Longtime Arizona pastry chef Tracy Dempsey has pie-making tips for Thanksgiving

Tracy Dempsey is a longtime Arizona pastry chef who spent much of her career at the famed Cowboy Ciao in Old Town Scottsdale.

Now, she heads up Tracy Dempsey Originals — where she gets a whole lot of orders for Thanksgiving pies this time of year.

She came into KJZZ's studios recently to talk all things pie — as well as the whole Thanksgiving table and what she cooks on this food-centric holiday.

Full conversation

TRACY DEMPSEY: You know, actually, after years and years of traditional family Thanksgivings, my husband and I kind of deviated. Yeah, so we made enchiladas and tamales. One year, I think we smoked a brisket. I mean we kind of broke tradition because here we don't have family.

We used to go back home to visit our families, and my best Thanksgiving memories are the ones I spent with my grandparents on their farm in Arkansas. I just remember how it was such a traditional Thanksgiving. You know, you had cranberry sauce that you sliced because the can had the markings for you. You had the rough stuff, and then we had this salad. I still love that salad. My husband hates it, but if I can make it, I'll have it. It's this cranberry and cream cheese, sour cream salad that's so good.

LAUREN GILGER: That sounds right, yeah.

DEMPSEY: Very ‘70s. But I guess we just think about doing different things. It's a day to maybe experiment now. We got a really great smoked turkey from the … shop one year, and oh my gosh, it was so good.

GILGER: So a celebratory meal, but not a traditional one for you anymore.

DEMPSEY: No.

GILGER: OK. But what about when it comes to desserts, because you are a pastry chef, I'm sure you are getting ready to make a ridiculous number of Thanksgiving pies for people who have ordered them. 

What about on the dessert end? 

DEMPSEY: I love making pies. And growing up, I remember watching my grandma and my mom make pies. Even my dad, he makes mincemeat pie. So pie has always figured into the dessert offerings.

And so I will be making us some pie. Probably not pumpkin, but something like our chocolate bourbon pecan pie, a butternut squash pie, lemon chess, just all sorts of different fun pies that I don't remember getting to have because we always had pumpkin pie.

Tracy Dempsey

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GILGER: Not your favorite, it sounds like. 

DEMPSEY: I love pumpkin, but I just thought, you know, there's so many other pies and you know, life's short. You got to eat every kind of pie you can find out there, right?

GILGER: OK, so I'm sure you're making a bunch of those, but you'll have some for yourself as well this Thanksgiving. 

Give us a how-to on that bourbon chocolate pecan pie you mentioned, which is one of your favorites. How do you make it? What goes in? 

DEMPSEY: Well, the first thing is your crust.

GILGER: So important. 

DEMPSEY: It really is. I mean, it either makes or breaks the whole pie. And my crust is all butter, but it's a boozy pecan pie with chocolate in it.

GILGER: It sounds good.

DEMPSEY: It hits all those happy notes. You have that traditional pecan pie, which I always found to be really, a little bit over the top sweet.

GILGER: So sweet, yeah. 

DEMPSEY: So a little bittersweet chocolate in that, and then bourbon, man, that takes off the edge. It's so good.

GILGER: It sounds amazing. So tell us about your process of making so many pies. The scale of baking that many things must be kind of massive, right?

DEMPSEY: It is. It is. It's really all about planning. And I think that's true for the home cook. It really does come down to planning it out because I think it can be really stressful. It can be stressful for me making that many pies, and it can be stressful for somebody at home making too, but it's really just planning it, day by day what you're going to do.

When I'm making my pies, I'll grate many, many pounds of butter that was chilled, and now it is in my freezer in the kitchen in a huge bin. Beautiful. It looks like cheese that's been grated. So it's this beautiful mountain sitting in there, and I'm going to go in and divvy that up when I portion out to put into my big mixer. I'll make the discs and wrap them, and then I can refrigerate or freeze them.

Then I'll start making fillings. But first doing all the shopping and ordering. And then just making the fillings ahead of time so that the day that it comes to baking, I'll have my crusts already rolled out and frozen. I like to bake them frozen.

I do parbake, so I use parchment paper, pie weights, and I'll get them pretty close to being done. I think that's something that we don't always learn is having a pretty well baked pie crust and then putting your filling in. The filling acts as an insulator.

GILGER: So then you put the filling in.

DEMPSEY: Yeah.

GILGER: And so you see this on like “Great British Bake Off.” This is the only reference point I have for all of those terms you just used. 

But tell us about making the crust in particular because home cooks especially, I know have a lot of trouble with this. It's very hard, at least in my opinion, to make a good pie crust from scratch. 

DEMPSEY: It is. I think it's really all about temperature control. I freeze my butter and even my flour, I keep it chilled because the kitchen gets pretty warm and at home that's something to think about is, how warm is it in here?

But starting with cold butter and cold flour. I put a little pinch of baking powder in my pie dough. I’m giving away my secrets. And then, ice cold water and a little hint of vinegar.

GILGER: You're reminding me how technical and scientific baking is.

DEMPSEY: It is, but I mean, I think you can overthink it, right? And then people get afraid of it. But really just planning. And having the flour. I have just a little tiny hint of sugar, that little bit of baking powder, some salt. You got to have salt in that pie dough because you notice it when you're eating that against that sweet filling.

GILGER: Makes sense.

DEMPSEY: And not overworking it and not adding too much water. That's something I think you have to be really careful about is to add some water, maybe step away for a minute, come back, because you've got to let that flour hydrate a little bit and absorb the water.

And I think it's really tempting to add too much water and then you end up with something that's really tough and you just don't even want to eat it.

GILGER: Yeah, which I've definitely done, I think. 

DEMPSEY: I think we all have.

GILGER: OK, so some tips on the crust for the Thanksgiving pies. 

What do you like about making the same kinds of desserts in particular every year for Thanksgiving? Like, you think of Thanksgiving and it’s just tradition, right? Even if you're making something different for the main course these days, it sounds like those pies stay kind of the same. 

DEMPSEY: They do. There's a little bit of tweaking that does happen sometimes, like the pumpkin. I will offer pumpkin pie, I think this year. I didn't. I offered a butternut squash pie instead, and sometimes I do sweet potato.

So it's kind of a riff on the same, same type of pumpkin custard, but maybe introducing a different flavor. Like last year I made a chai spiced pumpkin pie. And just playing with it that way and making it so it's still familiar, still traditional, but there's something new and exciting about it to make it a little bit more memorable this year.

GILGER: Yeah, you like to make a little twist on things.

DEMPSEY: I do.

GILGER: Are those recipes though really tied to memory for you? You said it was always pumpkin pie when you were a kid. 

DEMPSEY: It was. We always had pumpkin pie and there was apple, and my grandmother would make a pecan pie, like a very straightforward pecan pie, very, very good.

But yeah, that's what I always think of, and I guess maybe that's how come these years I've been like, “well, I'm gonna do, you know, an apple galette rather than the apple pie.” And maybe it's also because I can be a little bit lazy about double crust pies.

GILGER: A galette doesn't need a topper. 

DEMPSEY: It doesn't need a topper. Streusel, maybe.