Mmmmmmm...Pie!

[azaleaqueen]

I'll include pavlova as pie. It's damn good.

[Oxynia]

I don't see pavlova as pie, since it's not baked in a crust. I'd classify it more as a cake. I'm personally not a fan of meringues but appreciate how pretty pavlovas can be.

My absolute favorite pies are apple, cherry and custard. I could eat them daily.

I also love any kind of fruit (minus pineapple), lemon/lime, pumpkin and sweet potato pie. I'm OK with pecan, banana and chocolate types. Not a fan of chess pie, as it's always been too sweet to me. Never heard of raisin pie and not sure how that would taste.

[chonies]

I would classify pavlovas more as a custard because they often have custard filling and are egg-based, but it's possible that they, like monotremes, exist in their own category.

I hadn't had chess pie in years because last night (and, um, this afternoon) and even though I cut back on the sugar, it's still alarmingly sweet. And even with lemon and butter to tone down the sweetness it was kind of a lot.

[Oxynia]

I've seen chess pie recipes call for vinegar to cut back on the sweetness. Ick. Buttermilk pies use buttermilk for that same purpose, and they are more custard-y than chess pie, which uses corn meal. Still, too sweet for me.

Perhaps pavlovas can be classified under "Dessert, Miscellaneous Other" or something equally vague.

The cherry pie my husband brought home on Friday night has been consumed entirely by me. We are now a pieless household. This is a problem.

[biondetta]

Hmm. I actually don't have a huge sweet tooth, but never found chess pie super sweet. And I usually reduce the amount of sugar in everything. Maybe the recipe I use just isn't as sweet.

One Thanksgiving, I was making a pumpkin pie and got distracted and forgot to put any sugar in at all. That was also the one time our dog reached up to the kitchen counter to get something. He got his snout in the pie. I didn't feel so bad about him getting into the unsweetened pie. And we actually tried some of the pie that the dog hadn't gotten into, and with a fair amount of whipped cream, it was actually pretty decent!

[chonies]

The chess recipe I used called for 1 1/2 c sugar, which averages out to about 3 tbsp per serving. I have a selective sweet tooth, although it's faded as I age, and it felt like a lot to me. It's about twice the amount of sugar used in fruit pies, although I have no idea how much sugar is in berries. I would love a less sweet chess pie recipe!

[tabby]

For years, one of my New Year's resolutions has been "learn to make pie crust." This thread is providing serious additional motivation. I make killer cobblers and cheesecakes and suchlike, but sometimes you want a proper pie.

When we visited Texas back in March, my list of things to do included "eat pie." I'm happy to report that I achieved that goal a few times over. (Also the "eat fried chicken" and "eat chicken-fried steak" and "eat barbecue" goals. I ate more meat in four days than I'd eaten in the previous month. Ah, Texas.)

[famvir]

I've never had chess pie, but the recipe calls for 2 cups sugar! As chonies said, the fruit pies use 3/4 cup sugar. And the fruit is sour! Rhubarb, tart cherries, Granny Smith apples. Even the blueberries are just this side of sour. But those southerners like the sweet stuff (see maple syrup and marshmallows on sweet potatoes...as an entree! And caramel cake!)

[chonies]

While Southerners do like sweet food, I have two contentions! Sweet potatoes with marshmallows are a side and definitely not an entree, and I think it's a post-war convenience food imagined in a food lab, but I'm not sure.

Caramel cake is trickier. It's generally not any sweeter than any other egg and buttercream-icing cake, or at least it doesn't have a disproportionate amount of sugar. I think the burnt-sugar note takes the edge off a lot of the sweetness, but that's a matter of taste. However, some recipes call for a shitload of sugar to make a more caramel-style icing, but about the same amount of powdered sugar that's in buttercream. Swiss and Italian buttercream use much less sugar but much more butter and a ton of eggs.

I have a single crust left. Maybe custard?

[azaleaqueen]

Yes! Custard! I love custard pie.