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Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky: A Modern Baker's Guide to Old-Fashioned Desserts: A Baking Book
Combining long-forgotten classics with deliciously revamped recipes and stunning photography is what Karlynn Johnston is all about. In her anticipated first cookbook, Karlynn covers everything you need to know about being a modern-day old-fashioned baker: from setting up your kitchen and stocking your pantry, to making pie dough and releasing a Bundt cake from its pan.
Once you've got the basics covered, you'll be ready to bake time-honored desserts like Saskatoon Berry Pie, Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, and No-Bowl Chocolate Vinegar Cake. Then, jazz things up with these recipes' modern twists: White Chocolate Saskatoon Galette, Chocolate Buttercream-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Root Beer Float Cupcakes. And, of course, there's the recipe that started it all: the almost-lost Prairie favorite, Flapper Pie. When Karlynn first posted this recipe on her blog, it went viral, drawing enthusiastic and sentimental responses from readers everywhere who wanted to reminisce about their childhood and family food memories.
An approachable book for every skill level, Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky covers all the cherished bake goods from Karlynn and her family. Featuring more than 120 recipes from cakes to candies, doughnuts to dainties, and pies to puddings, with the same gorgeous photography that has made The Kitchen Magpie a go-to blog for passionate home bakers, this book is a delicious demonstration of the comfort and closeness that baking can bring. Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky is destined to become a classic to be shared through the generations.
Once you've got the basics covered, you'll be ready to bake time-honored desserts like Saskatoon Berry Pie, Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, and No-Bowl Chocolate Vinegar Cake. Then, jazz things up with these recipes' modern twists: White Chocolate Saskatoon Galette, Chocolate Buttercream-Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Root Beer Float Cupcakes. And, of course, there's the recipe that started it all: the almost-lost Prairie favorite, Flapper Pie. When Karlynn first posted this recipe on her blog, it went viral, drawing enthusiastic and sentimental responses from readers everywhere who wanted to reminisce about their childhood and family food memories.
An approachable book for every skill level, Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky covers all the cherished bake goods from Karlynn and her family. Featuring more than 120 recipes from cakes to candies, doughnuts to dainties, and pies to puddings, with the same gorgeous photography that has made The Kitchen Magpie a go-to blog for passionate home bakers, this book is a delicious demonstration of the comfort and closeness that baking can bring. Flapper Pie and a Blue Prairie Sky is destined to become a classic to be shared through the generations.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published October 25, 2016
About the author
Karlynn Johnston
5 books11 followersBlogger and author KARLYNN JOHNSTON can usually be found at home taste-testing new recipes and cocktails in her home studio kitchen for her website, The Kitchen Magpie. When she’s not there, you can find her thrifting vintage Christmas decor or working at her rural fixer-upper farmstead, Magpie Farm. Karlynn lives in Edmonton, Canada, with her husband and two children.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 14, 2017
The day
Flapper Pie and Blue Prairie Sky
arrived in the mailbox I looked through it all curled up in bed that evening, thought to myself with every turn of the page 'I have to make that. I have to make that.', and ended up getting redressed and running out to the store well after dark to stock up on baking supplies because the stores would be closed the next day for Good Friday (yup, despite having two a week for most of the year, I'm still that far ahead of myself). Somewhere in the midst of the excitement for all the baking I'd be doing the next morning, I realized I'd automatically accepted it as fact that I'd be writing this review (I also accepted that I was off work with back spasms, that rolling out pie crusts all day was a terrible idea, and that I'd be spending Saturday pawning pies off on my relatives).
The author starts each section with a family anecdote that usually has something to do with the chapter. This is pretty common in cookbooks since the writers specializing in recipes passed down through families are going to try and make you feel like part of their family. This was the first book I've read where the author managed to pull it off. Most often I see this tactic used in books on heritage recipes, which never worked for me. It's great that you're sharing these traditional Italian family recipes that your great-grandparents used to make back in Italy, and I'm sure your parents probably made some variation of them, but you're a third-gen American and standing in an expensive and super modern kitchen in all the photographs so it's a little hard to accept the recipes as having the 'down home' vibe you're going for. But Johnston is sharing recipes that're still popular (she really like ones from the 50s-60s)and the pictures are showing off her love for vintage and retro kitchen clutter, which I'll get into below, so the pictures and recipes match the tone of her writing perfectly.
