Long-time followers will remember my participation in this annual event. In past years I would subject my neighbour, affectionately known as Crazy Neighbour Dude, to being the official taste tester of the pies I’ve had to produce. Alas, this year I don’t have the luxury of him as a guinea pig. Earlier this year we moved from California to Oregon and Crazy Neighbour Dude moved to Vegas. We are now just statistics in the Grand Exodus from California, and I don’t know my new neighbours well enough to try to poison them. Maybe by next year.

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Summer Pie

Summer pie comes from the 1971 Winnie-The-Pooh-inspired cookbook The Pooh Cook Book. I love me some Winnie-The-Pooh. If you don’t you’re a broken and sad person and I have no use for you.

Serves 6
8 digestive biscuits
1 level tablespoon castor sugar
1½ oz butter or margarine
For the filling:
1 small tin sweetened condensed milk
¼ pint double cream
2 lemons
¼ lb black grapes

Find a rolling pin, a mixing basin, a saucepan, a tablespoon and a dessertspoon. Find also a 7″ shallow pie plate, a lemon squeezer and a grater.

Crush biscuits with a rolling pin to make fine crumbs and place the crumbs in a mixing basin. Add the sugar. Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, draw off the heat and using a fork stir in the biscuit crumb mixture. Mix well.

Spoon the mixture into the centre of the pie plate. Using the back of a tablespoon, press the mixture over the base and proud the sides of the dish to make a biscuit pie crust. Chill in the refrigerator for an hour or so until firm.

Place the condensed milk and cream into a mixing basin. Finely grate the rind of 1 lemon. Squeeze the juice from 2 lemons and strain it. Add to the mixture along with the lemon rind. Stir with a wooden spoon to mix and the mixture will go quite thick in the basin.

Pour the filling into the chilled biscuit pie crust and spread level. Wash, half and deseed the black grapes, arrange them in a ring around the edge of the pie to decorate.

Chill the pie for several hours for the filling to set firm. Then cut in wedges and serve.

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Baker’s Notes:

Ingredient adjustments:
Digestive Biscuits = Biscoff Cookies
Double Cream = Heavy Whipping Cream
Grapes = Raspberries

When you live in a small town in the Oregon countryside, fancy things like Digestive Biscuits from the UK are sparse, so I opted to do the crust using BIscoff cookies. Which come in handy little two-packs that they promote as “Airline size” – because that’s a marketing ploy that makes sense? But whatever, they taste good and do the trick for the crust.

The pie, however, was just a puddle of sugar that never actually set. I mean it pretended to. I left it in the fridge for 2 days before trying to cut it and there was no visible wiggle, but nope. Nothing doing. This could be because heavy whipping cream isn’t the same consistency as double cream. Also, I substituted raspberries for grapes because that’s just a weird pie topper as far as I’m concerned. Grapes are for wine.

My husband, the Poor Bastard, volunteered as tribute this year and wound up slurping up raspberries and cream with some crumble. While he didn’t complain about being experimented upon, he did tell me I was good to toss the whole thing out because our medical insurance won’t cover the heart surgery eating this whole pie would inevitably lead up to.

My apologies Battenburgbelle for any disappointment the execution of her pie may bring.

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2022 Pieathletes:
Dinner Dinner is Served 1972- Candy Apple Cheese Pie
Dr. Bobb’s Kitschen – Praline Pumpkin Pie
Kitchen Confidence – Zucchini Pie
Book of Cookrye – Yul Brenner’s Pie
Silver Screen Suppers – Sagittarius Hamburger Pie
Retro Food for Modern Times – Lime Pie with Creme de Menthe
The Nostalgic Cook- Veal, Ham and Tongue Pie
Grannie Pantries – Apricot Mallow Pie
Culinary Adventures with Camilla – Chocolate Angel Pie

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Recipes Copyright ©1971 Katie Stewart, All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain.