INTRODUCTION: My Life’s Sweet Mission

I believe a successful and blessed life is one that has been earned, learned, and loved. This cookbook is all about my family and friends and their stories. I’ve come to learn how living and baking an honorable life made their lives richer and, dare I say, sweeter. This has certainly been true for me. Most of them did not lead glamorous or wealthy lives. They were simple people who believed in faith, love, loyalty, and hard work. Their success was in how they made everybody who touched their lives feel loved through their cooking and baking talents. We too can emulate their giving nature, by making and eating good pie with those we love!

It is no surprise to anyone who knows me that my Easy-Bake Oven was my favorite Christmas gift. I speak of it often, as it inspired my love for baking and creating at an early age. I remember my twin sister and me as six-year-olds, tearing off the Christmas wrap, exposing the box with a picture of a darling little girl playing with her oven. I loved her hair (which I later imitated), her dress, and that she was baking with her own little oven! I was so thankful to Santa for thinking of me.

After that my memories are mostly scattered. I remember that my sister and I baked for my brothers and how much they seemed to like me when the Easy-Bake was out. I remember all five of us kids hovering around the oven while taking impatient turns staring into the tiny window, watching our brownies bake beautifully under the hundred-watt lightbulb. Our mother cut the brownies into five pieces so we could all get a taste. We were happy despite the small portion, because we’d made it!

Unfortunately, my beloved Easy-Bake was destroyed in a house fire at my parents’ home over twenty years ago. My dear husband, well aware of my fondness for my beloved little oven, decided to find me a replica of my own on eBay—a glorious surprise for me one Christmas morning. As I peeled the Christmas paper off my gift and saw the little girl on the box that I hadn’t seen in forty years, all the joy and love I’d felt from cooking and baking throughout my life came rushing back. I realized that my mission in life, my dream of changing the world one pie at a time and loving people through my food, all started from that little oven. Through my darkest moments, cooking and baking soothed me and gave me a purpose.

I know that my gifts, my blessings, my mission, and my love will always fill my life. Sharing the traditions of our foremothers, and our shared passion for homemade food and the provenance of pies, is my vocation, my life’s sweet mission.

As the 2011 Crisco 100 Year Anniversary Innovation Award winner, Crisco National Pie Best of Show $5,000 winner, Food Network Pie Challenge winner, holder of sixteen first-place Crisco National Pie ribbons, owner of the nationally known Sweetie-licious Bakery Café, and thousands and thousands of homemade pies later, I want to share what I have learned. What better way than through this unique cookbook?

I am elated to share with you my recipes, the people who inspired me through their food and lovely way of life, and the legacies they left for us all to aspire to.

xoxo

Linda Hundt