It's an interesting point raised earlier. BBPS is just far enough out of my way, and more expensive/less comprehensive than Hoosier Mama, that I haven't had a chance to go back after my first and so far only stop. I've been waiting for a return of the banoffee pie, specifically, but I don't have the luxury of (or patience for) constantly checking in.

So I emailed them a few days ago, I haven't gotten a response yet. I guess that means they are either busy, or carefully crafting a response to my inquiry, or even better, considering implementing my suggestions. It's also possible they're ignoring me.

I like that their poll this week is "should we reopen the weekend after T-Day or give the staff an extended holiday" and 83% of voters say no, give them a break! Hear hear.
I ordered biscuits for my Thanksgiving so I'm looking forward to seeing what others are raving about.

Alright, so they just responded to me, here is why they don't do custom pie orders:

"Thanks for reaching out. There are many issues that hinder us from doing custom pies. Ingredient sourcing etc are one of the issues but there are other ones like kitchen flow, cost of goods, etc. Our pies are all made by hand in small batches and we are making many many pies every day. One or two pies would interfere with the focus of the kitchen and our business model which aims to feature pies that are focused and high quality. If we did custom orders, we'd risk losing quality because we'd have demand from too many people in too many directions. That said, we do take larger orders of specific pies (ten pie minimum). That number allows us to bring in ingredients at a reasonable wholesale cost without wasting anything and it tends to be the perfect number for catered orders.
We appreciate your business and hope this helps clarify our reasoning a bit."

So, it looks like if you do order a ton of pies they can take custom orders, but it makes sense why they can't do it for just one pie.

Vitesse98 wrote:It's an interesting point raised earlier. BBPS is just far enough out of my way, and more expensive/less comprehensive than Hoosier Mama, that I haven't had a chance to go back after my first and so far only stop. I've been waiting for a return of the banoffee pie, specifically, but I don't have the luxury of (or patience for) constantly checking in.

There are recipes for 8 of Chicago's best pies here, including a banoffee one if you need to make your own.
http://www.refinery29.com/pie-recipes

man, bang bang sells just their pie crusts? Awesome.

I don't get on here often but i want you all to know that i do check it. I'm glad we were able to clear up the custom pie questions. And yes we do sell pie crusts but its a somewhat off the menu item. I'd suggest calling ahead to make sure we have them if you ever want them. They're all made by hand and sometimes we find ourselves lower on them than we'd like to be...

glad to see we're mostly keeping people happy and giving good product. if any of you are ever unpleased don't hesitate to reach out via email. we always respond even if it takes a bit of time sometimes

Picked up two Bang Bang pies to bring to a party tonight, bought a slice of each to take home. Ate half of each, Shaker Blood Orange is terrific, lightly tart, just enough giddy-up, not too sweet, a tasty pie. The Superbowl Pie, on the other hand, is full-on over the top I'd no hesitation shank any mo-fo who tried to get between me and this pie. Simply referring to the Superbowl Pie as pie is like saying the Superbowl is just another football game.

"Superbowl” Pie:
Sheer chocolate pretzel caramel perfection. A pretzel crust is filled with dark chocolate ganache, malted marshmallow, and topped with a hard chocolate shell. We garnish this pie with a salted milk stout caramel. The wonderful Milk Stout is brewed by our neighborhood friends at Revolution Brewing."

Crazy good, go get some, now!

G Wiv wrote:Picked up two Bang Bang pies to bring to a party tonight, bought a slice of each to take home. Ate half of each, Shaker Blood Orange is terrific, lightly tart, just enough giddy-up, not too sweet, a tasty pie. The Superbowl Pie, on the other hand, is full-on over the top I'd no hesitation shank any mo-fo who tried to get between me and this pie. Simply referring to the Superbowl Pie as pie is like saying the Superbowl is just another football game.

"Superbowl” Pie:
Sheer chocolate pretzel caramel perfection. A pretzel crust is filled with dark chocolate ganache, malted marshmallow, and topped with a hard chocolate shell. We garnish this pie with a salted milk stout caramel. The wonderful Milk Stout is brewed by our neighborhood friends at Revolution Brewing."

Crazy good, go get some, now!

That sounds amazing! I know what I'm doing tomorrow.

Me too.

Made my first visit to Bang Bang yesterday. I got a piece of the Shaker Lemon, which uses whole sliced lemons that are macerated in sugar, and a piece of the Super Bowl pie mentioned above. The Shaker Lemon pie was very lemony and tasty, but Mr. X and I both decided we're not fans of lemon slices in our pies. The Super Bowl pie was phenomenal. We split a piece and it was still too rich for me to finish. I don't make it to that part of town often, but certainly would stop in again.

