasted like sweet science magic. Key lime actually turned out tangy perfect. But then I tried making shoofly pie – molasses turned into sticky glue that welded my spoon to the bowl. Had to chisel it out.
By day three my kitchen looked bombed. Flour footprints tracked everywhere. Sink piled high with crust-crusted pans. Couldn’t see countertops under sugar drifts. My thumbs had blisters from peeling. So many potatoes for cottage pie. So. Many. Potatoes.
Started cheating near the end. Bought pre-made crusts for the weird pies nobody eats anyway. Like mincemeat – what even is that stuff? Looks like chopped-up nightmares. And that funny green Chicago mud pie? Threw in some mint extract and called it done.
Finally hit 100 yesterday afternoon with butterscotch cream. Crust cracks everywhere but whatever. Smelled heaven though. Now I got pie tins piled everywhere. Freezer’s packed solid with rejects. Dreamt about rolling pins last night.
What’d I learn? Pie crust’s sneaky evil. Fruit fillings bleed no matter what. My trash can weighs double now. And ain’t nobody needs this many pies – eating pie for breakfast lunch dinner all week. Wife says she’ll divorce me if I bake another blueberry.
Still glad I did it. Next project? Bread maybe. Or therapy.
