I'm happy to eat birthday cake at other people's parties. But when it's my big day, I'll take pie—one part flaky crust, one part sweet, jammy fruit—every time. I celebrated my last birthday by making an attractively lumpy, left-leaning strawberry-rhubarb pie. I didn't care what it looked like—it tasted like pure summer. 

And yet many otherwise confident cooks find pie baking a daunting proposition. "People get all nervous when it comes to pie, thinking everything has to be perfect," says Emily Luchetti, author of The Fearless Baker and the executive pastry chef at San Francisco's Waterbar and Farallon, who developed the versatile and forgiving recipes here. "But even if your crust has some cracks and the juices run out, it's still going to be good. Just serve it in a bowl with some ice cream. I mean, it's pie!"