ANY WAY YOU SLICE IT
Any Way You Slice It
Pi Day, you say? We couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than by stuffing ourselves silly with a local sampling.
By David Claude Bailey • Photographs by Amy Freeman
What is it about pies? “I suspect that people feel a sense of tradition and simple goodness when eating pie,” says Maxie B’s owner, Robin Davis, who was featured in a 2012 Southern Living best-cakes-in-the-South article. Robin also knows a little something about pies. Chocolate chess, pecan, coconut custard, coconut cream, chocolate cream, lemon meringue, cherry, blueberry, peach, blackberry, sweet potato, pumpkin — 40 in all, seasonally available. “They are a little lighter than cake since they do not have icing.” Almost healthy, eh?
And then she adds, “Mostly, I think eating pie is just a comforting experience.”
Amen.
Robin is just one of a wealth of seasoned pie-o-neers who have made Greensboro, at least in our view, pie central.
Grab a fork and dig into one of my own favorite comfort foods. We know we’ve missed some of our favorites and your favorites, but there are only so many notches in our belt and these six slices were pushing its limit.
THE PIE HOLE: Maxie B’s
If you’re not able to visit a pâtisserie any time soon, Maxie B’s interior comes pretty close to transporting you à Paris. How many other bakeries feature chandeliers, tufted banquettes, plump, comfy couches and a private, hideaway booth for intimate gatherings? Or, naturellement, snag a seat at the sidewalk café in front and order a café au lait and, of course, a piece of good ol’ American pie.
THE PIE: Chocolate chess
THE LOWDOWN: While the butter in the hand-made, rolled-daily crust hails from Europe, not to worry: the pastry flour is from North Carolina. The only other ingredients are a little sugar, some salt, some vinegar, ice water and TLC. The filling ingredients are equally simple — Swiss chocolate, butter, local cage-free eggs, vanilla, sugar and salt. The cacao beans? From Ghana.
MY TAKEAWAY: Forget Frenchified soufflé au chocolat or chocolate mousse. Sit down to a Southern favorite that dates back to Martha Washington — chess pie. This version is intense, dominated by a jolt of chocolate that dances all over your tongue. The crust is textbook, so rich and flaky you look forward to attacking what’s sometimes left uneaten on other pies — the crust’s shoulder.
MOST POPULAR PIE: Chocolate chess, of course
THE PIE MAKER: Robin Davis, the owner of Maxie B’s (named after pugs Max and Bitterman), never meant to run a cake shop. It was her late husband, Lewis, a workout fanatic, who in 2002 urged her to, please, stop filling the house and kitchen with tempting cakes. So she moved her baking operation to the yogurt shop she was running. While pregnant, she craved a devil’s food cake like the ones she remembered from family reunions. The rest, like our slice of her pie, is history. Two articles in Southern Living brought, quite literally, busloads of people to try this devil’s (and angel) food, and, as business boomed, Robin’s shop expanded, gobbling up two adjacent storefronts. The devil’s food cake is still available, along with red velvet, hummingbird, coconut, caramel and dozens of others.
THE INSIDE SCOOP: Pies featured year-round include chocolate chess, pecan, coconut custard (and cream) and chocolate cream. Seasonally, expect lemon meringue and cherry, plus, when available, fruit pies with local, freshly picked produce, including blackberry pies (stuffed with Climax Creek Homestead berries) and sweet potato pies (with taters from Faucette Farms in Brown Summit).
2403 Battleground Ave., Greensboro
336-288-9811, maxieb.com
THE PIE HOLE: Delicious Bakery
Sit down to your pie in Delicious’ new, light, bright and airy venue on Battleground. The dining area is spacious, affording privacy if you want to share the latest crumb of gossip (or pie) with a confidante. Or seek out a nook where you, your laptop and an espresso can get some work done — or eat as much pie as you want away from prying eyes.
OUR SLICE: Lemon meringue
THE LOWDOWN: The crust is hand-rolled, butter-based and made from scratch. The filling, made from egg yolks, sugar, butter, lemon juice and zest, is thickened with corn starch. A stunning swirl of meringue made from egg whites, sugar and vanilla is torched to a golden brown finish.
MY TAKEAWAY: It seemed a shame to take a knife to the towering, mile-high meringue, but, when I did, the aroma of fresh-sliced lemons permeated the air. The filling bristled with a sweet-and-sour tang while the meringue provided a great
balance to its tartness, not too rich or sweet. The pre-baked crust served as a tasty vessel — and not over-baked. Here’s a dessert that’s a classic for a good reason.
