Cover Girl.

A few weeks ago, Jeanne and I spent a Monday at PJP working on a variety pies for Inside Columbia magazine. All we knew was that we had won the category for Best Bakery and that one of our pies might make it onto the cover of the May issue - the very special Best of Columbia edition.

We decided to do a number of different flavors in different sizes and in different pie plates, leaving all creative direction to the photographer, LG Patterson. LG actually photographed us for the cover of Prime magazine in the fall of 2013 before we opened PJP, giving us all the ultimate reminder in how young and fresh we looked prior to our foray into entrepreneurship. I present you with Exhibit A:

For our potential cover shoot for this issue, we knew LG wanted to focus on cream pies and so we made him a White Chocolate Strawberry, a Raspberry Key Lime, a Peanut Butter Chocolate, and an Almond Rum Raspberry. And honestly, the Almond Rum Raspberry was a last minute decision. Jeanne had stopped by Hyvee for some strawberries and decided to pick up some really pretty fresh raspberries. LUCKY FOR US, INDEED.

If you haven’t tried Almond Rum Raspberry, just know that we make a vanilla filling and add in almond extract and a healthy dose of rum. We pour a nice layer of that into a baked pie shell and then add a layer of fresh raspberries…and then another layer of the almond rum filling. Once it cools down, we cover it in homemade whipped cream and garnish it with raspberries. (And sliced almonds, when we are feeling extra.) Almond Rum Raspberry doesn’t get as much media love as her sister, White Chocolate Strawberry. That is, UNTIL NOW.

And so, we present you with the first look at the PJP cover girl of May…