This weekend I hosted a fall pie party for a group of friends. Any excuse to gather together and feed people is perfect, as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve been wanting to do this particular party again for a few years now.
Who doesn’t love pie?! It’s the ultimate comfort food of the dessert world…at once unpretentious and delicious.
You could invite guests and have them contribute to the pie smorgasbord, but as I love to bake (and, truth be told, also love to be in control of the table and how it looks), I rarely allow anyone to bring food - just come and enjoy is my default answer to offers to contribute!
For this particular party, I was expecting somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-20 people and I wanted to make 6 flavors to have a variety of options. For those of you doing the math, yes that is 48 servings of pie. I know, but…variety!
In addition to the pies I also wanted to offer ice cream - a tricky proposition to keep frozen on a buffet table.
And I made a tray of gluten free caramel sea salt brownies to have an alternative for my gluten free guest. I have never tried using GF flour in a pie crust before, and I didn’t have time to find out how well it worked. If you have had success with it, please let me know!
Beverages were limited to ice water and hot mulled cider to make things easy. The cider simmering with spices on the stove also made the house smell like fall! I also offered some bourbon and honey liquor from our bar to spike the cider if anyone wanted.
Setting the Table
I elected to go without a tablecloth for this party because I wanted the rich brown wood tones that elicit the warmth of fall colors.
I had fall napkins in my stash, so that worked out perfectly. And I have collected plenty of cut glass dessert plates and dessert forks and glass mugs over the years. I corralled the forks in an ivory teapot.
The seasonal centerpiece was arranged on a tray and included 3 mercury glass pumpkins, 2 giant wooden acorns, and some faux bittersweet vine and Japanese lantern stems.
I printed signs on ivory parchment cardstock to label the various foods.
A variety of heights is always desirable on a buffet table, and so two of the pies were elevated on cake stands. Brown wicker charger plates became the base for the other four pies.
A pedestal sauce boat on an ivory scalloped pierces salad plate served as the container for a caramel pecan sauce that went with the pumpkin pie.
For the ice cream, I purchased a size and shape that would fit nicely in my aluminum ice bucket. I wrapped the ice cream in a plastic bag and filled the bucket around it with ice water and set it in the freezer to form an ice mold for the ice cream. This worked surprisingly well to keep the ice cream frozen on the table for about 2 hrs before it started to melt into more of a soft serve consistency.
The Menu
Striving for a mix of flavors and textures, I offered a combination of fruit pies, and cream pies, classic piecrust and graham cracker crust, crumble, meringue, and whipped cream toppings.
Recipes are linked where available - ones that I have modified will be noted.
All the classic crusts were made with our trusty foolproof vodka crust recipe, and I was able to make the dough several days in advance and store it in the fridge.
The rest of the pies were made one or two days in advance with the meringue and whipped cream toppings and pecan sauce the only things left to make the day of the party.
Mile High Apple Pie
No pie buffet would be complete without this all-American classic apple pie. This time I used mostly cortland apples and the cardamon seasoning option.
Blackberry-Blueberry Crumble Pie
This was my first time making this one…I am pretty intrepid about experimenting on my guests, but they are all quite gracious about it😏. It was delicious and probably destined to become one of my new favorites. Aside from using my own vodka crust recipe, I followed the recipe for this blackberry-blueberry pie from Smitten Kitchen.
Key Lime Pie
Not particularly fall-like, this feels like more of a summer flavor to me. But this classic is ALWAYS a favorite of so many people so on the menu it went! And it’s super easy so win-win. Again, my favorite key lime pie recipe is from Smitten Kitchen. I used the limes I had zested for some of the juice and supplemented with bottled key lime juice. It’s deceptively plain looking so it needs a little whipped cream and some lime slices or zest for decoration., but it is oh so tasty - the perfect tangy-sweet combination.
Pumpkin Pie
There are not many pumpkin pie recipes that are NOT good, but they mostly follow the same simple formula of spiced and sweetened canned pumpkin filling. This fairly basic one from Smitten Kitchen is elevated by the addition of the caramel pecan sauce.
I again, used my vodka crust recipe for the pastry, but followed Deb’s recipe for the rest. I cut acorn shapes out of the extra dough scraps and glued them to the rim of the crust with egg white before baking for a bit of decoration. You could also just bake some decorative shapes separately and lay them on the top or stand them in the whipped cream - I might try that next time! I’ll definitely be making this for Thanksgiving.
The sauce is delicious, but solidifies as it cools, so I had to pop it in the microwave as the night wore on. It would probably be tasty drizzled on the apple pie too. And our GF guest used it to make a brownie sundae!
Banana Cream Pie
This is one of my personal favorites. It is one of the things I craved when I was pregnant and I remember hunting the earth down for one while on vacation and being super disappointed when I was served a crust filled with just whipped cream and bananas.
The best part of this pie, in my opinion is the vanilla custard layer!
For this version, I made a graham cracker crust using cinnamon graham crackers and layered sliced bananas and custard into the crust starting with bananas and ending with the custard. The whipped cream topping was added after the custard was set.
Chocolate Cream Pie
This pie is made with a classic prefaced crust, a silky chocolate filling that is not too sweet and not too rich but very chocolate-y and topped with a meringue. I used this chocolate pudding pie recipe for the filling but used my vodka crust and a meringue topping.
I let the pie cool and set before adding the meringue and I wouldn’t do that next time. The meringue didn’t stick nicely to the filling when the slices were cut, and I think maybe if I had added it when the filling was hot it might have fared better. It’s a work in progress 😏.
The original recipe calls for whipped cream which would be fine too.
Gluten Free Sea Salt Caramel Brownies
These were a last minute addition to accommodate the needs of a guest. This my absolute favorite brownie recipe…super popular and totally addictive! It is easy to make these gluten free by simply substituting King Arthur Gluten Free Measure-for-Measure Flour for the all purpose flour in the recipe with no loss in quality.
All two dozen of these disappeared :) Most of my guests have had them here before and can’t resist.
In terms of popularity, the key lime was the first to disappear. The banana cream, chocolate cream and berry were all down to dregs by the end of the evening. The pumpkin had less than 1/4 left and the apple was, surprisingly, the least popular with about a third of it left.
The apple is quite a bit taller than everything else, therefore I think people took smaller slivers so perhaps that’s why.
I offered these to-go boxes (affiliate link) so guests could take home treats. I always keep to-go containers on hand for guests to take home leftovers - these are great for Thanksgiving too. Also, I did not need a house full of leftover pie staring me down begging to be eaten!
I was reminded that I should be celebrating pie on Pi Day (March 14th). A hint that I should do this again? Maybe I will…spring seems like a good time to celebrate pie and gather friends and I’ll have the opportunity to try some other flavors I missed this time…like my fave, lemon meringue!
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