Pie, on a deadline!

April 18, 2012 1:02 PM

Last-minute pie baking ideas needed!

I'm in a wedding on Saturday, for which it has been requested that I bake a pie. This is great! However, due to bachelor party and rehearsal stuff, I won't have much time on Thursday & Friday to bake, so I was thinking of making a pie tonight.

My initial idea was a key lime pie, but I don't think that custard and meringue would store very well. Apple pie seems prosaic/likely that someone else bakes one, and, well, thought spiral.

1. Will a stored key lime pie be good on Saturday? Could I make the filling & meringue, then bake later?
2. If not, what are some pies that I can bake and store/freeze for a couple days. I'll have an evening to make it tonight and maybe half a day tomorrow for final baking, if need be.

(If anyone suggests a pre-made pie crust or canned pie filling, I will personally ensure you are thrown in a dumpster.)

posted by Turkey Glue to food & drink (20 answers total)

Sweet potato pie is a damn fine, storable pie. Also, not something easily found in commercial bakeries. Since you are in Michigan, I assume that a cherry pie is prosaic too?
posted by jadepearl at 1:06 PM on April 18, 2012

Key lime pie doesn't have custard or meringue. You're thinking lemon/lime meringue pie. Key lime pie is just key lime, condensed milk, egg yolks and sugar; not cooked on the stove. It holds up really well in the fridge, unlike meringue. Or you could do the custard part of the lemon meringue pie and beat the egg whites & bake it right before. I wouldn't freeze either one, though.
posted by supercres at 1:06 PM on April 18, 2012

Oh, sorry. Google image search tells me that it often does. Sorry about that. Anyway, a key lime pie without meringue (the only way I've ever had it) would probably be fine.
posted by supercres at 1:07 PM on April 18, 2012

Chess Pie
posted by mkultra at 1:13 PM on April 18, 2012

I like the key lime pie idea. If you wanted to make a non-apple fruit pie, I think most would store well, providing the filling didn't get too watery. Other suggestions: pecan or lemon chess.
posted by constellations at 1:17 PM on April 18, 2012

It's spring! Make a strawberry pie! I prefer recipes like this one that don't use strawberry flavored gelatin.
posted by shornco at 1:18 PM on April 18, 2012

Peanut butter pie! It's even better frozen!
posted by cooker girl at 1:20 PM on April 18, 2012

Lemon Ice Box Pie is a Southern classic, but there are lots of other varieties of ice box pie (lots of recipes on the Google), meant to be stored in either the fridge or freezer after preparing. These would require refrigeration at the party location until time to serve, however.
posted by SweetTeaAndABiscuit at 1:22 PM on April 18, 2012

Yeah, I make key lime pie that is key lime juice and sweetened condensed milk (no eggs!) topped with whipped cream. It's super super easy, never fails to please, and would happily keep for a couple days.
posted by Specklet at 1:24 PM on April 18, 2012

Fresh strawberry pie is good because you can make the crust and cut up the strawberries tonight, and both should keep fine for a day or two (crust could be frozen). Then the day of the wedding you just make the sauce on the stovetop, pour it over the strawberries, and let it set in the fridge.

Delicious, slightly unusual, seasonal!
posted by Ausamor at 1:28 PM on April 18, 2012

I heartily recommend Sweetheart Fudge Pie. My mom's been making it since it turned up in a magazine (Southern Living?) in the late 80's, and it's the decadent favorite of the whole family, absolutely required by my stepdad on Valentine's day.
Texture-wise it's halfway between a chocolate custard pie and the center of underbaked brownies. Rich and delicious (use real rum or Kahlua if you want). Remarkably durable for transporting, doesn't need refrigeration, rich enough that one pie could feed 12, firm surface is accident-resistant but if anything goes wrong you can cover it in whipped cream.
posted by aimedwander at 1:40 PM on April 18, 2012 [2 favorites]

The key lime filling will hold up nicely in the fridge, however, I'm afraid making it this far ahead will make the crust soggy by Saturday.

Ausamor has it right, make/freeze the crust and filling tonight and assemble on Saturday morning. Fruit pies would work well and I just did this with a coconut cream pie on Easter. Made everything on Friday and assembled on Sunday.
posted by sarajane at 1:51 PM on April 18, 2012

I like the idea of pre-baking the crust and making the filling! However, I'm staying at a camp on Friday night, and I don't think the bride and groom want anyone cooking on Saturday (I have this tendency to take forever cooking increasingly ambitious recipes.)

I'll have to check with them. Failing that, I can pre-assemble and bake Friday morning.
posted by Turkey Glue at 2:28 PM on April 18, 2012

I make Shaker Lemon Pie and it holds up well. Its flavor is like marmelade, though, so if folks don't like any bitter in their pie, they won't like it. It's best eaten with vanilla ice cream or something.

I use Meyer lemons or Ranjpoor limes so it's a little sweeter.
posted by small_ruminant at 2:31 PM on April 18, 2012

My mom usually makes her Thanksgiving pies--all six of them--on Wednesday or even Tuesday, and we don't have our Thanksgiving dinner until Friday, so they keep well. (In fact, I don't recall that they even just refrigerated--I think just covered in wax paper and foil and put in a corner for a couple days....)

In addition to pumpkin, there's usually a pecan pie, a chocolate-bourbon-pecan pie, and a pumpkin cheesecake; this year there was a cranberry-walnut pie as well. Pumpkin's really the only one I think of as being seasonal, though of course it's also the only one that's even remotely safe for the nut-allergic... There are probably a variety of recipes available for all of 'em, but feel free to message me if you want ours.
posted by FlyingMonkey at 2:41 PM on April 18, 2012

How about a custard pie? They store just fine in the fridge, in my experience. Coconut's easy enough (don't seem to have the recipe I used last time bookmarked, I think I just used Bittman or Best Recipes or something, sorry!) and here's a recipe I like for apple.
posted by maryr at 3:07 PM on April 18, 2012

PS: I mean to say that custard stores just fine, I think, if you have a fridge.
posted by maryr at 3:08 PM on April 18, 2012

I already had the key limes, so I've made the crust and filling. I'll post with how well it works!
posted by Turkey Glue at 8:22 PM on April 18, 2012

Too late, but chocolate chess stores wonderfully as long as you keep the crust from picking up fridge funkiness. (I assume this applies to any crust stored in the fridge.)
posted by anaelith at 8:38 PM on April 18, 2012

Final update: I assembled the pie, baked it, and made a batch of whipped cream as topping (in lieu of meringue) on Friday. I topped the pie with whipped cream on Saturday afternoon, and by the time I went to have a piece, it was all gone.

The key lime filling looked good and my pie was the first finished out of maybe a dozen, so I call the weekend a success!

(I'll try some of the pie recipes in this thread sometime, but I'll probably bake another key lime pie first; I had none, and I'm a good cook, so I've got a key lime jones.)
posted by Turkey Glue at 8:24 PM on April 23, 2012