I particularly enjoyed learning about her grandparents' bees and how they came up invented recipes to use up the unsold honey. I liked learning about the haunted barn, and her family history. The little blurbs before each individual recipe was interesting and I actually took the time to read every one. And the special entry on flapper pie was fascinating, especially since it's a Canadian specialty but one only really heard of in the Prairies, much like Saskatoon berries (which pop up in a few recipes). I don't know many locale-specific recipes from beyond Quebec , and it was super cool to learn about it. And the intro about her aunts not living to see the publication of this book, and how they were the ones who appear in most of her memories of learning to cook as a child, was touching. It sent me down my own memory lane: making molasses cookies and meatballs with dad, and eating McCain's chocolate cake straight from the freezer and boxed cake mix batter off the mixer blades with mum. But mum wasn't much of a cook back then and dad did most of the cooking before we got home from school, so each memory is precious.
Oh God, her love of vintage Pyrex. It's the reason behind her blog being named The Kitchen Magpie. She used the pictures as a means to show off some of her collection, and there's a detailed (but incomplete) catalogue at the back of the book if you see something you like. The Pyrex plate and casserole sets are lovely and in some fabulous colors (mustard and avocado have always been colors I love in dishes and hate in clothes) but I've always been a 'nonsense repeated pattern' kind of girl (geometric, atomic starbursts/polka dots, curlicues, maybe flowers) and her patterns aren't really to my taste. She certainly has a lot f dishes with clowns, but to each their own.
Finally, the meat of the book: the recipes. Most are vintage 1950s and all of them make me want to whip them up. Remember, after reading it through the first time I ran to the store in the middle of the night to load up on pantry staples before the stores closed for Good Friday. They inspired a desire to cook, which is really the most important thing a cookbook should do. There's really not much I can say about the recipes other than that since the best of them are conveyed through pictures, but they include lemon sour cream pie (made this for my dad and he ate half of it before it had set, and was finished by the next day), honey cookies (a flavor so intense it's like getting punched in the taste buds with a honeycomb), pineapple cheese pie (looks really bizarre and I intend to make it next for the sheer novelty), and raisin pie (the book picture doesn't do justice to how packed with raisins it is; I'd increase the sauce and decrease the raisins next time).
Also date squares ('matrimonial bars'), whipped shortbread (a Christmas staple in my family, too), chocolate zucchini cake (can always use more zucchini recipes), plenty of doughnut recipes (she insists that baking doughnuts doesn't make them noticeably healthier, and if you're going to eat dessert it may as well be the best dessert you can possibly eat, which I think I'll make my new motto), and a couple containing Cola and root beer (and a cheesecake containing mayo; how much more 1950s can you get?).
THE VERDICT It's a cookbook that makes you want to cook and that I enjoyed reading, how much better can you ask for?
The author starts each section with a family anecdote that usually has something to do with the chapter. This is pretty common in cookbooks since the writers specializing in recipes passed down through families are going to try and make you feel like part of their family. This was the first book I've read where the author managed to pull it off. Most often I see this tactic used in books on heritage recipes, which never worked for me. It's great that you're sharing these traditional Italian family recipes that your great-grandparents used to make back in Italy, and I'm sure your parents probably made some variation of them, but you're a third-gen American and standing in an expensive and super modern kitchen in all the photographs so it's a little hard to accept the recipes as having the 'down home' vibe you're going for. But Johnston is sharing recipes that're still popular (she really like ones from the 50s-60s)and the pictures are showing off her love for vintage and retro kitchen clutter, which I'll get into below, so the pictures and recipes match the tone of her writing perfectly.
