I Got You, Babe

Infiltrating a professional pie baker’s kitchen can be extremely challenging. Every baker follows their own closely guarded formula and is usually nursing a healthy dose of paranoia that someone will steal Grandma Mildred’s secret peach cobbler recipe. After being turned away by numerous pastry chefs who will remain nameless, I met a sassy cohort of lady bakers who make up Three Babes Bakeshop and pop-up at Stable Café on the weekends. These pie mistresses welcomed me into their kitchen upon one condition – that I lend a hand.

If Alice Waters had a baby with Alice Cooper, the Three Babes kitchen could easily be their nursery. Lenore Estrada (aka “Honey Badger”), Katrina Svoboda, and Anna Derivi-Castellanos are the beauty, brawn, and brains behind the new hyper-local pie operation. Their 100% organic pies have serious swagger. The bakers have close ties to all the local farmers that they source ingredients from, and they cuss like a crew of sailors while producing some of the most delicious pies you’ll ever taste.

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When I arrive at the Three Babes’ commercial kitchen, it already smells like Grandma’s house. But instead of weird old lady songs on the dial, they’re blasting rock music while shouting out recipe quantities quicker than a bookie taking last-minute bets. I hustle over to join the melee.

What’s in season serves as constant inspiration and informs the six pies that appear on their weekly pop-up menu. Ensuring a crisp, flaky crust is one of the most important details to creating the perfect pie. The Babes patiently demonstrate how to use a French rolling pin to prepare the dough for the cuter-than-kittens “pies in a jar.” Lenore spreads out her perfectly even circular crusts in a few seconds flat, and then deftly uses her knuckles to flute the edges, while I execute the less demure task of smashing a heap of organic walnuts with a hammer.

In this kitchen, berry juice runs thicker than blood and all three ladies have long personal histories of making pies from scratch. Anna’s great-grandfather was a pastry chef in Italy who taught her grandpa how to make pies, who in turn passed the knowledge to her mom, and finally to Anna. Lenore’s family owned a café where she perfected her pastry skills, taking rustic culinary cues from her migrant worker heritage. She still has her great-grandma’s box of handwritten pie recipes. Katrina is a graphic designer by day and baker by night, and comes from a family that even produces their own honey.

By the time I show up Thursday for a late-night baking session, things are already in full swing. Anna’s family is in town and waist-deep in berries and walnuts. “No beard hair in the pie!” Anna teases her brother. Meanwhile, Lenore’s sister Olivia is rolling out more crusts and her girlfriend is delicately sprinkling pinches of sugar and salt on top of the pie lattices before they go careening into the hot oven. I watch as a monstrous tub of hand-sorted strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, and olallieberry get mixed with cornstarch, sugar, and a selection of secret spices. It’s a juicy, dark crimson cauldron, and if the Babes weren’t hovering close by I would probably sneak a pinch.

The berry mixture is then scooped into cold pie crusts, sprinkled with little pieces of butter for extra richness and finally topped with strips of raw dough woven to form the traditional lattice pattern. Everyone’s hands are stained a fluorescent fuchsia at this point, and we stuff each berry pie with anywhere from 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 pounds of organic fruit. While Anna sets a timer, she shows me how important it is to be able to visually determine when the pies are done. Pointing to the bubbling dark red berries and perfectly browned lattice, too many pie bakers actually underbake their pies or serve soggy bottom crusts.

I hear an expletive from one of the bakers and watch as a pie comes out of the oven overflowing with sweet berry juices in a delicious hot mess. The Three Babes immediately powwow to figure out what made the pie go nuclear. It’s a never-ending process, and with baking you often have to wait until the end to see if everything turned out perfectly. The kitchen is now a maelstrom of butter, sugar, and bright juicy fruit. Everyone is working at top speed to make sure the pies are finished in time for Saturday’s pop-up. I leave after 11 p.m. and the crew is still going strong: shoving pies into hot ovens, mixing big vats of lightly sweetened fruit, and cooling finished pies on racks.

When I stop by early Saturday morning for a healthy breakfast of pie and coffee, the Babes have already set up their stand and are nearly ready for the imminent crowds. Good-bye, cupcakes –San Francisco foodies have moved on to pies. Overwhelmed by the many choices, I let the Babes choose their top three pies when it comes time for me to order. Armed with a slice of cherry lattice with rhubarb, lemon buttermilk with tayberries, and salty honey walnut, I sit down to taste the final products.

I save a corner of each slice (so as not to appear like a complete glutton) – except for the salty honey walnut. This Southern specialty has a custard-like consistency but still retains a bit of crunch from the organic walnuts. Maybe it was the fact that I coaxed those nuts out of the shells myself, or perhaps it was the complex combination of savory and sweet, but that slice disappeared before I knew what happened. It was truly out of this world – worthy of calling home to mom.

The cherry lattice with rhubarb features a traditional and flavor-packed punch of sun-filled cherries that strike the right balance between sweetness and tartness. The unique lemon buttermilk slice with tayberries reminds me of a Southern cousin to the cheesecake, but with a lighter texture whose creaminess is tempered with a citrus bite. Historically, pies were created for hand-held sustenance in battle. Judging by the delicious slices I tried, these pies could fuel World War III.

Now, understandably, I don’t want to get 86ed from my personal pie source and give away any family secrets. Luckily, the Three Babes are generously sharing their cherry rhubarb lattice pie in time for our San Francisco summer.

If you want to skip the recipe and try the original, stop by the Three Babes’ pop-up on Saturdays and Sundays at Stable Café from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and order up a pie.

Three Babes Cherry Rhubarb Pie

Crust:

2 sticks plus 2 tbsp. butter
2/3 cup ice water
1 tbsp. vinegar
3 cups flour
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt

Cut butter into ½ inch cubes and place in the freezer.

Measure out water and stir in the vinegar, sugar, and salt until dissolved and place in the freezer to chill.

Measure the flour into a chilled bowl.

Remove butter from freezer, and using a pastry cutter, cut into the flour until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Use your hands to break up any large pieces of butter.

Sprinkle the flour and butter with the water and vinegar, a little at a time, tossing the mixture at first and then pressing together with a spatula, until the dough just comes together.

Divide into two rounds, one slightly larger than the other, and chill for at least 1 hour in the fridge.

Use a rolling pin to roll out the larger round of dough, and then fit it into a buttered pie plate. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

Roll out the smaller round and use a pizza cutter to slice 9 strips for the lattice top. Slide onto a cookie sheet and chill while preparing the filling.

Filling:

3 cups ripe cherries (Bings, Stellas, or even Raniers will work!) washed and pitted
3 cups rhubarb, washed and sliced into ½ inch pieces
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
¼ tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ cup lemon juice
1 tsp. lemon zest
2 tbsp. butter, cut into ¼ inch cubes

Mix all of the ingredients except the butter in a large bowl, and stir until the fruit is evenly coated and the dry ingredients are well distributed.

Pour the filling into the pie plate and dot the top with butter.

Arrange three strips of dough across the top of the pie. Then, working with one strip at a time, weave three more strips in the opposite direction to form the lattice.

Roll the edge of the bottom crust in tightly (toward the center of the pie) so that it rests comfortably on the rim of the pie plate. Press the outer crust between two knuckles of one hand and the thumb of the other to flute.

Brush the entire pie with cream; sprinkle lightly with coarse salt and generously with coarse sugar.

Bake in a preheated 425-degree oven for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 and bake for an additional 50 minutes, or until pie filling bubbles and the lattice is golden brown. Cool completely on a rack before serving.