Some people shy away from making pie crusts. Here is a recipe to banish all fear, a simple dough of butter and all-purpose flour, easy to make and dependable as can be. If you plan to make a pie with a...
Author: Melissa Clark
This is a classic and simple recipe given a Southern kick with a little bourbon. The alcohol will evaporate when you bake the pie, and you're left with a richly flavored, gooey dessert, intensely sweet...
Author: Julia Reed
If you are a fan of lemon curd or the classic French tarte au citron, you will love this cranberry version. To minimize kitchen time, make it in stages, preparing the crust and curd a day or two in advance....
Author: David Tanis
Eat a perfect peach under the summer sun and you'll experience the fruit at its messy, dripping, sugar-bright best. Rinse your chin and understand that no melon, apricot or blackberry can compete. But...
Author: Sam Sifton
This recipe is inspired by the fruit and cream pies at Briermere Farms, in Riverhead, N.Y., a fruit farm and bakery on the North Fork of Long Island. Here, a press-in graham cracker crust is swapped in...
Author: Lidey Heuck
This rave-worthy pie showcases perfectly the classic combination of sweet strawberries with tart rhubarb.
Author: Florence Fabricant
The baker and pie coach Kate McDermott has many tricks to figure out when a pie is done, but her favorite is what she calls "the heartbeat of the pie." She listens for a sizzle that tells her that the...
Author: Julia Moskin
This classic dough contains no special ingredients, just flour, salt, butter and water, but it works like a dream. The recipe makes a single crust for a 9-inch pie; simply double it to make a double-crust...
Author: Erin Jeanne McDowell
As plums bake, their tartness mellows and their juices jelly - just a couple reasons why they do so well in pies, cobblers and this crumble, which is essentially an upside-down graham cracker-crusted pie....
Author: Jerrelle Guy
This striking tart is all about the apples, and - believe it or not - it's fairly simple to make. The crust is the pat-in-the-pan variety, and a mandoline makes quick work of slicing. For the most beautiful...
Author: Yossy Arefi
This pie is a celebration of perfectly ripe, summertime strawberries. Only two cups of the berries are cooked down into a quick jam, which holds the rest of the fruit together for a delightfully fresh...
Author: Samantha Seneviratne
This crowd-pleasing dessert imitates the velvety custard and caramelized sugar shell of a crème brûlée, with the added bonus of a flaky crust. A food processor makes easy work of the all-butter pie...
Author: Jerrelle Guy
Like a dreamy mash-up between a Key lime and lemon meringue pie, this surprisingly fast and easy dessert is adapted from Bill Smith, the chef at Crook's Corner, a Chapel Hill, N.C. restaurant that specializes...
Author: Margaux Laskey
In this savory-sweet treat, apples are layered with roasted green chilies, made savory with Cheddar cheese in the crust and sprinkled with a streusel topping of walnuts and brown sugar. (Don't let making...
Author: Julia Moskin
This recipe came to The Times in a 2010 article about Valerie Confections, a Los Angeles bakery that specializes in vintage desserts with a California provenance. This spectacular pie is an adaptation...
Author: Robert Trachtenberg
This tart requires a time commitment: There are several elements, and while each is simple, they need to be prepared and cooled before the tart is assembled. But it pays back in complexity of flavor and...
Author: Yotam Ottolenghi
The photogenic tart will make you look like a pastry chef, though it's no more difficult than baking a pie. A sweet tart crust is layered with almond cream, fig jam (homemade is nice, but store-bought...
Author: Martha Rose Shulman
This special occasion dessert takes a little time to put together, but it's much easier to make than it looks. It starts with a simple press-in chocolate cookie crust that doesn't require a rolling pin...
Author: Erin Jeanne McDowell
This is your grandma's puddin' pie, only it's vegan - a smooth, cool and creamy pudding in a classic graham cracker shell. To make life even easier, you can use a store-bought crust. For added grandma...
Author: Tara Parker-Pope
The pastry chef Claudia Fleming is known for her work with fruit desserts, and this recipe, adapted from her cult-classic cookbook, "The Last Course," is an easy version of the classic caramelized apple...
Author: Julia Moskin
Many apple pies call for simply tossing cut apples with sugar, adding a thickening agent and some spices, and plopping it all into a crust. But precooking the apples has multiple advantages: First, it...
Author: Erin Jeanne McDowell
This is a classic French dessert - impressive, but easy to make, if you are organized and get ahead on the prep work. It's essential to make the tart dough and lemon curd in advance, up to 2 days ahead;...
Author: David Tanis
This beautiful plum tart, adapted from the pastry chef Alex Levin of Osteria Morini in Washington, brings together a sablé butter crust flavored with vanilla bean; colorful, juicy plum slices; and an...
Author: Joan Nathan
Prunes, or dried plums, are a delicious, often underrated baking ingredient in the United States. In France, the fruit is used in sweet and savory recipes, including this one for a popular dessert filled...
Author: Tejal Rao
Here's a pie for the middle of summer, when the raspberries are ripe and dessert should be cool and creamy. Think of it as vanilla pudding in a pie shell, a messily delicious way to showcase the flavor...
Author: Sara Bonisteel
A galette is the perfect dessert for anyone who thinks the crust-to-fruit ratio of the average pie is way off. In a galette, the fruit filling is thinner, so you have more flaky pastry to every bite. It...
