Patriot Pies — a post by Molly

Before the first fireworks flew into the sky on Monday, I started my own Independence Day celebration with my own Declaration of Independence: I turned the oven on.

The tone of the oven when it reached its set 350^o rang through the empty kitchen and could be heard ’round the air condition-less house.

After an afternoon of overbearing expectations and regulations from the ruling summer heat, I couldn’t help but resort to kitchen warfare. The summer heat had melted my butter, caked my sugar, and spoiled my strawberries; and I had had enough.

Of course these are ordinary issues for bakers further south, and they rarely complain, but they live subject to the summer heat all year round, of course they are used to his influence in their kitchen.

It is simple common sense that a ruler, who can only be bothered to stick around for a few short months, should not have control of his subjects’ entire lives.

So I marched to the oven, armed with my troops of star-shaped mini pie shells, and waited until the late afternoon when I knew the heat would be lazily complacent. Under cover of SPF 30, I slipped the shells into the oven. Despite the best efforts of the heat to break my spirit and force me to turn of the oven in some dehydrated delirium, I held my ground and the pie shells came out golden and unscathed.

After my afternoon struggle, I became even more grateful to the American patriots for fighting the actual rebellion, so that I and many others could fight silly rebellions every day. So go ahead light those fireworks on your residential street, grill all those burgers for just a few people, and bake a pie when it’s 90^o out. Save the rule following and meat pies for the Brits, Fourth of July belongs to the rebels.

 

Star Spangled Kitchen Pies

1 cup Butter

1 cup sugar

2 cups flour

2 tbsp milk

 

1 cup favorite pie filling (I recommend Apple, Cherry, or Berry for max patriotism)

 

1. Mix all of your ingredients (besides the filling) until they form a stiff dough, it should be too wet. Wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

 

2. On a well floured surface or between two sheets of plastic wrap, roll out the dough until it’s only a few millimeters thick (you might have to divide into two pieces).

 

3. Using a star shaped cookie cutter, cut the sheets into stars and place the stars in a well-greased mini muffin tin.

 

4. Bake in a 350^o oven for 15 minutes, cool and remove from pan by twisting the shells.

 

5. Place 1/2 tbsp of your favorite pie filling (I used mixed berry left over from my own Independence/Graduation party) in each shell and chill in the fridge until ready.