bake - May 2012 - 28

Learn more about Oftentimes, the ﬂavor variations simply come from what she feels like eating. “Last fall, roasted butternut squash sounded really good to me with oatmeal s r — nice and warm,” she says. Other an times, Simmons gleans inspiration from Si customers and colleagues who tell her custom what they feel like eating. th instance, Michael Foust, owner For in of Fa Farm House, a farm-to-table restaurant in Kansas City’s River rest Market district, suggested that she Ma add ad bourbon-soaked raisins to the th pie. “It’s become a favorite, a regular,” Simmons says. r And then there is the BLT pie innovation, which Simmons developed after a summer of eating deve sandwiches. BLT s A local farmer suggested to her that she try arugula on her sandwich t instead of lettuce. “At the time, I was in making a Swiss chard, goat cheese and m egg eg pie, and I realized I could cook the arugula in a similar way to the chard,” aru she says. “So there was no reason why couldn’t do a BLT pie the same way.” I co
Petticoat Pies uses a whole wheat blend crust — a two-to-one ratio of unenriched, unbleached all-purpose ﬂour and whole-wheat pastry ﬂour.
— Rachel Lora Simmons, Petticoat Pies

transitioning your products’ seasonal ﬂavors on p. 31.

successfully change her varieties. “Pies can be pretty simple to play around with, because the basic process doesn’t change

much,” she says. Having a primarily seasonal business means that Petticoat Pies is open for wedding season. The rising popularity of alternative wedding desserts such as cake pops and cupcakes creates a perfect opportunity to market pies to wedding clientele. Simmons has

“Pies can be pretty simple to play around with, because the basic process doesn’t change much.”

Simmons sautéed the arugula, laid it in the pie shell, added bacon and then baked the pie with tomatoes on top. “It was really popular,” Simmons says, if not for one simple reason: “People love bacon.” Let seasons dictate For Simmons, for whom produce often

created 3-inch mini-pies for a few weddings. For one wedding in particular, she created three varieties of mini pies — buttermilk, apple and oatmeal — and then a full-size apple pie for the bride and groom. “We created the bride’s favorite pie and baked it with hearts on the top crust, so they could have something to cut into, since they didn’t have a wedding cake,” Simmons says. Although Simmons is in the height of her selling season, she’s developing an all-new product that she can market to supermarket and coffee shop wholesale accounts. She hasn’t yet revealed the product, but you can bet that the inspiration will once again come from within. “It’s something that I loved to eat as a kid, but my mom wasn’t crazy about the nutritional value that it had,” she says. “I’m reworking it and adding my own little touch to it.”

dictates her products, seasons play a huge role in her business. In fact, she’s adjusted her business plan to become a seasonal-only business, selling pies from spring through the holiday season, and closing for the remaining winter months. Pie is a product that lends itself well to product variations. So as produce changes through spring, summer, fall and early winter, Simmons can

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