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While pictures say a thousand words, it wouldn’t be fair to simply show you the photos of our fantastic “Pie Day with Trudy” without more information…

The mere thought of Thanksgiving makes us think of Trudy and her pies.  While her pumpkin pie is divine, it is her cherry pie that leaves my kids and I yearning for next year, even when this one hasn’t ended yet!  Sadly, Trudy won’t be joining our Thanksgiving Feast this year, but she recently spent the day with us to teach us how to make a pie of our own.

While we love to cook, we aren’t really bakers – so there was a lot of learning going on.  We used a slightly modified version of the basic pie crust recipe from the New Basics Cookbook (Rosso and Lukins).  When Trudy told my daughter to “smear” the dough, we looked at her as if she was speaking another language.   (Smearing is a technique used to blend butter and shortening into the dough with the heel of your hand.)  Regardless of our ignorance, her enthusiasm and patience even lured my son into the kitchen and away from the creative game he was playing.

Our dough ended up being a little more crumbly than we expected.  But Trudy ensured us that this would yield a light and flaky dough (she was right, of course).  We rolled out the dough the best that we could, and then used fall shaped cookie cutters to cut the dough into shapes that we placed on the top of the pie.  We baked a few of the leftovers on a cookie sheet, brushed lightly with egg white and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

We sealed the edges of the pie by moistening them with water and then pressing on small shapes of dough.  A few of my metal cookie cutters had specks of rust on them – I doubted that Trudy ever had that problem and asked her how she avoided it.  She said that after she washes them and dries them, she puts them on a plate and into a warm oven until they dry completely.  Genius!

We dished the leftover cherry pie filling into individual ramekins, topped them with a dough-maple leaf, and ate them for dessert that night.  The pie is wrapped tightly and waiting for Thanksgiving in the freezer.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that we could bake it frozen!  Aaah, all of the tips we never would have learned had Trudy not come over for Pie Day.

Do you have a Trudy?  What has she taught you?

I am deeply honored that this post is featured in the Holiday Roundup at Oprah.com.