3:14 Time for our yearly tribute to pies. This year there's no better tribute than reviews of two 2020-published cookbooks: Lauren Ko's fabulous new book, Pieometry and Helen Nugent's equally wonderful Pie Style.
Pieometry
Lauren Ko
I've mentioned Lauren Ko previously on this blog (March 14, 2018) but in case you missed it or don't remember, here's a bit about her, even more than what I posted earlier:
A young woman living in Seattle, Ko is completely self-taught when it comes to pies/pastry. She comes from a family that loved cooking, but pies weren't in their inventory of interests. In the early days of Pinterest, she noticed wonderful photos of pies that others had posted and decided to try a lattice-top apple pie - her very first pie.
Soon she was inspired by photos from other bakers and started using pies as an artform and Instagram as a place to save the photos of them. Within a couple years she was a phenom on YouTube and Facebook and started holding workshops in Seattle, quitting her full-time job to devote herself to pies. Today she has 415,000 followers on Instagram and has just published her first book, Pieometry.
On Instagram, she doesn't really go into her techniques for creating the most awesome designs ever but she promises in Pieometry to demystify the process. In the introduction she claims that anyone can make these pies and she encourages beginners to be brave and get creative, starting with simple recipes and patterns and working up to more complicated.
Lauren's Instagram account is @lokokitchen.
I was happy to find Pieometry at the library and I brought it home, not so much with the intention of baking, but more out of curiosity to learn her secrets and look at the amazing photos. The book itself is a work of art.
Pie Style
Helen Nugent
Helen Nugent, a Torontonian Instagrammer with 65,000 followers is also a self-taught pie artist. Her website is Pie-Eyed Girl (with lots of recipes and instructions) and her Instagram handle is @batterednbaked. Helen occasionally has tutorial videos on her Instagram channel. Look at this beauty from Pie-Eyed Girl:
Like Lauren Ko, Helen has a 2020 cookbook now for sale or, if you're lucky like I am, on the shelf at your library.
The book has recipes and how-to's and tons of amazing photos.
Like Pieometry, Pie Style is another treat to leaf through, even if you have no intention of making anything and it's a useful tool if you actually have pastry dreams and aspirations.
Happy π Day!
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