'Justice of the Pies' Marries Social Impact With Damn Good Baking

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Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. 

My sweet tooth has been nagging me lately. I expect this is because I’ve been trying to eat more vegetables and my dopamine hormones find this to be disrespectful. I like veggies, but I'm only so powerful to resist the call of sweets. In one of my bookstore browsings, I came upon a cookbook with hefty slices of lemony-looking pie with a chocolate crust scattered across the cover and snapped it up. It’s not a new book, but that’s one of my favorite things about cookbooks: they don’t have to be new or trendy to be great. This week’s Cookbook of the Week is Justice of the Pies.

A bit about the book

Justice of the Pies is a cookbook as well as a bakery by the same name in Chicago, Illinois, with Maya-Camille Broussard at the wheel. The bakery was created to honor her late father, a criminal defense attorney and a man that brought joy to those around him with his Saturday pies. (As a big fan of puns and desserts, brava on the name.)

This book has over 85 recipes and, as expected, most of them are pies or tarts, and if they’re not, well then they’re at least circular (like whoopie pies or biscuits). Don’t expect your typical panel of pie flavors from Broussard. You thought strawberry-rhubarb was clever? How about roasted Brussels sprouts and cherry? Perhaps a slice of bleu cheese praline pear pie is more your speed? Prepare to explore your creative side with some interesting flavor combinations. 

For those who don’t think much of dessert pies, don’t fret, because not everything in here is sweet. Check out chapters like Savory Pies, Quiches, and Tarts for some savory numbers.

A great cookbook for some freakin’ positivity

There are loads of absolutely mouth-watering recipes in Justice of the Pies, complemented by moody, rich photography. Every recipe is designed to light up your taste buds, fill your belly, and satisfy that pang in your sweet tooth. I made the sweet potato praline pie (more on that in a moment) and from what I can tell in making that recipe and studying others, there is no pretense here for diet food. These are meals and desserts that have been crafted to elicit a smile or a gasp of excitement from your family and friends. (There is also a peaches and herb cobbler in here that might make you feel good in other ways if you choose to make the weed-infused butter.)

Scattered in between the recipes are human spotlight stories. They each tell an uplifting story about a person or group of people who wanted to bring positive change to their communities, whether it’s addressing food insecurity or resolving to throw birthday parties for children who are housing insecure. These stories deliver a dose of positivity and hopefully provide inspiration to support community efforts in our own ways. These stories echo back to Broussard's own initiatives, like her I Knead Love workshops that provide food education to children right there in the bakery. It’s food with intention. 

The dish I made this week

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

Like I teased above, I made the sweet potato praline pie this week. I didn’t make it easy on myself, as this recipe has three different parts. It’s a reminder that if I plan on making more pies this summer that it’s not a bad idea to double or triple her all-butter pie dough recipe and just keep a few stored in the freezer for future use. 

The crust is a classic butter recipe with only four ingredients, so you don’t have to worry about reinventing the wheel here. There are some recipes that add an egg or drop in some vodka, and it all gets a little irritating. (I’m guilty of overcomplicating pie crust.) It turns out, pie crust just doesn’t need to be hacked.

The filling is what I was most interested in. I adore sweet potatoes at all times, but they’re especially charming when mashed up with brown sugar and loads of butter and baked into a pie shell. This pie preparation was straightforward and positively laden with those two important ingredients. I appreciated Broussard’s clear instructions and tips; they told me what to look out for without being long winded. For example, after the filling is completely mixed, it looks like a mistake. All of the butter specks separate from the mixture and I could see this breaking someone's heart if they didn’t know any better. Broussard drops in a quick line that you’ll know it’s done mixing when you see those very specks show up.

Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann

As for the flavor, all sweet potato fans will be in tuber heaven. This recipe instructs you to mash the sweet potatoes rather than blend them, which gives the pie a little more structural integrity, rather than a baby food texture I’ve gotten with other recipes. The pie finishes with a slightly puckered look due to the butter specks melting away, and the high sugar content gives it a caramelized top. This pie is rich and sweet; perfect for a cup of coffee. I’m looking forward to that tomorrow morning. 

How to buy it

You can buy the hardcover (which is beautiful) of Justice of the Pies online, and because it’s a couple years old, you can find a good deal. For those with little book shelf space to spare, consider the ebook for five bucks. Or, if you’re a bookstore butterfly like myself (bookstore bee? Still workshopping it), check out your local Barnes & Noble, stop into Warwick’s, or call up your neighborhood independent bookstore to see if they can order it for you.

Justice of the Pies: Sweet and Savory Pies, Quiches, and Tarts plus Inspirational Stories from Exceptional People: A Baking Book

$4.99 at Amazon

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$4.99 at Amazon

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