BEST SELLER: Chocolate chess
THE PIE MAKERS: Owner Mary Reid, as much an artist as a baker, got things going in her home kitchen in 2004, whipping up and decorating cakes for neighbors and friends. She soon opened a storefront and then a sit-down location with Lori Loftis, her sister and a pie enthusiast, who has dipped her spoon in and out of the business for the last 20 years.
THE INSIDE SCOOP: As a full-service bakery with seasonal offerings including cakes, cupcakes, cheesecakes, cookies, brownies and breakfast pastries, it’s become a really popular meet-and-eat spot. My only battle in this space that once housed Burger Warfare is which pie to order.
1209 Battleground Ave., Greensboro
336-282-1377 | 336-288-3657 | delicious-cakes.com
THE PIE HOLE: Gardener Bob Homestead Kitchen
A modest storefront with a few tables on the sidewalk out front, Bob’s spot has a sort of alternative, organic vibe, just like Gardener Bob.
OUR SLICE: Pecan
THE LOWDOWN: The crust is homemade with King Arthur’s wheat-and-barley flour, water, salt and butter. The custard filling, baked in the pie, is a confection of sweet-cream butter, flour, evaporated milk and brown sugar — no high-fructose corn syrup.
MY TAKEAWAY: A variant on your traditional Southern pecan pie, Bob’s version is a three-part harmony beginning with sort of a praline topping that crinkles up across the top and is good enough to pick off and eat like candy. The filling is a caramelly melody of pecans, butter and brown sugar with a grace note of vanilla. The fairly thin crust is a cracker sponge that I used to sop up the syrup that spilled across my pie plate.
BEST SELLER: Pecan
THE PIE MAKER: Working in kitchens since attending culinary school as a teen, Robert (please call him Bob) Thomas has cooked for a living all his life, including three years as a baker. He’s always had a soft spot for making desserts. Recovering from alcohol and heroin addiction at 33, Bob was surprised that he continued to be plagued by digestive issues. Determined to leave preservatives, dyes, chemicals, artificial ingredients and processed foods behind, Bob gardened, baked, fermented and cooked his way to better gut health. In 2021, he began selling his goods in farmers markets, along with his home-grown vegetables. He opened his Spring Garden storefront in November 2023.
THE INSIDE SCOOP: Determined to share his journey to good health with both advice and merch, Bob specializes in foods that promote good gut health — sourdough bread, all things fermented — from sauerkraut to pickles, kimchi to kombucha — along with baked goods (some gluten-free) and, of course, pies of every ilk.
2823 Spring Garden St., Greensboro
743-222-3933 | gardenerbob.com
THE PIE HOLE: POUND by Legacy Cakes
THE PIE: Key lime cream
THE LOWDOWN: The recipe, passed down from her mother, Margaret S. Gladney, is a bit of a family secret, but Margaret Elaine, who is, of course, named after her mom, did reveal that it’s whipped, not cooked, and the filling involves sweetened condense milk. And she, naturally, uses those itty-bitty key limes, organic please.
MY TAKEAWAY: Unlike heavier key lime pie filling, cooked with egg yolks and condensed milk, Margaret’s filling is light and creamy, almost fluffy, with a subtle, not citrusy balance of sweet and sour. (It’s so good that, if left unattended on a table top, swipe marks from family fingers inevitably appear!) Playing against the tart filling, the golden graham-cracker crust is a neutral palate with scrumptious, crunchy crumbles around the pie’s edge.
MOST POPULAR PIE: Key lime cream
THE PIE MAKER: Margaret says her Key lime pie is a spin-off of the one her mother would make, along with the famous lemon pound cake her mom baked for revivals at the 120-year-old Goshen United Methodist Church. As the youngest of 13 children, Margaret recalls her momma telling her to tiptoe across the kitchen floor so the cake wouldn’t fall. If lucky, she’d get to be the one to lick the bowl and beaters — or scoop up some crumbs that might have stuck to the pan. Margaret prides herself on incorporating her passion for science, chemistry, home economics, fashion and interior design into a legacy her mother would have been proud of.
