Life Kit - How To Make Tastier, Prettier Pies, According To A Self-taught Pie Artist

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

Just in time for Thanksgiving, self-taught baker Lauren Ko shares her tips for making tastier — and more beautiful — pies.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This is Life Kit. I'm Shereen Marisol Maragi, and because it's pie season, we're going to share some tips from our guest, a pie-hard pie maker with a wildly popular Instagram account called Loco Kitchen, Loco spelled L-O-K-O. My name is Lauren Ko, and your work since February of 2018. And I know this because I made my very first pie in February of 2018. And I posted it on Instagram because of course, you know, if you don't put it on social media, it didn't happen. Of course. It was an absolutely disastrous looking pie. And a friend of mine called me on the phone and was like, oh, do you want to feel even worse about yourself? You need to follow Loco Kitchen on Instagram. And so I did. And I was like, oh, my God, these pies are works of art.

You have a cookbook now. I'm so excited about it. And I absolutely love the first inscription. I was wondering if you have it there, if you would mind reading it for us. Yes. To all the other regular nobodies out there minding their own business, dreaming dreams they don't even know they have. You never know where life will take you and what magic awaits. This is for you. What is the story behind that inscription? It's basically my story.

So I made my very first pie in the summer of 2016. I had just moved to Seattle and was looking for a job. And, you know, as one does with too much time on their hands, was just puttering around on the internet. And I stumbled across some really beautiful pictures of pie and thought, huh, I've been, you know, casually cooking and baking and obviously eating my entire life. But in my Chinese Honduran American family, there wasn't a lot of traditional apple pie or just pie in general going around. So I thought, I'll just try it. Lauren made an apple pie with a lattice top and she said it was fine, which trust me is hard to believe if you've seen the pies and tarts she makes now. Fine is not a good descriptor. They're

geometric masterpieces, hence the title of her cookbook, Pieometry. The second pie she made was what Lauren calls the ultimate pie-zaster. You know, I got kind of cocky. I was like, oh, I made my first pie and it was fine. Like, I got this. Pie's not a big deal. And I made this Mary and Barry pie to take to my in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner and had constructed this really intricate geometric top. I was so proud of it, but I was relatively inexperienced with pie baking. So unbeknownst to me, I had severely underbaked it. So we drove to Portland and it basically leaked all over the backseat. It looked like a crime scene. All the like berry juices were everywhere. I was trying to sop it up. And then we got to Portland. I tried to rebake it thinking that, you know, I'll just pop

it back in the oven. It'll be fine. It was not fine. It was still undercooked. And my in-laws are saints and they insisted on eating the pie. So I had to sit there mortified, watching everybody at the table eat the sole dessert that was severely undercooked. So yeah, now I know to kind of bake until the filling is ready and make sure that there aren't any soggy bottoms before I take it out of the oven, that kind of thing. Obviously, Lauren continued to make pies after that bake fail. And she, like me and so many of us, posted her creations on her personal Instagram page until her friends and fam were over it. So she started her separate local kitchen account on August 29th, 2017. It was supposed to document all kinds of cooking triumphs, not just pies and tarts.

But her first post was of a peach pie with the caption, life's a peach and then you pie. She got a couple hundred likes, which had never happened before. And so I waited a couple days and I was like, okay, I'll post another photo. I think it was a tart and see what happens. And again, a couple hundred likes. She kept posting pie and tart picks and two months later, a popular design site shared one. We watched my phone blow up that day. I got 8,000 followers in a matter of hours. By December of that year, I had hit 100,000 followers and a couple weeks later, I quit my job to do this full time. Lauren Coe is now living the dream she never knew she had and she's going to share some practical tips after the break

for those of you looking to level up your kitchen skills. All right, so let's talk about some tips here for people who are still new to baking, who want to attempt to make a pie from scratch. Where do you think we should tart? See what you did there, my people. Yeah, I mean, a tart is a great place to start. I think it's not as time intensive, or as technical as maybe a full blown pie. I think one of the things that is difficult about pie is making pie dough, and it kind of requires a gentle hand. You don't want to overwork the dough. It's not like

bread where you have to knead it a lot. But I make my tart pastry in a food processor, and so there's a little more leeway in case you kind of overmix it. There is the possibility or risk of overmixing it, but it's not quite as delicate as pie dough. And I also have some tart shells in there that aren't pastry. So you blend up some speckle-oose cookies with some melted butter and you have a crust there. Or you toast off some coconut and pecans and add a little bit of butter and you have a tart shell there. So I think there's a lot more flexibility in terms of ingredients as well. So if somebody wanted to make a tart shell there. So I think there's a lot more flexibility in terms of ingredients as well. So if somebody wanted to make a tart for Thanksgiving and not a pie,

what do you think is a filling that feels holiday appropriate or Thanksgiving appropriate? There's a cranberry curd tart in my book, and that is actually the tart that I redeemed myself with the following Thanksgiving to rave reviews. It's got some bright colors and also bright flavors to contrast with a lot of the kind of richer, heavier desserts that you might find. I also have a hand-sliced pear tart that has a shortbread crust, a really easy creamy cardamom filling, and then just fresh hand-sliced pears on top. So it looks very complicated, but it's actually very simple and straightforward to execute and is a great way to kind of bring a showstopper to your table without having to worry about exerting too much time or effort.

