Three bakeries making stellar holiday pies

Relish the rich purple color of the Ube blondie pie.

Oct. 30, 2023 3 AM PT

The holiday decorations at my local Target store feel like a not so subtle shove into the holiday season. I suppress the urge to scream “stop rushing me!” at the 14.5-inch plush deer figurine wearing a green scarf and to the boxes of candy canes that must taste stale by the time Christmas rolls around.

It’s too soon. We’ve barely reached this week’s other holiday with pumpkins and candy.

The not so subtle push got me thinking about the holidays. Mostly about the pies I plan to serve, both at dinner and as a small treat to take home along with all the leftovers.

Not that I need an excuse to think about pie right now. Pie is for every season.

Fat & Flour, Nicole Rucker’s tiny shop at Grand Central Market in downtown L.A. is not highlighted below, because if you’ve been reading this section or following me or Times restaurant critic Bill Addison on social media, you should know that her pies are excellent and that you should already be eating them.

Key lime, pumpkin, any seasonal fruit. I love them all. I’ll be ordering at least one for the holidays, alongside some new favorites below.

Ube blondie pie from Baking With Ish, $60

A slice of Ube blondie pie is displayed above the rest of the pie.

The ube blondie pie stands out in Ishnoelle Chin Richardson’s small storefront at the Blossom Market Hall in San Gabriel. It’s a deep purple, more Grimace than Barney the Dinosaur, with clouds of meringue nestled up along a perfectly wavy crust.

The purple color comes from ube, a sweet yam native to Southeast Asia that’s widely used in Filipino cooking.

A smiling man in an apron with a deep angled shadow.

“I grew up eating ube,” says Richardson, who moved from the Philippines to the U.S. as a teenager. “I would eat fried skewers of ube as a snack. It’s so versatile.”

It was the flavors of the Philippines that helped Richardson establish his pop-up bakery during the pandemic after he left his job as a pastry chef at Soho House West Hollywood. He saw that a cheese-stuffed pandesal, a bread roll he grew up eating in the Philippines, was trending on social media. He launched a pop-up bakery in May 2020 and sold his own ube cheese pandesal with ube jam and cheese. His following grew and so did the menu, for which he incorporated more desserts that reminded him of home, with a buko pie and ensaymada.

Richardson uses ube to make pound cake, cookies, cheesecake, sweetbreads and sapin pies, but I’m currently captivated by the ube blondie pie.

It’s like three desserts in one, with a buttery crust made from a blend of flours that includes Sonoran wheat from the Tehachapi Heritage Grain Project. It’s extra flaky but sturdy and more savory than sweet. Next is a layer of ube blondie, soft, chewy and full of the earthy, nutty flavor of grated ube. Then comes the ube flan.

“I added flan because of the texture, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” Richardson said. “Why not put them together.”

A slice of purple ube pie on a pedestal.

The layer of flan is just set on top of the blondie, mostly intact until you slice into the pie and it starts to slowly cascade over the sides. Made with both condensed and evaporated milks and plenty of grated ube, it’s just sweet enough.

You dig your fork through the custardy flan, then the blondie and finally the crisp crust, each component balanced and distinct, contributing a specific texture and decadence to each bite.

All pie is a treat, but this one feels even more so.

Whole pies and slices are available at the shop now. You can also pre-order whole pies through Nov. 18.

Miniature caramel apple pies from Pie Room by Gwen, $13

The miniature caramel apple pie from the Pie Room by Gwen.

The bakery arm of Curtis Stone‘s Gwen restaurant in Hollywood turns out an impressive array of both sweet and savory pies, croissants and cookies. This is not a croissant column, but I feel compelled to tell you about the wagyu pastrami and rye croissant (photo here) anyway. Thick slices of Wagyu pastrami sit over a luxurious bèchamel that mimics the flavors of Russian dressing, bits of dill pickle and sauerkraut tucked into an outstanding croissant crowned with melted Gruyère cheese and a sprinkle of caraway and celery seeds.

Yes, it shatters when you take a bite, and please don’t buy them all before I get there.

The Pie Room is also home to the miniature caramel apple pies I plan to gift to everyone at my holiday table. They’re a 4- by 4-inch version of the massive five-pound caramel apple pie the bakery is known for. “They can serve two people, but I usually eat one myself,” Robyn Collins, executive pastry chef for the Pie Room by Gwen, said during a recent call.

I’d have to agree, though it’s a sizable pie, one with an optimum crust-to-filling ratio.

Collins cooks down sliced Granny Smith apples until their juices start to run, then adds flour to make a sort of thickened apple gravy. She uses a minimal amount of sugar, some cinnamon, ginger and “more salt than one would think,” she said.

Before she adds the apples to the crust, she sprinkles on shortbread cookie crumbles to help soak up some of the moisture from the apples and to ensure that the base of the pie doesn’t get soggy. She enriches the apple mixture with a spoonful of brown butter, a spoonful of caramel and a sprinkle of Malden salt before sealing the pie with a top layer of crust.

Before it’s baked, the crust gets a thin sheet of egg wash and a dunk into Demerara sugar. Once the pie is out of the oven, Collins uses a brush to paint on caramel, giving it a glossy copper finish.

The apples are soft but not mushy, with a noticeable echo of their former crunch. And they’re refreshingly tart, mellowed by the brown butter and the sweetness of the caramel.

That coating of Demerara creates a delicate, glass-like sheen of sugar that clings to the crust. You end up with extra crunchy pockets of sugar and caramel, along with grooves in the crust where the caramel pools and remains gooey.

This is the apple pie of my dreams. It’s the perfect way to say “I love you,” or “thank you for coming to my holiday party,” and “sorry I screwed up the turkey and made you sit next to that uncle.”

The miniature apple pies are available now and for pre-order for the holidays along with a slew of other seasonal flavors.

Where to buy pie for the holidays or whenever

Baking with Ish, 264 S. Mission Drive, Space B, San Gabriel, (323) 252-8532, www.instagram.com/bakingwithish/?hl=en

Pie Room by Gwen, 6600 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 946-7500, order.toasttab.com/online/gwen-to-go

Fat + Flour, 317 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, (323) 380-8583, www.fatandflourla.com