Maker Spotlight: Pie Slayer

SW: How did Pie Slayer get started? Tell us about the name too, we love it. 

PS: Pie Slayer started off as a joke, and dream, about making pie all the time while we hustled holiday pies together. We spent so many hours talking about flavors we love, dreams we have, and realized through the long hours of chatting  how much our goals and flavors we appreciate aligned.

We kept saying “should we??” back and forth MANY times, lol. In January of the next year we started testing pie flavors and combos and it all started to feel right and like we had to at least give it a try. Clearly we did, and here we are doing more than we ever truly believed was possible! 

Our name came from a sit down “meeting” over boba and pho. We were just spitting crazy names back and forth and none of them felt right. We both love the anime Demon Slayer, and Keala yelled “OMG PIE SLAYER!” and that was it. Easy, done deal. 

SW: Tell us a little about y’all’s cooking and baking backgrounds! Did you grow up cooking? Where are y’all from?

PS: Hi, I'm Keala! I was born in Atlanta, but I grew up in Wilmington, NC. I didn't cook at all growing up, unless you count burnt chicken breasts or cinnamon sugar toast. My first job and every job since was in the service industry. I started working all of the FOH positions, a short lived prep cook job and cupcake decorating job as a teenager. I really didn't start cooking for baking until 2016, when I was hired in a small wholesale bakery where my obsession with food began. One of the first pastry items I learned to make there was pie, and here we are now. Since then I've worked various kitchen jobs, where I've learned so much from incredibly talented chefs. The most important one being Lauren, my co-slayer. <3

Lauren here! I grew up in North Carolina doing all manner of “making” and eventually a little baking! As a kid, my great grandma taught me how to knit, quilt, can food/ jams, and even make my own homemade play-dough. That sparked a lifelong love for creating things with my hands. I have always been very into food / food science and initially went to school for nutrition. The maker in me never left and years later I went back to school for pastry and the rest is history! Pie Slayer has been the best “job” I’ve ever had because Keala and I get to make the things that make us happy and see others enjoy it too! 

SW: What inspires your work? 

PS: Our work is inspired by all the things we love: Feeding people good food, jokes, tv shows, a LOT of candy, and music. We have a “PIE MIX” on Spotify. It's chaotic but it fuels us. We try really hard to create flavors that are nostalgic for us but there always has to be some unexpected pop of “Slayer-fication”.

SW: Favorite things you’ve made? Favorite ingredients to work with?

PS: Our favorite thing we have made is the first pie we tested: The Banana Stranger. This pie was inspired by a candy Lauren had in Iceland called “Banana Stangir”. It’s a banana flavored marshmallow covered in chocolate. Banana ‘Stranger’ got stuck in our heads and we thought it was a fun name. It is made up of buttermilk pie crust, filled with a layer of dark chocolate brownie, roasted salted banana pastry cream, and topped with a super toasty banana marshmallow meringue and sea salt.

Our favorite ingredients are butter, salt and sugar. They always make everything taste better and they are our holy trifecta. 

SW: Folks/bakers/businesses you admire?

PS: We are always admiring Milkglass Pie, Fat + Flour, Sister Pie, and of course the queen of pie Erin Mcdowell. We love everything they do, and we can see and relate to the love and lifestyle of pie! We have dreams of an ultimate pie party meet up. Hey pie slayers!

We also love publications like Cherry Bombe and Cake Zine for uplifting women in the food industry and writing unique takes on dessert of all kinds. 

SW: Any new projects going on? We saw you have a brick and mortar in the works!

PS: Pie Slayer is in the construction phase of opening a late-night bakery in downtown Wilmington, NC! We are hoping to be open this summer as a full on dessert and pastry destination. Come say hey!

SW: Anything else you’d like to add?

PS: WE LOVE SPICEWALLA SPICES! We strictly use Spicewalla in the kitchen because they are THAT GOOD. Our most used, most sniffed, and favorites are the Pink Peppercorns and Black Peppercorns. If you get any savory Pie Slayer treat, just know you’re getting fresh cracked Spicewalla Pepp.