Vegan Pie in the Sky: 75 Out-of-This-World Recipes for Pies, Tarts, Cobblers, and More

I bought Vegan Pie in the Sky when it first came out, and I fell in love with it from the moment it arrived in the mail. Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero are a fantastic vegan duo, and create wonderful, mouth-watering recipes. I have all of the books they co-wrote together and all of their solo books and I have never found fault with their cooking/baking.Since pie is my hands down favorite dessert - really, I will choose pie over anything, cake, brownies, cookies, if given the choice I would eat pie, especially fruit pie for every dessert, without question. - I was extremely excited when this book was released. It's a cute little book with 75 recipes, and all the ones I've tried have been solid. The layout is lovely, the ingredients lists are short, the instructions are clear and everything is very clean and concise. The pages are free of clutter, but full of helpful and useful tips, and the book is overflowing with beautiful, mouth-watering photography. I also love the friendly, witty, conversational tone of the authors and their anecdotes. I like a little personality in my cookbooks, I like a little humor and humanity and Isa and Terry certainly deliver. They come across as being very down to earth, regular people and they're not pretentious like a lot of seasoned cookbook authors. I like that.As for the recipes themselves, all the ones I've made have been fantastic, I haven o complaints on flavor, texture or overall presentation. I typically make pies for the holiday seasons and so far all the pies I've made from this book have been a hit with myself, my husband and my omnivore family and friends. Nobody ever knows that the pies are vegan. I love that the pies in this book use a nice mix of ingredients that are easy to find, nothing to exotic except for maybe agar but if you're a vegan baker that likes to make cream pies or artisan vegan cheese then you already know all about agar. I am particularly grateful for the fact that the creamy pies in this book do not rely solely on tofu for their creaminess. Honestly tofu pies usually don't do it for me. While tofu works pretty well I also find that it has a gritty taste, and the flavor can be very bland. That's not to say that all tofu pies are bad, but I like the ingenuity of using cashews, and coconut milk - sometimes with tofu - for that creaminess. I find that using 2 or more different `creamy' ingredients provides better body, better texture, better flavor, and no aftertaste of anything in particular.Some things you may wish to consider before buying this book however is that it has no nutritional information - and why should it? It's a dessert book, but I know some people like nutritional info. The book uses sugar, and white flour - again it's a dessert book, and these are obvious but some people seem to confuse the word vegan with health, and this isn't always the case. The authors intention was to create creamy, and delicious vegan pies, not health food. Besides we're talking about a book about pie, if you couldn't already figure that out then perhaps you have a larger problem. Also many - but not all - of the recipes include nuts. The cream pie recipes especially use cashews, I personally love this but if you have a cashew allergy then you may be out of luck. Unless you're adept at adapting recipe's to suit an allergy then I suggest you avoid the book. Lastly, while I found all the pie crust recipes in this book to be delicious I did not find them particularly easy to work with. Perhaps this is my own problem, me and dough do not make a good team and I often have problems when working with dough. Isa and Terry include a ton of great suggestions on how to make proper pies and good dough, but there are at least a couple other pie dough recipes that I've had better luck with. Still I do make the crusts from this book often enough, if your dough tears a bit it's easy enough to patch up and place that patchwork on the bottom where nobody will see.The following are the recipes I've made from the book and what I thought of them.Buttery Double Crust - Loved itOlive Oil Double Crust - Loved itSingle (and loving it) Pastry Curst - Loved itChocolate Shortbread Tart Shell - Loved itGraham Cracker Crust - Regular, Chocolate, Vanilla and Cookie Crumb Variations - Loved Them AllShe's My Cherry Pie - Loved itBlackberry Bramble Pie - Loved itBasil Peach Pie - Loved itAppleberry Pie - Loved itChocolate Galaxy Banana Cheesecake - Loved itBlueberry Bliss Cheesecake - Loved itRaspberry Lime Rickey Cheesecake - Loved itKey Lime Pie - Loved itCoconut Cream Pie - Loved itCoconut Lime Cream Pie - Loved itCappuccino Mousse Pie - Loved itSweet Potato Brazil Nut Crunch Pie - Loved itVoluptuous Pumpkin Pie - Loved it - a favorite of minePumpkin Cheesecake - Pretty GoodGrasshopper Pie - Loved it!Old Fashioned Chocolate Pudding Pie - Loved itCafé Mocha Cheesecake - Loved itI think the recipes in this book are easy enough for a novice baker or a newbie vegan, and so I wouldn't hesitate to buy this book for a friend or recommend it to a friend or family member. All the pies I've made so far have been enjoyed by vegans and omni's alike, so it seems the perfect bridge to gap the divide. My only regret is that I haven't had the time to make more of the pies, but many of the pages of my copy are dog-eared so as I make more I'll be sure to update my review.

