Sacramento, CAPie Shops

Sactown Magazine treats Frank Fat's banana cream pie as Sacramento's signature dessert rather than one restaurant's house special. It is made from scratch daily on close to the recipe Frank Fat and chef Bob How worked out in the 1940s: freshly sliced bananas and rich custard in a buttery, flaky crust under a thick layer of whipped cream. Order that at the L Street room. The kitchen makes a chocolate cream version that the magazine says is no slouch either.

Rick's is a Midtown dessert counter whose pie list runs longer than most bakery menus, and Sactown Magazine says the California walnut pie follows a technique the founder's grandmother used more than fifty years ago: the crust is lined with walnuts, covered with brown sugar filling, and left until the nuts float to the surface before baking. The magazine's Thanksgiving piece adds an old fashioned apple made daily with Granny Smiths tossed in spices and brandy. Order the walnut.

Everything at this Land Park bakery is made from scratch, and Sactown Magazine's pie case for it is the deep dish apple, loaded with five pounds of fruit from Boa Vista Orchards in Apple Hill under handmade dough. The peach olallieberry pie came out of a surplus of peaches almost two decades ago and stayed on year round. Order the deep dish apple, then a few hand pies, which come in cherry, berry or apple under a thin layer of marzipan.

Ettore's added pies to an Arden-Arcade bakery long known for tarts and tortes, and Sactown Magazine says owner Ettore Ravazzolo's pastry team settled on five flavors, coconut cream, blueberry, banana cream, cherry and lemon meringue, in nine inch and four inch rounds with a light, flaky butter crust cut out in hearts and leaves. Comstock's adds the European apple tart and the salted caramel tart from the same case. Order the coconut cream and a tart alongside.

Ikeda's bakes by hand on recipes that go back to the founding of the Auburn store in 1970, and Sactown Magazine notes the Davis outpost takes delivery from that bakery daily, with about fifteen pies on offer. Comstock's counts pecan, apple, marionberry, peach, blueberry, cherry, lemon meringue and banana cream, plus wild blackberry, pumpkin and apricot in season. Order a fruit pie, then a scratch made chicken pot pie for the drive home.