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pear pie with crème fraà che caramel

pear pie with crème fraà che caramel

My freshman year of college, I remember sitting in the room of a good friend at the time. She was one of the first girls I had met on campus, and we were brought together by the fact that we'd signed up for the same ambitious rafting/climbing orientation trip and lived in the same block of dorms. She and I were gossiping about our peers, predicting which friendships would falter given the highly dramatic and volatile social dynamic of of our small dorm (because I guess that's what happens when you get stick a group of 18-year-old guys and gals in a small, enclosed space — people stop being polite and start getting real — SEE WHAT I DID THERE).

She turned to me and confidently said, "I'm pretty sure that you and I are probably going to be friends for the long haul."

And of course, by the end of the year, we weren't speaking to each other at all.


I wish I could say that story makes me sad, but honestly, I've seen a LOT of friendships come and go. Often times, the decline of what seemed like a long-lasting friendship corresponded with the end of a significant chapter like school or work. Because as whatever initially brought us together came to end, we realized that without that common ground, we didn't actually have much else in common at all. So at this point in my life, what surprises me more are the friendships that do stick around.

The friends who are closest to me now are no longer defined by parameters like school, work, or even proximity. Instead these are the friendships so deeply founded that trying to write about each so generally would do all a great disservice. Alternatively, there are also the folks with whom I have actual genuine shared interests with. I don't say that lightly — it's kind of amazing that this blog has brought me so many people that I turn to for friendship and support! Because even if we've only met each other a few times in real life (if at all!), I trust some of my fellow blogger friends' opinions more than some of the people I know in real life.


One of the blogger friends I'm talking about is Yossy from Apt 2B Baking Co. Although Yossy and I have only hung out a few times, I can tell you that she's the real deal. Not only do I wholeheartedly trust her baking skills, I also trust her advice on blogging and making things work in the kitchen and outside of it.

Yossy's new cookbook, Sweeter Off the Vine, is coming out in a few weeks and it's a keeper. When her book arrived, she'd slipped in a sweet little note telling me that she hoped one of her recipes could be one of my pie-a-month pies. I very happily obliged. This pie is one of her cookbook's recipes and the all-butter crust, the crème fraîche caramel sauce, and its use of pears as opposed to more traditional apple all come together beautifully. It is genuinely one of the best pies I've ever had.

Congrats on the new cookbook, Yossy!



Some baker's notes:

• Yossy's pie crust recipe uses all-butter, which is not necessarily the most forgiving crust — it shrinks, it's hard to work with, it makes me cry. If you're not confident in your pie baking skills, be sure to check out this recipe for salty honey pie as a primer — it's got all my best pie baking tips! Yossy's method also deviates slightly from what I'm used to. While I usually use a pastry cutter to cut my butter into the flour, she flattens the butter into the flour with nothing but her hands! It's a really cool trick that leads to a super flaky crust, but you have to work quickly and make sure your ingredients are cold at all times. 


• Due to a slight personal crisis that needed to keep me distracted for a few hours, I went a little crazy with the pie crust. Inspired by this Instagram account and this Food52 post on unexpected pie crust lattices, I opted for a "leaf relief" pie crust border with a random lattice. It's beautiful (but does it looks better before it was baked?), but I'm embarrassed to tell you how long it took. Also, all that fancy work ended up requiring almost twice as much pie dough than what her recipe calls for. So if you're going all fancypants like me, make sure to double the pie crust quantities provided below! And yes, you can get those awesome leaf cutters online.


• You can make the crème fraîche caramel up to one week ahead of time and store it in an airtight jar with a lid in the refrigerator. When you pull the pie out of the oven, it'll look like the pie has leaked and exploded all over the place, but don't panic like I did and frantically text Yossy. That's just the caramel bubbling. It settles back down as it cools, I promise. Your pie is okay.

get the recipe »

Available link for download