Pies by Knight...Updated

Many of you have asked me about how the pie business is going. Well, as of today we have sold 206 pies.

Some of you might not know how this got started so I thought I would share a little story with you.

It all started with the teen life groups meeting at the house on Wednesday evenings. I had offered to host, since the leader spots were already filled, so I wanted to do something for the kids special each week. It started with baking some cakes and making my grandmothers icing from the old-school receipts. This was followed with both cobbler and lemon pie from my mother’s receipts. One Wednesday I decided to get really brave and attempt to bake a real pie with a flour based crust. The first attempts were not very successful, but the kids didn’t mind. They would eat anything and everything I tried. They would offer suggestions and I would seek advice from others about how to improve the crust.

It was around this same time that the lemon tree in our backyard started to produce hundreds of lemons. I didn’t want to just toss out all those lemons so I started looking for something to do with them. At first I baked lemon pies, it was the only receipt I had and I made a lot of them. But we still had tons of lemons and lemon juice (Ronna had bought me a small juicer by this time). I started looking around the internet to find out what to do with several gallons of lemon juice. Other than make a lot of lemon-aid, I did not find much help. The thought hit me “what if I make jelly out of it?”, but I could not find any receipts for lemon jelly. So I did the next best thing, I found a receipt for citrus jelly and modified it to use only lemon juice. Truthfully the kids like the orange jelly better, but wouldn’t you rather eat an orange than a lemon? Anyway, back to the story.

I was now making lemon jelly and attempting to make pie crust. For anyone that has never made pie dough, you have to “cut” Crisco into flour. I started using two butter knives, but again Ronna came to the rescue. She got me a Sunbeam mixer with dough hooks and I was off and running. Over time the crust got better and now I am happy with how they are coming out. That brings us to the filling portion of the story.

Some of my earliest pies were apple, because I like apple pie. I tried dozens of different combinations of the ingredients until I found one that I like and I have been using it for some time now. David seems to like it also.

My next big step was the strawberry pie. The kids wanted me to make a strawberry pie so I started looking for some receipts on the internet. After several attempts I found one that everyone really liked and I was making it regularly. It used Cool-Whip as the topping and again Ronna had to set me straight. She told me that even thought I was making the crust from scratch and slicing and cooking down the strawberries, it was n0t really “home-made” because the Cool-Whip was store bought. This let to me making home-made whipping cream using only heavy whipping cream, sugar and vanilla. The kids and Ronna like it much better than Cool-Whip anyway. At the request of Jenna I modified the strawberry receipt and made the blueberry pie, another one of the kids top pics.

From there I started seeking out different receipts and different pies. I still use my mother’s lemon receipt, but I have modified it to use key lime juice making a key lime pie. I have also adapted the filling receipt from mom’s cobbler to be used in both cherry and peach pie. Mom also opened up the old family receipt box and shared with me my great-aunt Lula’s Chocolate pie receipt. It called for a meringue topping which I do make, but I also use the whipped topping if requested. I also found in the family secret box the old egg custard receipt, which has a variation for coconut cream, butterscotch, banana cream and pineapple. This is the same receipt I modified to create the pina-colada pie.

The last big piece of the puzzle came from one of mom’s quilting buddies, Judy. She had a great pecan receipt that have had great success with. I have also adapted this receipt to make the chocolate pecan (the first few were too sweet, but I think it works good now) and the walnut pie.

I have made some special orders but not too many, and I try not to stray too far from the basics because I don’t like to send out a pie that I have not tried personally. This is not all bad, but I really don’t need more pie. A lot of the sales have come from friends and family and specifically from our church family. I do have two very special salesmen that have help me reach the goal for 200 pies. The first one was my mother-in-law, Sherry. She is known at work as “the pie lady” and has sold 76 pies to date and I am still working on some others. The other big salesmen has been my brother, Mike. Mike has sold 59 pies to date and he has told me that he can not walk into the plant without having someone ask him about a pie. Thank you both so very much!

The real story behind the pies is why. What really made me start selling pies? The kids kept telling me that I should sell them because they were good and they thought I could be successful at selling them. So after much thought and a lot of prayer I decided to make this deal with the kids. I figured up an average cost for all the ingredients, including the pie tins with lids, is $5.00 per pie. I told the kids that I would sell the pies for $10.00 each and give the $5.00 profit to them for their work camp trip. This is the trip that they are on this week to New Mexico. The trip has been funded, however I am going to keep making pies, on a smaller scale, and I will keep donating the profits for ministry.

God has blessed my “pie ministry” very richly, I have been able to donate pies to The Refuge on several occasions, and I will keep that work going. I have also been able to develop friendships simply be discussing baking and pies. God truly can open doors for you if you will only allow Him to do so. Many people have told me that I do not look like a pie maker. I am not sure what a pie maker looks like but apparently it is not like me. But that has not stopped God from giving me this desire, talent and opportunity to serve Him. Just because you think your talent is not very big or impressive, don’t be discouraged. God can use it to accomplish great things.

God bless each of you…



PS:
Popular pies by orders-
Strawberry- 52
Apple- 27
Lemon- 24
Pecan- 15
Coconut- 14
Cherry- 13
Chocolate- 13
Blueberry- 9
Chocolate Pecan- 9
Walnut- 8
Butterscotch- 6
Peach- 6
Key Lime- 5
Other/Custom- 5