56 Comments

The pie in this thread is STRONG.

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While cake has an appropriate time and place... Pie all the way. It has much more textural complexity and there’s just something about flakey crust... it’s like a ship that carries the filling safely home (into your mouth). Also cake can’t do more than one thing- be sweet. Whereas with pie, it can be savory, like quiche or a galette. God, now I really wanna make a pie. The act of making pie is also much more soothing and ritualistic than cake in my opinion. For anyone out there who wants to make a perfect pie but has really screwed the pooch in the past buy one of Erin McDowell’s books. She’s the queen of pie!

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Holly Moore, I agree with you about cake's lack of complexity almost 100%, but this weekend I had the best carrot cake--nutty with sizeable shreds of carrot in the cake, and with that glorious, just sweet enough cream cheese frosting. But I ask myself, does carrot cake really count as cake? My kids sure don't think so! (And for the most part, I am a pie person. Oh, the ship that delivers the filling safely home. You are a poet!)

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Carrot cake is like the exception to the rule. I did make a sticky apple cake recently that was also exceptionally good and pretty complex- nutty, pancake like flavor but with sticky chewiness from the apples. Cake is kind of like a hot girl- looks good but lacks depth most of the time. There’s also something about human touch being involved in pie making for me (using a food processor to make pie dough is blasphemous imo)

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Cake = hot girl. LOL. You nailed it. But there's more to some hot girls than meets the eye.

Oh, my husband bought a food process for the express purpose of making pie dough! I want to throw it across the room. It's so big and noisy and completely superfluous. I'm with you, I like to get my hands in there.

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Exactly, sticky apple cake and carrot cake are the hot girls that are also deep and complex- there’s just few and far between. I view the food processor as getting in the way of developing good dough technique by hand. You don’t have to churn the butter or grind the flour- the least you can do is make the dough by hand!

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Sticky apple cake and carrot cake are the Sarah and Nancy of cakes!

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My grandad used to say that he only liked 2 kinds of pie: hot and cold. I take after my grandad in this regard.

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In season strawberry rhubarb pie with just enough orange zest to make it pop! That's a springtime pleasure!

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I believe the correct answer is "cake AND pie".

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Pie. I tend to romanticize foodstuffs I can’t make myself competently. Plus, if there’s anything better than pecan pie I haven’t seen it.

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I refuse to choose! No, no, a thousand times no!

I have strong likes for both.

However, if I have to choose just one particular one, it has to be pecan pie! I have an obscene sweet tooth and deep roots in the Deep South and you will pry my Kayro syrup pecan pie from my cold dead hands.

I am partial to this recipe (thanks to my uncle for sharing it with me).

https://12tomatoes.com/grandmas-pecan-pie/

And I like to make this delicious (and easy to work with) crust.

https://littlespoonfarm.com/sourdough-pie-crust-recipe/

Worth having sourdough on had to make it for all kinds or pie, quiche, etc.

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Not going to bother giving you a crust but here's the filling!

1 unbaked or par-baked 9-inch crust

2 cups pecan halves

4 eggs

1 cup dark Karo syrup

1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar

6 tablespoons salted butter, melted

1 1/2 tablespoons pure vanilla

Pour pecans into crust. Set aside.

Whisk together remaining ingredients. Pour over pecans. Bake at 350 for about 1 hour, until there are a few cracks on top and center is set but not hard; you want to start checking about 50 minutes

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I am from Texas, this is the correct answer ;) You know your pie!

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Honestly I don’t think I can choose. However, I am not in the US and think that Amercans really do the best pies - so much variety! When I visit one of my goals is to eat as much pie as I can! Where I am I mostly only saw and ate apple pie.

Last year I made a pecan pie for a thanksgiving dinner (more of a themed event for us non-US people) which I still dream about...

Mostly I make cakes, simply cannot get enough! I like to collect interesting recipes - the weirder the better. I have one that uses a banana peel.

I do make a lot of savoury pies though, including the pastry. There’s something about a burnished golden crust that you cannot beat. This weekend I will be making a quiche lorraine - does quiche count as pie?

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Huh? I don’t know if quiche counts as pie…

You’re making me hungry!

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Thank you. I will try it for Thanksgiving (and my birthday that weekend!)

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Karo 4-ever (I make a mean pecan pie)

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I have no doubt! I’m an adequate home cook, but I bet your pecan pie is killer!

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Both- forever and ever!

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Ahhhh! Cheesecake! And if you’re in the nyc/bk area, go to Martha’s Country Bakery in Williamsburg (Bedford & N1 location) 🤤 https://instagram.com/marthascountrybakery

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This is a brilliant workaround!! It’s kind of a pie like cake!

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😂😂😂

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First of all, where is that photo from?!?

I was a cake person growing up, definitely now a pie person. (I'll happily make an exception for carrot cake; just something about that frosting).

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"Desperate Housewives"!

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Pie all day long. Especially if it is sugar cream, pecan, Dutch apple or sweet potato. Cake is good too, but I could eat pie every day for desert and never tire.

Coincidentally, the question of the day yesterday at my physical therapy gym asked with pancake is actually a cake. All but one of us said cake - it’s literally in the name. Any thoughts on that, Nancy?

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Is a pancake essentially a cake? Hm. Well, the definition of what a cake is has changed through the centuries, and different cultures use food terms differently (as anyone who's encountered an English biscuit knows), but I am going to go with no: a pancake is not a cake!

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Pie. All kinds. I love to make them and I love to eat them.