Okay, let's talk about pies. Let's. What if someone is not a tart person, they want to go straight to pie making? What is the first tip that you would give them? Well, the golden rule of pie making is to keep everything cold. So you want all your ingredients to be cold. When you set out to make your pie dough, I pull out my butter right when I'm about to use it. I don't let it sit on the counter. And then later when I'm about to roll out my pie dough, I pull it straight from the fridge, make sure it's cold. And then with some of my more intricate pies or any sort of cut out tops that just take a little bit longer, I like to pop them back in the fridge for a few minutes if things are

getting kind of melty or soft, just to chill things back down before I continue with the design process. So keep things cold throughout the process. Yes, throughout the process. And even once I've completed a pie with the pie top, everything's set, I like to pop my pies in the freezer while the oven heats. That way, the design is nice and cold, nice and set, and that kind of helps preserve the integrity of the design when it's baking in that hot oven heat. And the other nice thing about kind of all these little steps and having to keep things cold is that it's really conducive to breaking up the process. So pie making can be pretty time intensive. It's not always active time, but you know, you can make your pie dough,

let it rest in the fridge for, you know, a couple hours and then pop it in the freezer so that maybe next week you have time to make a pie, pull out that dough, let it thaw, and then you can roll out the dough and continue on your process. So if somebody is in charge of a huge Thanksgiving meal and they're trying to kind of pace themselves, pie is a great thing that you can kind of prepare in advance and you don't have to worry about it that day. I need to do that. I've never done that. I'm always just like suffering at the last minute. Oh yeah, this will take a lot of stress out of your life. Yeah. What about the filling? You know, I watch a lot of the Great British Baking Show,

so I know it's easy to get a soggy bottom on a pie. This happens especially if you're using fresh fruit. So what's a good filling to use if you're nervous about soggy bottoms? Pumpkin pie is very traditional at this time of year. That is a good option for avoiding soggy bottoms because often you have to blind bake your crust beforehand, which means that you're just baking your crust by itself for 20 to 30 minutes. And then you add the filling and then you bake it until the filling is set. So you basically ensure that your crust is going to be nice and crispy. My other tip is I like to keep a pizza stone in the oven so it's nice and hot

while the oven heats up. And then I put my pie on a baking sheet to catch any errant juices. And then I just put that baking sheet right on the pizza stone. So all that extra heat is directed to that pie pan to make sure there are no soggy bottoms. If people are listening and they're like, yeah, I got this traditional pie stuff, I know how to do this, and they want to get more creative, what's something that they could do

to make their pie crust or tart crust stand out? So one thing that I like to do is to make colored pie dough and all of my colorings are natural. So I like to substitute that ice water in the pie dough with either vegetable juice or fruit juice so something like spinach juice will make a really nice green crust or blueberry juice will make a nice purple crust or beet juice will make a really deep magenta crust and the really weird and beautiful thing about adding these natural colorings is that it doesn't really add any extra flavor so it becomes a really great canvas for creating really beautiful designs that can go sweet or savory because you still retain that crispy buttery

flavor in the crust without it tasting like you know a salad covering a blueberry pie or, you know, whatever it is that's in your filling while lending it that really beautiful design element as well. What about egg washes? How important is an egg wash to a pie? I think it depends on personal preference. So I have friends who have, you know, egg allergies. And I think that an egg wash doesn't make or break your pie. Personally I don't egg wash any pies that I use colored doughs in because I want to preserve the integrity and the vibrancy of that color and we use an egg wash to create that really deep brown golden color but when I use just my basic all-butter pie dough I like to do a whole egg with a splash of heavy cream. And that gives a really deep golden color. And then I like to sprinkle on some

demerara sugar as well to give it that extra shine and crunch. Okay, this is not a cooking question. It's not a question about pies, but it is about social media and sharing your work on social media. A lot of people are doing this thing that you did, which is creating devoted Instagram accounts for projects. Do you have any tips or words of wisdom about sharing on social media? The first thing I always tell people is to be an original, you know, find kind of your niche and find what kind of sets you apart from the crowd, what makes you stand out. Creating these geometric modern pie art pieces, I guess, was more of like an exploration of art and a creative outlet for me. And this just felt like a really cool hobby. And it just so happened that I had this kind of venue to share it with.

And people were responding really well. So I thought, well, you know, if it's making people happy, I'm happy to share. And I'm also happy kind of having this extra kind of part of my life and this outlet for kind of zoning out and creating something different. Lauren Ko's cookbook is called Pieometry. Lauren, this was so much fun. Everybody needs to follow you on Instagram, Loco Kitchen, your pies are inspiring. Thank you so much for being on Life Kit.

Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to see what everyone is going to bake this holiday season. For more NPR Life Kit, check out our other episodes. I hosted one all about how to be happier, which we could all use right now. You can find that at npr.org slash life kit. And if you love Life Kit and want more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash life kit newsletter.

If you've got a good tip, leave us a voicemail at 202-216-9823 or email us a voice memo at life kit at npr.org. This episode was produced by Sylvie Douglas. Megan Cain is the managing producer. Beth Donovan is the senior editor. Our digital editors are Beck Harlan and Claire Lombardo, and our editorial assistant is Claire Marie Schneider. I'm Shereen Marisol Maragi. Thanks for listening.