08 Pies And Tarts Food

08: PIES AND TARTS

Steps:

• Pies have been a favorite throughout the BakeOff® Contest, and many from the early days of the contest are still popular, like 1949's Company's Coming Cashew Pie, 1951's French Silk Chocolate Pie and 1952's Caramel Candy Pie. Women didn't have the easy access to supermarkets that we have today, so most of these early recipes could be made out of ordinary pantry ingredients. The pies of the 1960s tended to be fluffy, pretty creations, like 1960's Chocolate Dream Pie or 1964's Strawberry Devonshire Pie. The 1970s for the most part were not an innovative time for pies, but saw the rise of "squares," pielike bar cookies. The most recent pies have shown a complex exploration and adaption of U.S. regional flavors, such as 1992's Pennsylvania Dutch Cake and Custard Pie, or 1994's Buttered Rum Banana Pecan Pie, which is a version of a New Orleans specialty.No matter what goes into dessert pies or tarts, smiles and delight are sure to result because, for all their complex variation, they are always the surefire crowd-pleasing combination of a crispy crust, something sweet and the cook's own creativity.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.