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Pie for me. In particular Key Lime pie & Pecan pie.

Reading through the thread the pancake question brought another question to mind.

Is cheesecake more pie or more cake? I lean pie.

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I'm a rebel: cake. Always cake. I've tried some delightful pies over the years, but they never beat cake. I was raised on a Midwestern diet of anything that could be stuffed into a casserole dish or a crockpot (very far cry from foodie culture); however, when cake is involved, I'm a true from-scratch believer (frosting, too). It's the way. My grandmother used to make a Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake (I know, sounds weird) with buttercream frosting. I've also heard it called a Depression-Era cake, likely originating from a "Ladies of First Presbyterian or Methodist Church" cookbook. It's very simple and straightforward, but the moistest chocolate cake you'll ever eat. In fairness, though, I don't really discriminate. Cake please.

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Questions about pie crust: Do you add a smidgeon of vodka to it? Can you make the crust ahead of time and freeze it? Thanks.

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Hey Robin - I've never used the vodka and don't really understand the principle behind it! Don't think it would hurt though. Yes I sometimes freeze... and as often as not, wind up tossing the frozen crusts bc the freezer doesn't do anything great for them after 6 months. It's also so easy to whip up a fresh crust, which you can always refrigerate for a few days before using. Happy baking!

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Non-pie related request for Nancy ... would you mind spending a few minutes on an upcoming podcast talking about your friend Cathy Seipp? She was a significant part of my early blog / internet / general online experience and I think folks probably don't remember her, which is a shame.

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Pie! Buttermilk or pecan but I’ll eat any of them with Bluebell homemade vanilla ice cream on top!

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Bluebell ice cream, I miss it! (Lived in College Station for 8 years)

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You have excellent taste. I can get it where I live now (Phoenix) but I’ve ordered it on dry ice when I’ve lived out of the bluebell zone. Nothing better on cobbler too! You don’t HAVE to live without it ;)

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I prefer baking cakes, but this summer my husband made me a cherry pie that almost brought me to tears, so, honestly, I’ll eat whatever.

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Oh, I wish we could post pictures here, although the comments would probably quickly devolve into a collection of ridiculous memes and other nonsense.

Mrs Banatz has really upped her pie crust game in the last year or so... I have dozens of pie pictures, most recently a chicken pot pie this past weekend with a super flakey crisco/butter crust. In the last ten weeks she’s baked two tart cherry pies, one coconut custard, one lemon custard, and a sweet cherry pie.

Not to mention cream puffs she made with the pastry tube gun she wanted for her birthday. Filled with fortified whipped cream.

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Both! I'm an equal opportunity dessert eater. But if you put the world's best cake up against the world's best pie- the PIE would win...

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Pie please! :)

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Anyone else remember hyperbole and a half? CAAAKE. CAKE CAKE CAKE.

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Pie for sure, homemade apple especially.

My brother in law makes it every Thanksgiving… I think about it all year

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I'm a pie guy. They're edgy. Love the crust!!! Cakes are all lathered up like when I shave my face. They have no edge.

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This is tough. Of course, I love them both, but they can both go very wrong. Cake - frosting too sweet and/or cake too dry and/or tasteless. Pie - so many terrible crusts out there, and filling texture & viscosity is both tough to nail & very idiosyncratic. I’m going to go a third way, much as I do for most executive branch elections & nominate... Galette. Half-assing it, but in a sexy French way 😘

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However, my recommended recipe is for (an enormous) cake - Stella “Bravetart” Parks’ carrot cake, from her “Iconic American Desserts” book but also available at Serious Eats https://www.seriouseats.com/carrot-cake-recipe

It is a fucking CAKE, and I’ve only made it twice (for my spouse’s grandmother’s 90th & my Dad’s 70th). Subbed walnuts for the pecans because we’re all Yankees here & honestly you want the tannic bitterness of them against the sugar & richness. Do it over 2 days if you can manage it.

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...But hands down, I'd take a homemade apple pie from someone who kills at making pie crust! (I'm not a big baker )

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Cookies!

Made these yesterday and sent them

today with my husband visiting our son at college: https://www.ambitiouskitchen.com/brown-butter-chocolate-chip-cookies/

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Was Nancy's prior offer of crack pie for real??

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Pie y'all.

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Cake. Cake. Cake. For my kid’s birthday I love to make the chocolate cake recipe on the Hershey website. So easy and turns out beautifully every time. Does NOT make great cupcakes though.

https://www.hersheyland.com/recipes/hersheys-perfectly-chocolate-chocolate-cake.html

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Pie. There’s a place in San Diego that makes a pecan pie over a thin layer of cheesecake and it’s perfect. I have probably gained 20 pounds trying to reverse engineer the recipe to no success

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Whatever the redheads having. OK, seriously, pie. Apricot pie like mom used to make. Gooey, sugar, crunchy top having a sugar rush now. Can’t go on (cherry pie will do in a pinch.)

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Pie seems lighter fare and that’s what I go for. Key lime or tart or Lemon meringue. Also (sorry gals): NO chocolate.

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I have to say cake, but I honestly think it's just because I haven't experienced pie in a meaningful way. My environment just doesn't have pie much I'm guessing... I need more pie! Eat more pie!

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I don’t have anything bad to say about pie. But there’s only one food that compels me to just stick a fork in it for it’s duration on my counter, because I know when I walk by I’ll eat a bite and why dirty up so, so many forks? Team Cake.

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Amen!

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