Sonoma County experts share their advice on making stress-free pies for Thanksgiving

Editor’s note: This story was originally written for Pi Day, but these tips and tricks could help for Thanksgiving Day.

Since 1988, and officially in 2009, when it became a national holiday, Pi Day has been celebrated on March 14, because 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant digits of pi, the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

In honor of this mathematical constant, we are celebrating another kind of pie today: the sweet, soft comfort food baked in a circular pan and enveloped in a tantalizing sandwich of crusts and toppings.

For anyone who’s into stress baking during the pandemic but doesn’t want to add stress to their life, we gathered tips from our local pie bakers to help you find success and get over the fear of crust.

From the owners of Petaluma Pie Company to the pastry chef behind Chile Pies Baking Co. in Guerneville, the chefs shared insider advice on how to keep your pie crust flaky and your fillings delicious, along with some easy pie recipes even newbies can nail.

Pastry chef Jenny Malicki

Longtime Sonoma County pastry chef Jenny Malicki, who bakes pies for the Estero Cafe in Valley Ford and Chef Mark Malicki’s weekend pop-up at the Casino Bar & Grill in Bodega, provided three simple tips for pie perfection:

1. Make sure you keep the butter and the water ice cold throughout the process.

“The butter needs to be really cold,” Malicki said. “Make ice water and stick it in the fridge.”

Once you’ve put your pie together, slide it into the freezer for a half-hour before baking, to avoid slumping.

And if you happen to be baking during a heat wave, make the pie dough the night before, then bake the pie in the morning.

2. Don’t overwork the dough.

Use a light touch in bringing the dough together, or the overworked dough will make a tough-textured crust.

“Overworking melts the fat, so there are no more layers,” she explained. “Also, you don’t want it too dry or too wet.”

3. Roll and rotate as you go.

When you’re rolling out the dough, sprinkle the pastry mat with flour, then place the round disc of dough on top. Starting at the center, roll the dough away from you, then start in the center again and roll it toward you.

Then pick up the disc and turn it 45 degrees. Use a spatula if it sticks to the mat.

Repeat this process until the dough is 11 or 12 inches in diameter, then place a sheet of parchment on top, roll it up and refrigerate. Then roll out the second piece, roll it up with parchment and refrigerate it while you work on the filling.

Lina Hoshiro of Petaluma Pie Company

Co-owners Lina Hoshiro and Angelo Sacerdote recently celebrated the 10th anniversary of Petaluma Pie Company, where they have gained a loyal following for their sweet and savory pies.

During the pandemic, the small mom-and-pop shop has managed to survive with the help of Paycheck Protection Program loans. They also added local delivery and switched to pickup at the door of their shop in downtown Petaluma.

“We saw a big increase in our take-and-bake sales,” Sacerdote said. “Basically all our savory pies are available frozen, and that really spiked.”

The shop offers a lime pie and lemon meringue pie every day, made from the lemons and limes the couple harvests during citrus season.

“It’s kind of like a key lime pie,” Sacerdote said. “It’s like a classic condensed-milk one, so it’s creamy and dense and sweet. We do ours with a regular pie crust.”

The Lemon Meringue pie is a little more work, he said, because you have to make a lemon curd as well as the meringue topping. That’s often a challenge if you make a raw meringue and cook it, as it can weep on the bottom as it cooks.

“We switched over to an Italian-style meringue,” he said. “It’s a cooked sugar solution added into the whites as you’re whipping them, and it’s a lot more stable. Then you use a torch.”

Here are Hoshiro’s tips for “mindful” baking, which means sourcing seasonal ingredients locally to support the economy and ensure a gentler impact on the environment:

1. Choose produce that didn’t travel far to get to you. Local farmers markets are a good place to start. Citrus will be around for a little while, with strawberries on their way, followed by the stone fruits of late spring.

For the crust, the couple uses organic unbleached pastry flour from Central Milling in Petaluma, just a few miles from their pie shop. They buy their butter, cheese and eggs down the road, too: European butter from Straus Family Creamery, Estero Gold cheese from Valley Ford Cheese & Creamery and eggs from the free-range chickens at Coastal Hill Ranch.

2. Making your own pie crust with a food processor is quicker than a visit to the grocery store. With just a few ingredients and a few minutes of mixing and chilling in the fridge, the pie dough will be ready to roll.

3. Instead of placing a top crust on your pie, try making decorative dough “cookies.” Cut them out, bake them for 10 minutes and place them on top of your finished pie for extra flavor and visual appeal.

Wesley Monaham of Chile Pies Baking Co.

Pastry chef Wesley Monaham, who developed the recipes for the Chile Pies Baking Co. in Guerneville, said the main advice she has for pie baking is to let go of your fear.

