How to Make an American Pie

Pickup trucks, baseball, drag racing, and apple pie are a few things that are considered very American. Building a truck, sewing a baseball, and operating a street racing vehicle are all far outside my wheelhouse, which leaves me with no choice but to write a tutorial on making a pie. But given the innumerable apple pie recipes already on the internet, I thought it best to introduce a new type of pie, one that’s fruity, crunchy, creamy, and undeniably patriotic: the American Pie. Whether you’re celebrating March 14th or July 4th, if you’re looking for an easy and yummy treat that will be sure to please food connoisseurs and picky eaters alike, you’ve come to the right place!

Ingredients:

Fresh Strawberries and Blueberries (or any patriotically themed fruits such as raspberries, blackberries, or cherries) 

Graham Crackers

White Sugar

Heavy Whipping Cream

Pure Vanilla Extract

Butter

Supplies:

Metal mixing bowl (for freezer)

Another mixing bowl

Pie pan

Rolling pin

Mixer/hand blender with metal whisk attachment(s)

cutting board and knife

Before starting, put a metal mixing bowl and your whisk attachment in the freezer.

What’s a pie without a crust? For this pie, I thought it was best to make a good old-fashioned graham cracker crust, which makes a nice crunchy contrast with the fruit and cream that will go inside of it.

-       Put 9 graham cracker sheets (one pack) into a gallon zip loc bag and crush with a rolling pin until they become a fine powder

-       Put the ground graham crackers into a mixing bowl (not the cold one)

-       Mix 3 tablespoons of white sugar with the graham crackers

-       Melt 5 tablespoons of butter and pour it into the graham cracker and sugar mixing bowl

-       Mix thoroughly until it is wet and crumbly

-       Press the mixture into the pie pan, making a thin even layer on the bottom and sides (tip: I used a metal spoon to first push the mixture up onto the sides, and then pressed the bottom flat)

-       Place the pie pan in the refrigerator

The key to this step is drying the fruit well so that there’s no extra water in your finished pie.

-       Rinse the blueberries and strawberries

-       Set them out on a dishtowel to dry

-       Cut the strawberries into small bite-sized pieces, removing stems and white parts as you go

This step is where the chemistry gets real. In order to get the cream to the optimal level of fluffiness, it’s important to (1) keep everything very cold, and (2) stop whipping before you accidentally make homemade butter. My strategies here are to keep the bowl on the counter and try to only touch the rim, so that the bowl stays as cold as possible, and to do frequent taste tests once soft peaks form so that you stop whipping when your cream just barely reaches the desired level of fluffiness.

Fortunately, the worst-case scenario here is that you run to the store for more cream to finish your pie, and save your delicious homemade butter to use the next time you make a graham cracker crust 😊.

-       Get the cold mixing bowl out of the freezer

-       Add 2 tablespoons of sugar

-       Add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla

-       Add 1 pint heavy whipping cream

-       Put the cold whisks in the mixer and mix until the ingredients are light and creamy and stiff peaks are just beginning to form, stopping often to taste test

-       Get the pie pan out of the refrigerator (it should be pretty cold, so if it’s still warm because you chopped the fruit and made the whipped cream with superhuman speed, it might be best to wait a few minutes)

-       Spread a thin layer of whipped cream across the bottom of the pie crust

-       Cover the whipped cream with a layer of chopped strawberries

-       Add another thin layer of whipped cream

-       Cover that whipped cream with a layer of blueberries

-       Repeat this pattern (whipped cream – strawberries – whipped cream – blueberries) until you reach the top of the pie pan

-       End with a layer of whipped cream

This step is very open to creative interpretation. I opted for the classic American flag design, but if you’re particularly artistic and you can make a realistic rendering of a bald eagle using only chopped fruit, feel free to do so (and please leave a picture in the comments because that would be wildly impressive)!

-       Add blueberry to the upper left to make the star portion of the flag

-       Add rows of chopped strawberries to make the stripes

-       Chill in the freezer for at least 30 minutes before serving