I was not a fan of the Superbowl Pie. I thought it was tasty but the marshmallow really didn't work for me. Its texture was too fluffy and detracted from the overall enjoyment of the pie. Reading the description, I was hoping for something denser and more intense. I also tried the Shaker Blood Orange pie and didn't care for it either. For my palate, the filling was bitter and there were places where there was just too much dough (where the top met the bottom) that hadn't cooked through all the way.

I feel like the odd man out because I've never really had anything from Bang Bang that has blown me away. Over the summer I stopped in for a slice of pie and a ham biscuit. I thought the crust on the pie was really gummy and the biscuit had an overly moist, spongy texture that did not work for me. So, I've now had 4 items from there and haven't really loved any of them

=R=

I had a couple of bites of the Super Bowl pie left and finished it tonight. Of the two pies we tried, it was the winner for me. I agree with Ronnie -- the crust on the Shaker Lemon pie was too dense. My travels take me closer to Hoosier Mama more regularly and I haven't had a piece of pie I didn't like from Hoosier Mama. I would try Bang Bang again for the sake of research of course.

ronnie_suburban wrote:I feel like the odd man out because I've never really had anything from Bang Bang that has blown me away...the biscuit had an overly moist, spongy texture that did not work for me.

You and me are on the same page with the biscuits. Too much like soggy cake.

I like BBPS but nothing has approached the genuis of that first blueberry pie I had in the summer. At this point, my two caveats for ordering are fresh fruit and their pastry crust NOT the graham. IMHO, YMMV, etc

Agreed on the biscuits. It was pretty soggy in the middle, even if the flavor was delicious. However, I think when I was there that part of what happened is that there was a wait for the biscuits, so they were serving them directly from the oven. Kind of like not cutting into freshly baked bread straight from the oven, I was wondering if the texture would have improved if they had been allowed to cool a bit.

I've stopped by Bang Bang but never seem to get there early enough to try one of the biscuits as they have always been gone by the time I arrive, having business early the other morning, my goal was to change this.

Biscuit is huge compared to most biscuits I've had, it is also VERY dense, too dense in my opinion. Good taste but I'm looking for more air/lightness which this biscuit didn't have.

black pepper honey butter was good (would have liked more black pepper), I really enjoyed the blueberry lavender jam.

the hit of the day from Bang Bang was the cherry lemonade w/basil, WOW ! I will be making this drink soon, so refreshing !
-

Kind of funny to me the reaction to Bang Bang's biscuits - I'm typically a fan of light and flaky biscuits, and yet I absolutely love Bang Bang's - best I've ever had. Yet obviously plenty of others just don't appreciate this style. But there are more than a 100 biscuit varieties, which all kinds of fat (butter, sour cream, lard, yogurt, cream, vegetable shortening, etc.) and numerous combinations, various ratios of flour to fat (Acadia might just use more butter in one of their miniature biscuits than most restaurants use in a full recipe), and various mix-ins. So the good news is that we all have places to find great biscuits. The few best I can think of off hand (in my opinion) are Bang Bang, Big Jones and Acadia.

So many people whose opinions I respect love Bang Bang's biscuits, I guess I owe it to myself to give them another try.

=R=

Meant to mention this. The last time I was in, I mentioned that I also like to bake pies. They told me that they sell their dough for home use if you want to cut out some (okay, maybe all) of the work. I can't remember the cost, but it seemed reasonable.

I can dig it. I mean I want to know how to make a crust, but sometimes you've got boxes of ripe fruit to process and you just don't want to be bothered to make and chill a pie dough.

gastro gnome wrote:I can dig it. I mean I want to know how to make a crust, but sometimes you've got boxes of ripe fruit to process and you just don't want to be bothered to make and chill a pie dough.

More often than not, I make pie crusts with Crisco. I do treat the dough with a light handed once the water has been added. If you manage not to activate the gluten, then you can roll a crust as quickly as you made the dough. If you begin rolling out and the dough creeps back, then you need to let it rest a while.