“For some reason pie dough is really intimidating, and it really shouldn’t be,” she said. “It’s only a few ingredients.”

Like Malicki, she suggested keeping ingredients cold and not manhandling the dough. If you’re just starting out, try watching a few YouTube videos to get a sense of the physical techniques.

Monaham cofounded the pie company with Trevor Logan, who owned Green Chile Kitchen restaurant (and the original Chile Pies Baking Co.) in San Francisco before moving to Sonoma County.

“I was in the city for 24 years,” he said. “But I grew up in Oklahoma, which is where my pie thing comes from. Grandma made pie every weekend.”

His local Chile Pies Baking Co. opened in 2015 in the Guerneville Bank Building. It is well known for its signature pie, a Green Chile Apple Pie with a Cheddar Crust and Walnut Streusel Topping, inspired by the pies of Pietown, New Mexico.

Other popular pies offered at Chile Pies include the Lemon-Buttermilk Pie and Mexican Chocolate Pecan Pie, both available year around.

“There are lots of crumble tops, and they are not too sweet,” Logan said. “It’s more of a country style.”

Ironically, it was Logan’s pies that first drew the attention of the owners of Dr. Wilkinson’s resort in Calistoga, who wanted to open a healthy restaurant on the newly renovated property.

Logan is getting ready to open House of Better restaurant at Dr. Wilkinson’s Backyard Resort & Mineral Springs in Calistoga, where he will continue to offer New Mexican food and cook out of a wood-fired oven.

“The most exciting thing is that we have a chile roaster,” he said. “So we’ll be roasting our own chiles.”

He’s also bringing the recipes from the Chile Pies Baking Co., where the pies will be available by April 1.

“The pie was a labor of love as a tribute to my grandma,“ Logan said. ”But they have become quite beloved, and we have quite a following, due to Wesley’s passion and rustic approach.”

This recipe for an easy pie crust came from Wesley Monahan, who adapted it from a recipe by Sam Sifton of the New York Times. Keep the butter in the freezer, then grate it on a box grater.

Simplest Pie Dough Ever

Makes two 9-inch pie crusts

2½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) frozen butter, grated on a box grater

½ cup ice-cold water

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

Toss the grated butter with the flour and salt and rub the mixture gently with your fingertips until it feels sandy and pebbly. Slowly incorporate ½ cup ice-cold water and 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar.

Separate the dough into two equal parts and form it into two discs. Wrap with Saran wrap and let rest in the fridge for 1 hour.

Then use it as you would use pastry crust. It can hold in the freezer for up to a month.

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The following recipe is from Trevor Logan, owner of Chile Pies Baking Co. in Guerneville, and pastry chef Wesley Monahan.

Green Chile Apple Pie with Cheddar Crust and Walnut Streusel

Makes one 9-inch pie

For the crust:

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

⅓ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into dice

½ cup grated sharp Cheddar cheese

5 tablespoons ice water, plus more as needed

For the filling:

5 cups peeled and thickly sliced tart apples, such as Pink Lady, Braeburn or Granny Smith

½ cup chopped roasted green Hatch chiles, mild or medium hot (see note below)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup light brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon allspice

¼ teaspoon nutmeg, preferably freshly grated

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup cornstarch

For the topping:

½ cup all-purpose flour

½ cup finely chopped walnuts

¼ cup light brown sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Vanilla ice cream, for serving.

Make the crust: In a food processor or mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine flour and salt. Add butter, one piece at a time, while pulsing or mixing at low speed until mixture is fine and crumbly. Transfer to a large bowl and toss well with the cheese. Add ice water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with your fingers just until dough holds together. To test, pinch a small amount of dough. If it is crumbly, add more ice water.

Form dough into a ball, wrap loosely in plastic and roll into a disk. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, or up to 3 days, before rolling. (Dough can be frozen for up to a month.)

To assemble: On a lightly floured surface, roll dough into a circle at least 11 inches in diameter. Transfer to a 9-inch pie pan, preferably glass. Turn edges under to make a thick rim; flute rim by pinching into a zigzag pattern. Refrigerate until ready to bake, at least an hour.

Make the filling: In a large bowl, toss apples, green chiles and lemon juice together. In another bowl, mix dry ingredients and add to apples and chiles, tossing until thoroughly coated.

Make the topping: In a small bowl, mix flour, walnuts and brown sugar. Add melted butter and toss together until crumbly.

Bake the pie: Heat oven to 400 degrees. Using a slotted spoon, scoop filling into chilled crust, then drizzle with 2 tablespoons of juice from bottom of bowl. Sprinkle topping evenly over filling. Bake 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 degrees. Bake 30 to 40 minutes or until filling bubbles at edge and crust is brown. Serve warm, with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Note: Roasted green Hatch chiles from New Mexico can be ordered from newmexicanconnection.com and are sometimes found frozen in grocery stores. Or you can use drained canned green chiles.

