Tuesday afternoon, Heather and Tyler Thomas of the American hosted a pie tasting and demonstration at the library, where viewers could taste their homemade blackberry pie and famous heirloom tomato pie.

Tyler said for the blackberry pie he takes fresh blackberries, brown sugar and two teaspoons of ginger and a little lemon to add some zest and places those, along with the pie crust in the oven for 10-12 minutes in a skillet at 350 degrees.

In order to prepare, Tyler measured out 12 cups of flour and said around Christmas time, this is an amount that makes four-five full eight inch pies. He then added two pounds of butter. One of the most important things is to not leave the butter in chunks when you add it to the flour mix. If not, when it is rolled out one piece of dough, could essentially be all butter.

Tyler then suggests adding a pinch of salt to all the flour, just to add additional flavor before really getting into the dough and working it.

Tyler said it doesn’t really matter what flour the cook uses. They can choose to use all-purpose, or natural, organic flour. He said if the cook goes the organic route the flour may come out a bit denser.

The dough Tyler created fit perfectly in a six-inch skillet, but he said the nice thing about it is it can fit anything; it molds to the shape. In order to help speed along the process, Tyler added about half a bottle of water and kneaded it before rolling it out on his silver tray.

After rolling out the dough, Tyler put it in the skillet and took a sharp blade knife to cut off the excess. For cooks who are trying to make the most with only a little dough, he suggested keeping the small cut off pieces, because they can sometimes create one to two more pie crusts.

Tyler said this is something they do approximately three times a week at the American. They never pre cook anything, but they do roll the dough in advance just to conserve some time, because they sell anywhere from 25 plus a pies a day.

Viewers then got to taste both types of pie. Their heirloom tomato pie was actually featured in 100 dishes locals love. Tyler shared the recipe he and Heather created to make that pie, which was actually a labor of love a few Christmases ago.

This year, though everyone can enjoy it as it is a regular on their menu, or they can enjoy specialty items as The American will be hosting a Christmas Eve brunch, where guests can enjoy handmade biscuits with Andouille sausages and gravy or lobster and waffles or even a breakfast steak. The menu has not been set in stone as of yet, but Tyler promised guests will truly have something to look forward to this year.

Residents who were unable to attend this pie demonstration may have another opportunity in February or March when the library and American team up again to host a demonstration.