Home-Baked Flavor To Go

What’s for dessert this Thanksgiving? How about traditional homemade pies you can simply order and, in some cases, have delivered? While you focus on the turkey, someone else can slave over the pastry and peel all those apples. Here are a few people who make it their business to provide you with homemade pies straight from their kitchens.

Allyn Way-Daly of Sweet Comfort Farm in New Boston started baking when she was 8 years old. Two years ago she started Artful Sweets in her licensed kitchen, crafting radiant jams and jellies to sell at the farmers markets in New Boston and Peterborough.

She began with her grandmother’s 1945 lemon jelly recipe, then added cookies, pies and special cakes. Her beautiful pies can be found at the two markets or ordered directly. This Thanksgiving she’ll have apple, pumpkin, mincemeat, pecan, apple sour cream with walnuts and apple cranberry, and will fill special requests for other pies and cheesecakes. Call early, no later than the first week in November. Sweet Comfort Farm, Artful Sweets, 487-2028.

Sticky Fingers is a simple bakery, owned and run by Sarah Burt out of her redesigned Hollis kitchen. All her pies are specially ordered and delivered to her customers — warm, if possible.

Sarah also makes breakfast sweets, cookies and cakes, but pies are her first love, beginning with her unique cream cheese and butter pie crust. Her fruits come from local farm stands and her ingredients are all natural, the best available. You’ll find Penzeys’ sweet, fragrant korintje cinnamon in the pumpkin pie along with allspice, ginger and cloves.

For Thanksgiving there’s apple pie, made with three pounds of apples, or pumpkin, pecan and blueberry. Sarah also takes special orders for chocolate and coconut cream, lemon meringue and “whatever you would like!” And amazingly, for all that pastry, Sarah is slender as a rail. Order a week ahead for the holidays. Sticky Fingers, 465-2875.

Donna Sprague’s family has been working Huntoon Farm in Danbury since 1856. When she married her husband Phil in 1988, it was understood that he would help on the farm and, indeed, he has. For the past 10 years they have shared pie duties — Phil making the pastry dough and preparing the pie shells and Donna handling the filling and finishing.

Their pies can be found at the Huntoon Farm Stand one-half mile off Route 4, just east of Danbury Center, or Saturday mornings at the Wilmot Farmers Market. Thanksgiving offerings include apple, mincemeat, mixed berry (strawberry, blackberry, raspberry, blueberry), strawberry rhubarb, raspberry, cherry and cherry-rhubarb. Be sure to order one week ahead. Huntoon Farm, 768-5579.

Love the smell of an apple pie in the oven but dislike the prep work? Then consider Just Like Mom’s Pastries on Route 114 in Weare. Karen Car has been baking for others for 18 years, but 14 months ago decided it was time to open a bakery location. She sells her pies to three farm stands in the area — Dimond Hill, Bouldervale and Devriendt — as well as to bakery customers and restaurants. For Thanksgiving you can order apple, three versions of pumpkin and other pies. All the two-crust pies can be bought frozen. On Thanksgiving you simply remove the wrapper, put your frozen Just Like Mom’s pie in a preheated 400°F. oven and in one hour you have the wafting fragrance of your home-baked pie ready for a scoop of ice cream. How good is that? Just Like Mom’s Pastries, 529-6667

Twelve Pine Restaurant & Gourmet Marketplace is located in a turn-of-the-century railroad warehouse at Depot Square in Peterborough. Known for its organic foods, artisan breads and its roast coffees, it’s a popular foodie stop. Just about everything is made on the premises.

Chef Sven Green has been working at Twelve Pine for nine years and shared its Thanksgiving offerings — apple, pumpkin, pecan and chocolate cream pie, as well as a pumpkin cheesecake. The highlight this Thanksgiving will be a semifreddo, an Italian “half-cold” (partially frozen) dessert. Sven’s version is a chocolate pistachio cheesecake on a crumb crust, topped with Sven’s real Italian gelato topping. The semifreddo is purchased frozen and allowed to defrost briefly before serving.

Twelve Pine also offers a complete turkey dinner that includes an organic-raised free-range turkey. Twelve Pine Restaurant & Gourmet Marketplace, 924-6140

Finally, if you’re a traditionalist and want to bake your own apple pie, here’s an outstanding recipe that my mom, Pauline Medico, let me make in a little custard cup when I was a young child baking beside her. At 93 and still fiercely independent, she continues to cook and bake daily, trying new things and staying tuned to what the chefs are doing on the Food Network. This recipe has a very tender crust that must be worked quickly, and the simple, all-American apple filling says a lot about good Yankee recipes. NH

Frisky Stal is partner in Stal McLane in Manchester, and is absolutely passionate about food.

Mom’s Apple Pie

Double Pastry Crust

2 cups flour
3/4 cup shortening
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons ice water, approximately

In a large bowl add salt to flour. Cut shortening into flour mixture. Add 5 tablespoons water and mix quickly, adding more water until you have a soft dough. Split dough and roll out bottom crust on a floured board. Roll around pin and roll out over 9-inch pie plate. Press lightly into sides and bottom and prick crust lightly with a fork. Roll out top crust and reserve.

Filling

5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and sliced
2 heaping tablespoons flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 1/2 cups sugar, depending on tartness of apples and personal preferences
Butter, milk

In a large bowl mix apples, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar, coating apples well. Fill pie shell with apple mixture. Dot with pieces of butter (about one tablespoon). Cover with top crust. Trim crusts, leaving about one inch of overhanging crusts. Press two crusts together around edges and wrap lower crust over top crust and flute edges. Vent. Rub a little soft butter on top crust and sprinkle with a little milk. Bake in a preheated 425°F. oven for 15-20 minutes, until top is lightly browned. Reduce heat to 325°F. and bake 40-60 minutes. Remove carefully and cool on a wire rack. NH