THE INSIDE SCOOP: Other pies featuring her mother’s recipes include lemon cream pie, million dollar cream pie, pecan pie and sweet potato pie. But Margaret says her real specialty is baked-fresh-daily, hot-from-the-oven pound cakes in 150 varieties, some traditional made from 100-year-old recipes, others with a more contemporary twist, like her banana pudding pound cake or her sweet potato pound cake. There’s even a bubble gum pound cake available on special request.
3008 Spring Garden St., Greensboro 336-383-6957 | facebook.com/POUNDbyLegacyCakesInc
Second location
1620 Battleground Ave., Greensboro
336-383-6957
THE PIE HOLE: The Cherry Pit Cafe & Pie Shop
Walk into pie central and prepare to get a face full of pies and a friendly greeting from a waitstaff wearing cherry-red pie T-shirts. The walls are covered with pie slogans, pictures of pies and pie-making implements. And why not? Owner Brian Cotrone (along with his wife and business partner, April Douglas) estimates they have sold over 100,000 pies since opening July 1, 2013. The decor is cheery and modern, with bright-red upholstered banquettes and fast-casual service where your food is delivered to your table after you order at the counter.
OUR SLICE: Cherry lattice
THE LOWDOWN: This pie, made in-house from scratch like all their pies, is all about the filling, chock full of Michigan cherries. It is cooked in a steam kettle to assure the proper thickness and balance of sweet and sour. The homemade pie dough is latticed across the top, six vertical, six horizontal, and then coated with an egg wash to achieve a toasted-brown sheen.
MY TAKEAWAY: The cherries are the money in this pie, plump and piled high, with a gloriously gooey and addictive binding. The shell and the lattice are slightly sweet, balancing the tartness of the cherries. And since sour cherries are packed with melatonin and tryptophan, we’re totally convinced that cherry pie is good for you.
BEST SELLER: Pecan
THE PIE MAKERS: Twenty-five years ago, Brian, a corporate restaurant supervisor, and April, a restaurant general manager, met in Las Vegas. There, they ended up running a restaurant with a heavy pie focus. In July 2013, they launched their own pie-centric concept in Greensboro.
THE INSIDE SCOOP: Yes, they sell 10,000 pies a year, including a savory chicken pot pie, but The Cherry Pit Cafe also offers breakfast, lunch and dinner seven days a week for those of you who don’t think pie is a main course.
11 B Pisgah Church Rd, Greensboro
336-617-3249 | cherrypitcafe.com
THE PIE HOLE: Dessert Du Jour
Catch Wendy Dodson and her Dessert Du Jour tent almost any Saturday it’s not raining or snowing along the back row of The Corner Farmers Market. The market, located at the corner of West Market and Kensington in the St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church parking lot, is open from 8 a.m. until noon Saturdays year round.
OUR SLICE: Apple crumb
THE LOWDOWN: Granny Smith apples are dusted with flour and sugar and then oven-roasted. Next? Brown sugar, spices and a whole stick — in bits — of butter. Once mixed and cooled, it goes into her handmade crust. Hand mixing the dough allows little globs of high-fat (Plugra) butter to melt and puff up during baking, similar to a croissant. Lastly, the crispy crumb layer, made of sugar, spices, flour and, you guessed it, more butter, tops it all.
MY TAKEAWAY: As my first bite, loaded with each layer — crust, apple filling and crumb — neared my own pie hole, my nose twitched, triggered by the smell of cinnamon-kissed apples and toasty, brown butter. Moist and tender, the caramelized apples are perfectly paired with the golden, flaky crust, resulting in a palate-pleasing balance of sweet and salty. And, for me, the cherry on top was the satisfying crunch of the golden crumb topping, of which, well, I left no crumbs.
BEST SELLER: Husband and O.Henry magazine founder Jim Dodson insists her chocolate chess pie is so decadent you’ll end up licking your fork clean.
THE PIE MAKER: As a child, owner Wendy Dodson spent two weeks of every summer at her grandmother’s house. There, she learned the art of baking and making the perfect pie crust. Dessert Du Jour came into full fruition following COVID. Retiring from her HR job, Wendy put all her eggs into her baked-goods basket. Dessert Du Jour celebrates five years in business this month.
GOOD TO KNOW: Wendy offers market pre-orders so you can sleep in on a Saturday morning and rest assured that your pre-ordered pie, cookies or cake will be waiting for you until at least noon at the market. OH
The Corner Farmers Market, 2105 W. Market St., Greensboro 910-585-2584 | dessertdujour.net