A Pie Without Butter

What happens if you forget to put butter in your fruit pie?

That’s a question most cooks would prefer never to have to answer, but I was not so fortunate on Friday afternoon.

I was making two cherry pies for relatives who were coming over. One had a streusel topping, and the other had a traditional crust. A couple of work-related phone calls interrupted my pie making, and it was only 25 minutes into the baking process that I realized that I had forgot to add melted butter to the fruit mixture for one of the two pies.

I assumed the butter-less pie wouldn’t be fit for eating. But I decided to let it cool and then give it a taste. I was pleasantly surprised. It actually tasted good. If I hadn’t known it was missing the butter, I probably wouldn’t have guessed anything was different about it.

I wouldn’t recommend pie-making without the butter, but if you make the same omission that I made a few days ago, don’t panic. The odds are that your pie will still be well-received.