So, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been all about pies lately. Sometimes I like to kill time on various culinary schools’ websites, thinking about becoming a pastry chef. While I don’t think I’ll ever do this (unless I win the lottery), I did notice that the Institute of Culinary Education offers recreational class, and it’s right in Manhattan.

I was looking at their list of classes a few weeks ago and found the Superb Spring Pies class. It was held on a Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and was $100. So I immediately signed up, and then made my way there last Sunday.

The recreational classes are held in empty classrooms right next to classrooms that are in use for actual students. Our class was held in a chocolate room which held two large stainless steel tables and more mixing bowls, professional-quality KitchenAid mixers and induction burners than I’ve ever seen in my life. I was in heaven.

The class accommodated ten people and began with all of us sitting around one of the tables and listening to the Chef Instructor go over the recipes and techniques we would be using. Each person could pick one of about twelve different pie recipes to create. I settled on Lemon Cream Meringue Pie, as I’ve never made one before.

We each paired up with another student and set to work making our pies. I finally learned how to make a decent pie crust without using a machine. At home I always use my hand held pastry blender, but in the class, we did it using only fingers to incorporate the butter into the flour. It came out amazing, much better than any pie crust I’ve ever made before.

While our pie crusts chilled, we started on our various fillings. Mine was a lemon-infused milk and cornstarch mixture with lemon juice.

Let me just say that induction burners are a wonderful thing. They heat up in a millisecond.

Finally we assembled our pies and baked them (or baked the crust and then filled it with the cooled filling, as in my case) and put them all out to be admired. Here’s mine:

As you can see, my crust sort of went south on me. I apparently left too much crust on the edges. I tried to do a fluted pie crust, but since there was too much crust, it wouldn’t hold up in the oven and instead, sort of dripped down the sides. So, other than the ugly crust edges, I think it turned out pretty cute. I used a pastry bag to apply the meringue and then got to use a torch to brown the meringue.

Here’s a sampling of some of my classmates’ pies:

Each pie then had one piece cut out of it so that we could sample each one. Man, were they good. The chocolate tarts were so rich you could only eat a bite, and the crumb-topped apple pie was still warm, which made it soooo delicious.

We each got to take home the rest of our pies, which my husband was delighted about. We polished off the rest of the pie by Tuesday.

I’m already checking out the schedule of classes for the rest of the summer and have found some that I’m very interested in (cakes and summer fruit pies!). If you’re in the New York area and are at all interested in baking and/or cooking, I would really recommend taking a class at ICE. Well worth the money and so much fun.