Pie Provisions, local favorite’s new brand, serves up baking essentials!
Exclusively announced in the May Lunch Circuit, Woodstock’s own Lauren and Cody Bolden on Pie Bar announced the newest addition to their business, Pie Provisions. Pie lovers now have the ability to bake up buttery, flaky pie crust at home with boxed pie crust mix. The mix includes the highest quality ingredients available.
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Featured article in The Cherokee Tribune and Ledger News.
Pie Bar, a local favorite in the heart of Woodstock, launched their new brand Pie Provisions on Wednesday. They made the announcement at The Circuit on Chattahoochee Tech’s Woodstock campus at an entrepreneur meeting.
The “do it yourself” pie baking business model offers individuals baking essentials, tips and ingredients to provide everyone the know-how to make a high quality pie in the comfort of their home.
Owners Lauren and Cody Bolden wish to inspire home bakers to not only bake more often, but to make the best pie they can.
“On a daily basis we have people come in and they mention how much they love pie but that they don’t make it. Some people are afraid it will turn out bad, and I want to alleviate that fear,” Lauren Bolden said. “I want people to enjoy making pie as much as they enjoy eating it.”
The Boldens were inspired to create Pie Provisions by their love for the timeless pastime of spending time in the kitchen together.
“Some of the best times we have had were spending time in the kitchen, often late nights, and time we spent together creating recipes and talking about what we were going to do,” Cody Bolden said.
Lauren Bolden said they get excited when people tell them a pie reminds them of their family members.
“I don’t think a lot of things do that. I think there are a couple of things that really bring around that nostalgic feeling and one of them is definitely pie,” she said. “We are excited to continue on that path.”
The featured item with the launch is a Pie Crust Mix based on the recipe and ingredients used in the couple’s well-known pie shop.
“It was important to us that if we were going to be selling something like a pie crust mix, that we need to be offering the best ingredients possible to our consumers,” Lauren Bolden said. “Someone could easily go out and buy crap flour or not great other ingredients and their pie will turn out OK, but this is going to really set them up for success. They will want to continue to bake and that is what we are hoping to do, inspire people to continue to bake.”
The mix is made up of organic pastry flour for easy work-ability from the oldest continuously operating mill in the country based out of Pennsylvania, non-GMO pure cane sugar for a tender dough and premium sea salt to elevate the crust’s overall taste.
“Being able to source ingredients that are high quality and made here in the U.S. has really been fun,” Lauren Bolden said.
Each Pie Crust Mix contains enough dry ingredients to make one double crust or two single pie crusts.
“We have created this Pie Crust Mix to be an easy-to-prepare recipe for buttery, flaky pie crusts for those bakers that have a fear of baking pie,” Cody Bolden said. “Each box contains detailed instructions as well as the highest quality ingredients that we have spent the past few years curating at our pie shop.”
Cody Bolden said they plan to create more original items at a later date.
“Right now we are going to have our pie crust mix, then we are also selling some tools on the website which are tools we have used along the way and that we use every day that we stand behind and that really help us in making pies,” he said. “We want to get things rolling with the crust mix before we dabble in our second product.”
Items sold through Pie Provisions include a bench scraper, cherry wood French rolling pin handcrafted by Vermont Rolling Pins, pastry cutter, micro zester, pastry blender and pie server.
“We are excited because one of the products on the website are these rolling pins … I fell in love with them. They are made by a husband and wife duo, which I have a soft spot for; she takes the orders and he hand turns all of these rolling pins,” Lauren Bolden said. “They are super high quality and we are really excited to be able to partner with them and spread the word about their rolling pins as well.”
A pie-based monthly subscription box through the “Pie-O-Neer Club” will be added later this fall. They will be sold on a one, six or 12 months at a time basis.
“Each month we will send out a curated box that has our Pie Crust Mix in it, a recipe card with a recipe we crafted for the season and a couple other things such as a tool to help them with that specific recipe or an ingredient that goes with the recipe,” Cody Bolden said. “We won’t be sending all of the ingredients for the pie, but something we call ‘pie motivators,’ to get people going in the right direction.”
Lauren Bolden said starting Pie Provisions will allow them the opportunity to share their love of pie with people across the U.S., as they are going on a “Pie-O-Neer Tour” this fall. The couple will drive across the country to teach others how to make one of their favorite pies using their pie crust mix.
“It gives us an opportunity to connect with the consumer, the people that love pie. Whether they love to eat pie, want to learn how to make pie or they just want to be around pie,” Lauren Bolden said. “We will be kicking it off here with a hometown stop first in August at The Circuit. It is going to be a class where we use our crust mix and teach people how to make their perfect pie crust and answer any questions they may have.”
Cody Bolden said they will do demonstrations at a few Woodstock locations before they venture across the country to Dallas and Phoenix.
“As more dates get approved, we will add those to our website so that people that don’t live here but follow us and love pie, if it’s close to them they can join us,” Lauren Bolden said.
Lauren Bolden said they have spent about a year preparing this brand and the tour.
“I am really excited. It has been brewing in the background for a long time and we are really looking forward to sharing it with people,” she said.
The Boldens opened Pie Bar in downtown Woodstock in the fall of 2015, and have worked since then to bring the community a variety of pies on a daily basis.
“We put in all the hard work and now it is time to fulfill it so it’s really exciting,” Cody Bolden said.
Initially, Pie Provisions’ Pie Crust Mix will be available on Pie Provision’s website at pieprovisions.com, at Pie Bar and in several local markets.