Above: Lana Shope’s raisin cream pie is an old-fashioned classic. (Photo: Wini Moranville)
By Wini Moranville
Have you ever met a pie baker who’s a jerk? I haven’t. Over the years, I’ve discovered that people who bake pies are some of the nicest people around. It figures. While cooking can sometimes be just about getting food on the table, making pies is unfailingly about spreading joy, sweetness and comfort.
Comfort can be found in the baking, too. Lana (rhymes with “banana”) Shope started her business, Pies and Pastries by Lana, in 2015 partly as a way of de-stressing after her day-job advocating for families facing poverty. (See? There’s that nice thing I’m talking about.) Her duties often included lobbying state lawmakers.
After a stressful day at the state Capitol, she often carried those thoughts and worries home, well into the night. So she started a side hustle as a dessert maker. “When I’m making pies,” she said, “I can’t be thinking about anything else.”
Shope started baking pies as a 4-H kid on her family’s farm near Toledo, Iowa, and as the years went on, she started bringing home ribbons from the Iowa State Fair. She won the fair’s coveted cinnamon roll contest in 2014, among many other awards, and is now a judge for the fair’s food contests.
Since 2015, she’s increased her weekly pie production from about a dozen to 65 or 70. And there’s bound to be more, now that she’s retired from her day job and her side hustle has become a dedicated métier. She bakes pies for all occasions, from everyday events to holidays, weddings and funerals (delicious proof that pies can be both joyful and comforting).
I recently caught up with Shope at the professional community kitchen at the Mickle Center in Sherman Hill, where I watched her artfully whip, swirl and bake a meringue for a lovely raisin cream pie I’d ordered. (One of her pro tips: Don’t overbeat the egg whites. It’s better to have a little curl in the peaks.) Sweet, silky, glossy and light — with a little toastiness here and there — the billowy delight was one of those perfect confections that meringue-lovers dream about but rarely find.
Get the goods
- Shope’s fruit pies, with their perfectly flaky crusts, are available by the slice at Zanzibar’s Coffee Adventure, 2723 Ingersoll Ave., where you’ll also find her scones, sweet rolls, coffee cakes and biscotti.
- You can order full pies on her website, where you’ll find an extensive list of options. All pies are made to order and cost $40 each. It’s best to place orders five days in advance, but she can sometimes accommodate requests made 48 hours ahead of time. Pickup can be arranged at the Mickle Center, Zanzibar’s or mutually convenient spots around town; you can work out the details when you order.
- Shope also offers a “pie cooperative,” where members receive two to four pies each month, selected from a few seasonal options she shares a few days before each pickup.
Wini Moranville has covered the Des Moines dining scene since 1997. She currently reports on local restaurants and food finds on her Substack, Dining Well in Des Moines.