I particularly enjoyed learning about her grandparents' bees and how they came up invented recipes to use up the unsold honey. I liked learning about the haunted barn, and her family history. The little blurbs before each individual recipe was interesting and I actually took the time to read every one. And the special entry on flapper pie was fascinating, especially since it's a Canadian specialty but one only really heard of in the Prairies, much like Saskatoon berries (which pop up in a few recipes). I don't know many locale-specific recipes from beyond Quebec , and it was super cool to learn about it. And the intro about her aunts not living to see the publication of this book, and how they were the ones who appear in most of her memories of learning to cook as a child, was touching. It sent me down my own memory lane: making molasses cookies and meatballs with dad, and eating McCain's chocolate cake straight from the freezer and boxed cake mix batter off the mixer blades with mum. But mum wasn't much of a cook back then and dad did most of the cooking before we got home from school, so each memory is precious.
Oh God, her love of vintage Pyrex. It's the reason behind her blog being named The Kitchen Magpie. She used the pictures as a means to show off some of her collection, and there's a detailed (but incomplete) catalogue at the back of the book if you see something you like. The Pyrex plate and casserole sets are lovely and in some fabulous colors (mustard and avocado have always been colors I love in dishes and hate in clothes) but I've always been a 'nonsense repeated pattern' kind of girl (geometric, atomic starbursts/polka dots, curlicues, maybe flowers) and her patterns aren't really to my taste. She certainly has a lot f dishes with clowns, but to each their own.
Finally, the meat of the book: the recipes. Most are vintage 1950s and all of them make me want to whip them up. Remember, after reading it through the first time I ran to the store in the middle of the night to load up on pantry staples before the stores closed for Good Friday. They inspired a desire to cook, which is really the most important thing a cookbook should do. There's really not much I can say about the recipes other than that since the best of them are conveyed through pictures, but they include lemon sour cream pie (made this for my dad and he ate half of it before it had set, and was finished by the next day), honey cookies (a flavor so intense it's like getting punched in the taste buds with a honeycomb), pineapple cheese pie (looks really bizarre and I intend to make it next for the sheer novelty), and raisin pie (the book picture doesn't do justice to how packed with raisins it is; I'd increase the sauce and decrease the raisins next time).
Also date squares ('matrimonial bars'), whipped shortbread (a Christmas staple in my family, too), chocolate zucchini cake (can always use more zucchini recipes), plenty of doughnut recipes (she insists that baking doughnuts doesn't make them noticeably healthier, and if you're going to eat dessert it may as well be the best dessert you can possibly eat, which I think I'll make my new motto), and a couple containing Cola and root beer (and a cheesecake containing mayo; how much more 1950s can you get?).
THE VERDICT It's a cookbook that makes you want to cook and that I enjoyed reading, how much better can you ask for?
December 22, 2016
This lavishly illustrated book took me right back to my early married years in rural Saskatchewan. Johnston's recipes include lots of traditional and modern approaches to saskatoon berries, butter tarts, and nanaimo bars. Her chapter on squares, bars, and slices reminds me of taking pans of treats to Handel Hall for showers, weddings, and the fall chicken supper. The photos of Pyrex and Fire King serving dishes reminded me that I had been gifted with the same items in harvest gold and old town blue as a bride. Her photo of a Ukrainian Orthodox church was identical to the churches I saw in small central Saskatchewan towns. This cookbook is a tribute to a place and time where families of British, German, and Ukrainian descent lived and worked together to grow wheat for a growing country.
June 5, 2018
Gorgeous pictures with many stories and memories strewn throughout -this baking book is a delight.
I honestly gave up trying to narrow down my favourites because I was marking down too many. Pick a recipe and start baking and you will see what I mean :)
That said, some great ones to start with would be the Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Cake, Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies, or the Everything in It Chocolate Cake!
I honestly gave up trying to narrow down my favourites because I was marking down too many. Pick a recipe and start baking and you will see what I mean :)
That said, some great ones to start with would be the Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Cake, Chewy Brown Sugar Cookies, or the Everything in It Chocolate Cake!
April 29, 2019
So I'm Canadian Prairie born and raised. And my favourite dessert for most of those years was Flapper Pie... though I called it by a different name.
I really wish I could give this recipe book a higher rating. I loved the pictures (vintage pyrex!!) and the yummy looking desserts. I just found most of the recipes had way more sugar in them then I want. So the book is not really practical for me.