Haven't tried making pie crust since I was a kid. My go-to apple pie recipe for years has been bottomless with a crumb topping (i.e. a crisp). Turns out it it's way easier than I thought to make flaky delicious goodness thanks to Isa & Terry walking me through it in their new book. I tried the blackberry bramble pie and it was amazing. Even the omnivores in my house thought it was really good and they're usually scared to try my food for fear of the "weird" ingredients.As usual, their guides at the beginning of the book address many of the potential pitfalls when baking. They list the essential tools as well as the nice-to-haves (and even the essentials have Macguyvered alternatives to keep your kitchen tools multitasking). Also as usual, Terry and Isa break down the complicated steps until they're feasible even for novice bakers. With just a basic pie crust recipe, they offer half a dozen options for edgings and tops, ranging from very simple to elaborate, most done with your fingers or basic cutlery and the occasional cookie cutter (no uni-taskers here!). They even describe two different techniques for a lattice top. The panel on adjusting for frozen fruit was particularly useful since it's not exactly berry season right now. Recipes that call for special techniques have the panel right there to make your life easier. There aren't a whole lot of exotic vegan ingredients (and those that are tend to be shelf-stable so you can stock up online) so it's fairly supermarket-friendly, even for those of us not living in the big city.Isa & Terry offer us 11 different recipes just for the crusts and they even do the math for you to adjust the cookie crusts for springform pans. They address two of the rising trends in piemaking -- vodka crusts and handpies -- without coming close to overwhelming the book with what may turn out to be fads. Even their standard pies have just a touch of something to surprise the palette. The recipes range from classic cherry, apple, and pumpkin to Pear Frangipane Tart and Curried Macaroon Pie. I will say that if you have allergies, you may want to check it out from the library or flip through it at the bookstore before deciding to buy it. There is a heavy reliance on cashews and tofu for the creamy pies (which are close to half the recipes) and they don't offer many alternatives. But with a little experimentation most of the rest can be made allergen-free.This book is packed with fruit pies, cobblers, crisps, and buckles. Tarts and pudding pies. A dozen different cheesecakes. An entire chapter filled with chocolate. And everything is flavored with their signature wit. Whether all you want are a couple reliable vegan recipes for the holidays, or to expand your baking repertoire, or to spend time in the kitchen fussing with fancy-looking desserts for your blog, this book has something for you.

It has recipes for pastry at the front (short section), pie recipes in the middle, and recipe extras at the end (short section again).Slightly disappointed that they used 'shortening' (veg lard, like Trex for example) in the pastry, as this only adds to the calories (100g=900 calories), but if the pies are only a treat now and then, then perhaps it just might be worth it !?!?!?!?Either way I'm sure the recipes could be tried with the shortening, and then tried with all margarine.There are some (obviously) American ingredients used in the book:- like graham crackers for example, but it is after all an American book. And as they are only used as a biscuit type base for cheesecakes, I'm sure other biscuits can be used instead:- plain, ginger, lemon etcAll-in-all it is a good book with loads of yummy recipes in, and it has some lovely, wonderfull combinations to try

I bought this book after getting the Cookie book for Christmas. It was definitely A WORTH WHILE BUY, THE PIES YOU MAKE OUT OF THIS ARE amazing! The instructions are so easy to follow, which is good as I am a relatively novice baker at the moment. With the help of this book, and the Cookie book, I have been baking a lot more and don't even remember why you would need a pie to be non-vegan. I don't get any complaints about the lack of eggs or dairy from my omnivore husband or friends either!

The pies are delicious and the recipes easy to follow. No one can tell the difference between 'normal' wheat dairy based pies and these. In fact they taste nicer. My husband has been diagnosed with numerous food intolerances and this book and its sister books on cookies and cakes are invaluable. Cannot recommend highly enough.

Already owning vegan cupcakes rules the world I purchased this and the pictures do not disappoint. Of course mine might not turn out quite so spectacular and can't wait to try the recipes out.

promptly dispatched. Some fabulous recipes.Makes a change to find something as delicious as these desserts. My famliy enjoy the things I make as much as I do.