How many bakers does it take to bake a 𝝿?

Pie is celebrated worldwide on March 14 because of the funny juxtaposition of the word pie and the abbreviation 3.14 for the date, with is also short of Pi (𝝿), the mathematical number. A nerd joke became a pretext to innovate and celebrate a dish as old as time.

While pie can mean a million things – including, in the US, pizza or, in Greece, phyllo buns drenched in milk – it is mostly understood as a flaky crust (made from butter/lard and flour/cookies) that is easily broken by a fork’s tines, filled with fruit, veggies, eggs, meats, custards and more. Basically, everything can be baked into a pie. With different toppings or bases come different names: crumble, cobbler, tart, galette. 

In the US alone, the (shelf stable and frozen) pie market was estimated at USD2bn in 2022 and it is believed that it is driven by strong emotions of nostalgia and comfort. Pie appeals to all: baby boomers and retirees, millennials, Gen Zs. Outside the home, pie is the third-most common dessert offered on restaurant menus, according to Datassential. 

Some of the most famous – and historically resilient – pies include apple pie (French or American style), mince pie (a British delicacy that contains no ground meat, in spite of its name), cherry pie (a favorite of Queen Elisabeth I), rhubarb pie, chicken pot pie, quiche lorraine (a French savory dish), pumpkin pie (an autumn staple) or lemon meringue pie (with its American star, Key Lime pie).

The last decade brought forth a plethora of new recipes, from rediscovered Depression-era flavors like water pie to upscale New York restaurant innovations like crack pie (from Momofuku Milk Bar). Novelty (for pie) ingredients like purple potatoes, vinegar, matcha, black sesame, or miso found their ways into fillings. Tik Tok trends raised some of them to prominence. Here are some of the most famous ones and how they fared when they made it into bakeries or shelves.

Milk Bar Pie (formerly Crack Pie)

One of the most revolutionary pies invented in the past decade is the Crack Pie created by Christina Tosi from Momofuku Milk Bar in New York. Made from extremely affordable ingredients – oats, powdered milk, corn meal and a few other pantry staples -, the pie was first a dish for the family meal (the staff meal) at the famous restaurant opened by David Chang. It caused such a stir, Tosi said, that it became a menu item. Initially it was called Crack Pie, a joke about how addictive it was (crack is a type of cocaine), but following social criticism about how the name derided the struggles of those facing real addictions, it was renamed Milk Bar Pie. It is still one of the most popular items at Momofuku Milk Bar – it costs USD53 and it’s delivered all over the US – and its recipe is public on the restaurant’s webpage, for those with the patience and skills to reproduce it at home. 

Water Pie

Sounds like a joke, but this is proof bakers can make delicious things out of anything. Made from a deep-dish pie crust, water, sugar, flour, butter and vanilla, all baked together, the water pie has been a darling of the internet in the past years, especially after some Depression-era or retro baking Tik Tok accounts started testing it and promoting it as a very affordable – and significantly less complicated than the Milk Bar Pie – dessert that can be made by anyone at home. Some other versions popped up too: Sprite Pie, for example, just replaces water with the lemon-lime flavored beverage. While this is a quintessential home baking recipe, craft bakeries started making it and selling it in shops or online, such as Unbutton Pies in Las Vegas, Nevada, where it costs USD15. From the same vein comes the Old Fashioned Vinegar Pie, which counts on vinegar to give the final product an acidic kick without using citrus, which was not available during harsh economic times. The custard is made of eggs, sugar, butter, vanilla and vinegar and is baked directly into the crust. This, however, hasn’t made it into bakeries, probably because of the not very appetizing name. 

Asian Flavors

Matcha, black sesame and miso became more popular as Asian cuisine made its way into the mainstream of Western world. They create new flavor profiles and offer exciting new experiences to adventurous eaters.

Matcha Pie

On a wave of health-conscious desserts arrives the Matcha Pie, an essentially simple custard pie flavored with matcha, the coveted powdered green tea from Japan. Its prominence rose at the same time with the one of matcha latte, a milk drink featured by lifestyle, nutrition and social media. While it looks deceptively simple, actually achieving a balanced flavor – with the freshness of green tea, but without the bitterness – requires delicate calibration and skills for bakers and manufacturers. Because good quality matcha is an expensive ingredient, matcha pies are premium products that sell for around USD50 in upmarket bakeries such as Elijah Pie in Singapore, My Vegan Pie in San Diego, California, or Four&Twenty Blackbirds in Brooklyn, NY. But the flavor can also be found in shelf stable form in convenience stores and supermarkets, such as the handheld matcha pies from Orion or in KitKat wafers available in APAC.

Read the rest of the story in the second 2024 issue of European Baker & Biscuit.