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The following recipe is from Angelo Sacerdote and Lina Hoshino of Petaluma Pie Company in Petaluma. You’ll need to use your own favorite pie crust recipe to make this pie.

“Most lemon meringue recipes I have read call for a meringue made of sugar and egg whites and maybe some cream of tartar to be whipped up and put on top of the pie, then baked in the oven,” Sacerdote said. “It is hard to get a stable meringue this way, so we use an Italian meringue, which is essentially cooked as you whip it. Then you can toast it with a torch when you are done.

“You will need an instant-read thermometer, a mixer with a whisk attachment and a small torch. If you don’t have a torch, you can toast it in the oven or skip toasting altogether.”

Lemon Meringue Pie

Makes one 9-inch pie

For the lemon curd:

4 ounces butter

¾ cup sugar

Zest of 2 lemons

¾ cup of lemon juice

Pinch of salt

3 egg yolks

3 eggs

Italian meringue (see recipe below)

For the curd: Zest and juice the lemons. Carefully separate the yolks from the whites of three eggs. (If you break a yolk, you won’t be able to use that white for the meringue because the fat can prevent the whites from whipping properly.)

Put the butter, sugar, zest, juice and salt into a double boiler over medium heat until the butter melts.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the egg yolks.

While the butter mixture is still warm and liquid, slowly add it to the eggs, whisking constantly.

Using a rubber spatula, return the mixture to the double boiler. Continue cooking and stirring until it thickens.

For assembly: Roll your favorite pie crust recipe out in a tin. Using a fork, poke a lot of holes in the bottom and bake for 5 minutes at 325 degrees or until the crust just starts to puff up but is not yet brown.

Scrape the lemon curd out of the pot and into the crust. Continue baking for about 10 more minutes or until the crust is golden brown.

Remove from oven and allow to cool while you make your meringue.

Italian Meringue

Makes one 9-inch pie

1 cup sugar

⅓ cup water

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon agave syrup (corn syrup also works)

½ cup of egg whites

Put the egg whites in a mixer and whip on high. In a small pot, combine the sugar, water and agave syrup and place on the stove on medium-high heat right after you start the mixer.

You don’t need to stir after initially combining the ingredients. Keep an eye on both the mixer and the stove. In the mixer you want soft peaks to form. If the sugar solution is not ready, you can slow down the speed. Check the temperature of the sugar solution. When it reaches 242 degrees, remove from heat, set mixer to medium-high and pour the hot liquid into the meringue between the whisk attachment and the side of the bowl in a steady stream. Try to avoid hitting the whisk so you don’t splatter the sugar solution.

Continue mixing until glossy and firm. If you have a pastry bag with a decorative tip, you can put in the meringue and pipe it onto the top of the pie; otherwise, use a rubber spatula to transfer the meringue to the pie. You can shape the meringue with the spatula or a knife or spoon. It you like, torch it. It will smell like you’re toasting marshmallows.

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This easy recipe for a favorite pie in North Carolina is distinguished by its saltine cracker crust. It was adapted by Jenny Malicki from cookbook author Katie Workman, who based the recipe on the Atlantic Beach Pie made by Chef Bill Smith of Crook’s Corner in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Malicki adapted it by using local lemons and adding a pinch of salt to the filling to make it less sweet.

“I’ve made it with different types of citrus, but I always use some Eureka lemon juice in there because I think the acidity helps it set up,” she said. “You could use a combination of Meyer lemons and Eureka lemons right now.”

Atlantic Beach Pie

Makes one 8-inch pie

For the crust:

1½ sleeves of saltine crackers

⅓ to ½ cup softened unsalted butter

3 tablespoons sugar

For the filling:

1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk

4 egg yolks

½ cup lemon juice, preferably a combination of Eureka and Meyer lemons

Pinch salt (¼ teaspoon)

Fresh whipped cream and coarse sea salt, for garnish

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

For the crust: Crush the crackers finely but not to dust. Use a food processor or your hands. Add the sugar, then knead in the butter until the crumbs hold together like dough. Press into an 8-inch pie pan. Chill for 15 minutes, then bake for 18 minutes or until the crust colors a little.

For the filling: While the crust is cooling (it doesn't need to be cold), beat the egg yolks into the milk, then beat in the lemon juice and salt. It’s important to completely combine these ingredients. Pour into the shell and bake for 16 minutes, until the filling has set. Cool in the fridge (the pie needs to be completely cold to be sliced).

Serve with fresh whipped cream and a sprinkling of sea salt.

Staff Writer Diane Peterson can be reached at 707-521-5287 or diane.peterson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @dianepete56

Sonoma Magazine contributor Karen Kizer contributed to this report.