That being said, I actually would like to have this cookbook on my shelf... may just to drool over the pictures :)
I really wish I could give this recipe book a higher rating. I loved the pictures (vintage pyrex!!) and the yummy looking desserts. I just found most of the recipes had way more sugar in them then I want. So the book is not really practical for me.
That being said, I actually would like to have this cookbook on my shelf... may just to drool over the pictures :)
March 2, 2024
I borrowed this book from the library to see if it was a cookbook that I would be interested in buying.
Well, not only am I going to buy it, I'll be buying one for a good friend of mine.
The recipes, the vintage Pyrex, the family stories. How could you not want to buy this cookbook?
So glad I borrowed it first, it was well worth it.
Well, not only am I going to buy it, I'll be buying one for a good friend of mine.
The recipes, the vintage Pyrex, the family stories. How could you not want to buy this cookbook?
So glad I borrowed it first, it was well worth it.
February 5, 2018
Everything looks and sounds amazing! I love the nod to traditional Canadian recipes, because that's something you don't see a lot. And I love the background stories for everything, too. My rating may change after I try some of these out, but I doubt it (unless it goes up)!
October 23, 2022
My mom made flapper pie. Most people in my neck of the woods have never heard of flapper pie ,but they sure want the recipe once they’ve had it. I have my mom’s original recipe, (mostly the same as this one), and just wanted to see what else was in there. It didn’t disappoint
July 8, 2017
Can't wait to try the recipes, they all sound amazing
September 21, 2017
love these reciepies - so many pies so little time - the whole family poured over this book
October 10, 2017
Nice cookbook full of hearty desserts. Even a section on doughnuts - yum!
August 1, 2019
Tried a few recipes but only one turned out.
October 6, 2019
Eye catching photos and mouthwatering recipes I can’t wait to try. Gotta day, though, the editorializing got a little old. “Humble” is not this woman’s strong suit.
December 9, 2019
This is a great dessert book. Lots of retro recipes.
June 19, 2022
Great cookbook!
July 27, 2022
Some fun dessert recipes, many calling for Saskatoon berries, which I’ve never heard of.
A larger than number of doughnut recipes, that’s your thing.
A larger than number of doughnut recipes, that’s your thing.
November 1, 2023
Library book I would give this book 5🌟's just for the pictures! The recipes are a big bonus 😁
November 8, 2024
Wanna bake through this! :)
February 21, 2017
AMAZING
- Dainty recipes (HELL YEAH CDN/PRAIRIE SHOWERS)
- Ukrainian heritage (We're probably related) (We're not related) (Except in the general Manitoban/Ukrainain sense)
- Yumyumyum
- I have the same frigging Pyrex set featured on an opening page, they were my Baba's, they make me super happy, and they decorate my kitchen (turquoise butterprint nesting bowls - 2 blue on white, 2 white on blue)
5 stars, I'm finally going to get a stand mixer. And by that I mean I'm going to borrow my mom's
- Dainty recipes (HELL YEAH CDN/PRAIRIE SHOWERS)
- Ukrainian heritage (We're probably related) (We're not related) (Except in the general Manitoban/Ukrainain sense)
- Yumyumyum
- I have the same frigging Pyrex set featured on an opening page, they were my Baba's, they make me super happy, and they decorate my kitchen (turquoise butterprint nesting bowls - 2 blue on white, 2 white on blue)
5 stars, I'm finally going to get a stand mixer. And by that I mean I'm going to borrow my mom's
January 18, 2026
Frozen Lemonade Pie!!
January 18, 2017
An exciting collection of recipes and photographs that I couldn't wait to try. Donut waffles was first, followed by brioche braid. Both turned out terrific. Thank you for such an inspiring recipe collection
February 2, 2017
I've made a couple of Karlynn's delish delights including her infamous Flapper Pie and her Thick and Chewy Chocolate Chip cookies and this is probably my favourite cook book. I love her pictures, her pyrex, and her classic prairie baking.
July 25, 2019
OMG! Must make: Thick 'n' Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, Nanimo Bar Cheesecake Cake, Classic Canadian Nanimo Bars, Baked Sour Cream Doughnuts, Chocolate Cherry Bourbon Balls & Karlynn's Famous Buttercream Icing.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews