Public Service Announcement: Baking a Pie and Taking It to a Church Gathering or Other Social Functions

The content you are about to read is based on actual events and is shared in the hopes that you, dear reader, will be able to avoid similar incidents in the future.

  • Build extra time into your schedule if you haven’t made a pie using a specific recipe before. It will take longer than you think.
  • Improvising a new pie with an untested recipe and tweaking it based on what you think probably should work in theory due to a compressed time schedule is generally not advisable.
  • When the pie has only just come out of the oven, it’s not the best time to transport said pie. Especially in a vehicle.
  • If you have to transport the pie, do your best to secure it. Good options like pie carriers are available from your kitchen supply stores. But if you’re like me and don’t have one of those, you could do what I did and put it in a cardboard box lid. Unlike me, you should make sure the cardboard box lid does not have holes in the bottom. And think about not putting it in your lap, because…
  • Pie filling, fresh from the oven, spilling out of the pie, because you are driving fast to compensate for the pie taking longer than you expected, and onto your lap, because you put it in a cardboard box lid with holes in it and carried it on your lap, is HOT. In fact, it’s VERY HOT. AND IT’s SPILLING IN MY LAP TURN THE CAR AROUND TURN THE CAR AROUND AND GO HOME!!!
  • Yelling in the car about the hot pie filling will distress the baby even more greatly than normal. This will likely lead to crying or screaming on the part of the baby, generally requiring a feeding to settle the child down.
  • After you have gone home and changed clothes, fed the crying baby, and determined to salvage the remaining pie, think carefully about how to repackage the pie. Based on recent experience, a cake carrier is not a good option, because…well, pie filling can spill out of that too, and now you’re even later so you’re just going to drive even faster now anyway. See above note about not putting it in your lap.
  • In taking a pie to a church gathering or other social function using the above unrecommended methods, it is strongly encouraged that you take a change of clothes with you. And more than likely you are just going to throw out the pie shell and the dregs of its contents when you arrive at your destination because you are wearing most of it already.

    • Thankfully, I was not the only dessert bringer and the cake and ice cream we enjoyed was delicious. And I was able to borrow pants when we got there. In conclusion, when deciding which dessert to take to a church gathering or other social function, think about cookies. Or brownies. Cake, also, is generally less volatile than pie in a transportation situation. Perhaps a pie that does not require time in the oven. Lots of choices here. Lots.