[Photos by Eddie Rivera/Pasadena Now]
Her shops sell a wide range of individual pies served in their own specially designed shells, ranging from tart and sweet Key Lime pies to hearty chicken pot pies, bursting with big chunks of chicken and the perfect salty, creamy sauce.
“It all started in my home kitchen,” she recalled in a recent afternoon interview, as customers dashed in and out snatching up delights from the range of those small whole pies, lined up like shiny ornaments in gleaming display cases.
Growing up in Michigan, with relatives in Kentucky, wherever every mom baked, and every one of them had a specialty, she was always fascinated by the baking art, she said.
“I was just always experimenting with it,” she said. “That’s how the idea really came about. I was going to start a cupcake shop in Claremont, because at the time (in 2009), cupcakes were trending really big and we were just about to lease a property. We were living in Maryland planning to move to Claremont to open a business. And right about the time that we were gonna lease this space to open a cupcake shop, somebody else did in Claremont.”
Opportunity reared its head. She reached back to her love of pies and she and her husband Rob tried to figure out how to create them in the small sizes and large quantities that she would need. (300-500 pies a day on a regular day, thousands during the holidays).
“In 2009, the concept was individual pies,” she said. “They looked a lot different from now. I was baking them in actual jars. These were all cups that go from freezer to oven but in actual mason jars.”
She was hand forming the dough like one would for a pie, and then building crusts in little glass jars.
“They’re little works of art,” says the former designer.
Eventually she helped create a safer cooking shell for her pies, and they took off. In 2021, Fodor’s Travel, named her shop as one of the “Ten Best Pie Shops in America.”
“They’re just like a large pie, except we craft them into these little tiny shells,” she said. “And so, there’s so much that goes into it. And so rather than trying to beat people over the head with that, we just wanted the product to speak for itself. We want them to look beautiful, and we want them to taste extraordinary. We want the rotation of the menus to keep people coming back. And then we have to just let the pies do the rest, you know?”
Speaking as a lifelong baker, Corbin could talk about her pies all afternoon and evening if you let her.
There are just under a score of offerings of her pies on the menu, from Dutch Apple, to a Strawberry hand pie, to Strawberry Shortcake, to a Glazed Apple, to a host of chocolate concoctions, to a summer-seasonal Rhubarb Pie. For Californians who might not be aware, rhubarb, a leafy plant, is found in every backyard in Kentucky, says Corbin, and children (and likely grownups) would remove the leaves and dip the reddish-purplish stalks in sugar, as a snack.
Meanwhile, her tangy, vinegar-tinged Pulled Pork pie also comes with a tangy crema for dipping or topping. Says Corbin, “I could just drink that.”
Corbin also proudly notes that the range of pies is a little bit of everything for almost every taste.
“If you were at a dinner party and there are 25 people,” she pointed out, “ and your friend who’s gluten free is there, that’s only one person. But I can guarantee you if all 25 of you are deciding where to go for dessert, you’re gonna find some place that has a gluten free treat. Right? So it’s not so much that we need to sell a ton of gluten free so much as we want you to be able to come in with your friend or family member who has to have something gluten free, and for them to have something, too.
The menu also rotates somewhat seasonally, but not everything.
As Corbin noted, “Our cookie butter pie is like a secret weapon. It’s pretty special. And there’s certain pies that we won’t rotate them out seasonally. They have to stay all year because people actually get angry! “We actually had somebody come in and say, ‘How, how dare you?’”
For our visit, Corbin covered the table with Chocolate Sin Pie, a Dutch apple, and two scoops of ice cream—vanilla and salted caramel—along with a Rhubarb pie and a Key Lime, as well as a Strawberry pie.
She sent us home with a Pulled Pork pie and the aforementioned Chicken Pot Pie, both of which were devoured in late night adventures, and could easily have been lunch or dinner any time of the day or night. Either one will fill you like Thanksgiving.
And Corbin essentially knows what the power of her pies is, as she engages with customers, and helps them make their selections.
Says Corbin, “What we always try to do is make sure that everybody knows that we care, and we’re glad they’re here.”
I Like Pie is at 38 South Raymond Ave, Pasadena, CA. (626) 345-5959. www.ilikepiebakeshop.com.