Author: Samantha Seneviratne
Jane Nickerson was the food editor of The New York Times from 1942 until 1957, when she moved with her family to Lakeland, Fla. There, she eventually became food editor of The Ledger, in Lakeland, then...
Author: Sam Sifton
This delightful cake emerges from the oven as golden as a pear tarte Tatin, but with a moist, cake-y layer that sops up all of the luscious pear drippings. Let the oohs and aahs begin.
Author: Melissa Clark
Mixed berry pie is the ultimate summertime treat: Handfuls of the season's finest blueberries, blackberries and raspberries are tucked into a crisp, buttery crust that's just begging to be served with...
Author: Yossy Arefi
If you seek inspiration for a better pie, you need look no further than a traditional French walnut tart. It is only marginally different, but vive that difference. The reason is butter: butter in the...
Author: Mark Bittman
The character of fresh raspberries can be fleeting when cooked, especially when the berries are mixed with other fruit like ripe, juicy peaches. To deepen the berry flavor in this summer pie, a little...
Author: Melissa Clark
This recipe came to The Times from Diana Scott-Sho of the Luscious Little Dessert Company in Yonkers. A picture of this pie prompted many an email from readers asking where they could get the recipe. What...
Author: Melissa Clark
The deliciously tart apple butter filling in this pie has a deep rosy color, bolstered by raspberries and blackberries. Apples with darker red skins will produce a filling that contrasts beautifully with...
Author: Erin Jeanne McDowell
This chocolate mint tart is wonderfully reminiscent of a giant, elegant peppermint patty, tucked into a chocolate pastry shell. The mint flavor is subtle thanks to fresh-mint infused cream that is used...
Author: Yossy Arefi
Perfection is a fool's mission when it comes to blueberry pie. Sometimes the filling is a little runny. Other times, slightly thick, depending on the blueberries themselves. But this recipe helps even...
Author: Sam Sifton
Unlike most cobblers, which ask you to chop or slice the fruit, this one is meant to preserve the integrity of the apricots, which bake until totally tender, jammy and saucy, while still maintaining their...
Author: Alison Roman
This is a wonderful but simple summer pie inspired by strawberry pretzel salad, a popular Southern dessert. The classic recipe consists of a crumbled pretzel crust, a whipped cream cheese and Cool Whip...
Author: Jerrelle Guy
Somewhere between a lemon bar and a lemon pie lies this ultra tangy tart. "Tart" makes it sound difficult, but it's easier than you think: The rich filling requires zero cooking, and the crust is a simple...
Author: Alison Roman
Use this crunchy, flaky tart recipe as a template for any ripe summer fruit you have, adjusting the sugar and cornstarch depending on how sweet and juicy the fruit is (see Tip). Made from store-bought...
Author: Melissa Clark
Most pumpkin pies rely entirely on ground spices for their heady flavor. In this one, whole spices (star anise, clove, cinnamon and black peppercorns) are infused into cream, which gives it a more interesting,...
Author: Melissa Clark
This cobbler substitutes fresh, juicy kernels and corn milk for traditional heavy cream, taking advantage of the sweetness of seasonal corn and adding texture to a buttery crust. Grating two large ears...
Author: Jerrelle Guy
The celebrated pastry chef Dolester Miles learned to bake in a small town called Bessemer, outside Birmingham, Ala. She took the tastes of desserts passed down from her mother and her aunt, and re-worked...
Author: Kim Severson
This is essentially a classic double-crusted apple pie, packed tight with fruit, but it calls for a wide variety of apples, giving it far more flavor. For the most nuanced filling, use as many different...
Author: Genevieve Ko
Coconut milk gives the spiced sweet potato filling in these small pies a delicate custard texture, and coconut flakes on top deliver a toasted nuttiness. This recipe calls for pressing two dozen tiny crusts...
Author: Genevieve Ko
In this decadent pie baked in a skillet, fresh peaches are coated in caramel before being topped with a homemade puff pastry crust. The trick to controlling the sweetness here is making sure to cook the...
Author: Melissa Clark
Rhubarb makes any dessert a showstopper, but this tart has more than meets the eye. Under the fruit is a luscious vanilla custard nestled in a chewy macaroon shell. When shopping, look for rhubarb that...
Author: Samantha Seneviratne
This gorgeous tart is adapted from "Sweeter Off the Vine," by Yossy Arefi, a cookbook of fruit desserts for every season. It's an ideal vehicle for the ripest strawberries at the height of the season,...
Author: Emily Weinstein
The chef and baker Elisabeth Prueitt's favorite all-purpose dough was inspired by classic rugelach. That dough traditionally combines cream cheese with butter to create a pliable, tangy and tender pastry....
Author: Tejal Rao
This pie is fudgy, nutty, salty-sweet and spiked with citrus. It's a meeting of sorts, between arguably Britain and America's greatest desserts: the treacle tart and pecan pie. Cut corners by grating the...
Author: Clare de Boer
Cherries in winter may sound counterintuitive, but like frozen peas and corn, frozen cherries are, well, pretty good. Baked on a bed of easy press-in crust, the boozy cherries sink into the almost-frangipane...
Author: Alison Roman