Regards,

I've got two of their crusts in the back of my freezer waiting for fruit season. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Yes, yes, we all know Fifille will be the one doing the actual work, I will just be reporting on the tasty results

So glad the debate about our biscuits is still going. We agree with BR. There are a million variations of biscuits out there. There are also many variations of the biscuits we make. Our goal is to have a biscuit that is as consistent as possible in the setting we work in. Not every great biscuit is easy to maintain in our setting. When we were developing recipes, we came up with everything from light and fluffy to flaky. We have amazing Southern biscuit recipes (I'm from the South) and we even have a biscuit recipe that's a direct knock-off of Pop-Eyes. Lots of these recipes are amazing, but we wanted something original. We wanted to come up with a biscuit unlike what anyone else was doing.
When we came up with this recipe, we went with our gut (literally) and decided this was the one. It was perfect for what our growth goals were and it was something that was good enough to stand on its own without toppings. (It also lends itself to things like bread pudding and shortcakes.)
Our favorite biscuits are the ones that come right out of the oven. They're doughy and like eating what pure butter should taste like. Yes, you're not supposed to cut into hot bread, but we shun traditional food confines in favor of an original experience. If we had the choice, we'd only serve biscuits straight out of the oven. Unfortunately, even with how busy we are, we're not busy enough to do that yet.

I realized I had a shot of a ham biscuit from Bang Bang (from last June) that I'd never posted . . .


Ham Biscuit

Looking at the shot, I think I really need to give this another try . . . soon.

=R=

Stopped into Bang Bang for a pie this afternoon. We were thrilled to see blueberry on the menu as it is the first pie we had from them and easily the best.

We ordered and received our whole pie and were waiting around for me to make another impulse purchase when I noticed the server cutting a pie to serve. Turns out they switched from pastry crust to graham crust for most of their pies "to better serve their vegetarian customers"

Well, let me tell you, I was crushed. Their pastry crust is THE reason I go there, it's that good. One server tried to make light of my disappointment, but the main guy was very good about it and let us know we could order it in advance if we wanted. We said no thanks and headed home with the graham crust.

We get home and slice it. The first bite confirms that they have not only switched from pastry to graham, they have changed their graham. Either they have added cinnamon or GREATLY increased the mount of it in the dough. Neither of us really care for cinnamon so we are left with a whole pie which was a second choice pie to begin with and now is even more disappointing.

TLDR: Caveat emptor, they have caved to the vegetarians and pastry crust is a sideline for them now.

Octarine wrote:Stopped into Bang Bang for a pie this afternoon. We were thrilled to see blueberry on the menu as it is the first pie we had from them and easily the best.

We ordered and received our whole pie and were waiting around for me to make another impulse purchase when I noticed the server cutting a pie to serve. Turns out they switched from pastry crust to graham crust for most of their pies "to better serve their vegetarian customers"

Well, let me tell you, I was crushed. Their pastry crust is THE reason I go there, it's that good. One server tried to make light of my disappointment, but the main guy was very good about it and let us know we could order it in advance if we wanted. We said no thanks and headed home with the graham crust.

We get home and slice it. The first bite confirms that they have not only switched from pastry to graham, they have changed their graham. Either they have added cinnamon or GREATLY increased the mount of it in the dough. Neither of us really care for cinnamon so we are left with a whole pie which was a second choice pie to begin with and now is even more disappointing.

TLDR: Caveat emptor, they have caved to the vegetarians and pastry crust is a sideline for them now.

Is the problem that they "caved to vegans", or you didn't like their graham cracker crust?

Thanks for the report Octarine. I'd be disappointed to find that's the case for most of their pies (I'm assuming the fruit ones). The only times I would accept a graham cracker crust are with key lime and s'mores pies. I don't think they come close to comparing to a typical pastry crust. Though I can see another advantage for a pie shop - they're far easier to make, and can be made in far less time, allowing them to better judge supply/demand.

But bnl, I doubt the crusts are vegan - even the typical graham cracker crust is made with butter.

Bnl, my beef is that they caved to vegetarians' demands AND replaced their excellent pastry crust with the inferior graham type. As BR said, graham has its place but it should be limited. To take it further, Im not sure Id call a graham a proper crust. Its more like a crumb topping pressed into place on the bottom. IMHO, YMMV, etc.

What it comes down to is BBP is going into my Burts file; great stuff but you have to call ahead and cannot just stop by on the spur of the moment.

Huh. There are a couple of key vegetarian-friendly compromises - shortening, butter - between lard-based pastry crust and graham cracker. Why would they go full cracker?

I'd actually be angrier if the adulterated the near perfect lard based pastry crust. At least this way I can either order a pastry crust pie or choose whichever pie they have that has the pastry crust.

Losing the lard crust would be a deal breaker for me.