Lauren Collins Cline, owner of Slightly Crooked Pies, two pies from her business (Photos Courtesy of Slightly Crooked Pies)
When Lauren Collins Cline, owner of Slightly Crooked Pies in Bedford, baked her first pie at 23, she wasn’t trying to launch a business. It was 2002 and she was hosting her first Thanksgiving. She wanted “to bake a pie from scratch,” she says, using air quotes. She notes she used a store-bought crust because, “well, baby steps.” But that apple pie, made from a Williams-Sonoma recipe, was a surprise hit and a validating moment.
Cline didn’t grow up with culinary skills. In fact, she says, “My parents were pretty much convinced that I would be eating ramen noodles for my whole life because the kitchen was not a place I should be.” But she did love bakeries. One of her favorite spots as a child was Helen’s Bakery in her hometown of Waterbury, Conn., an early-20th-century shop filled with mahogany cases and the aroma of fresh pastries. “I just loved the smell and the sights and the feel,” she says. “There’s something wonderful and connective about it.”
Years later, long after she had settled in Bedford, that sensory memory reemerged. By then she had served as a radio DJ, reporter, and eventually a hospital communications director during the pandemic. Baking became cathartic.
She had begun posting her creations on Facebook and friends began asking to buy them. In 2018 she sold a dozen pies for $10 each, though customers insisted on paying more. In 2019 she sold 34 pies. And in 2020, when families stayed home for the holidays because of COVID, orders exploded. “People really saw pie as a connective tradition,” she says. “They couldn’t imagine Thanksgiving without it.”
That year, Cline finally named her growing venture. Living in a 1740s farmhouse where “there’s no level spot anywhere,” she once pulled a lopsided pumpkin pie from the oven and the namesake of her company was born.
A request from the Educational Farm at Joppa Hill soon helped turn the hobby into a true business. Since then, momentum has rarely slowed. Slightly Crooked Pies are now available online and at outlets including Angela’s Pasta & Cheese Shop, Loon Chocolate, Hometown Coffee Roasters, and the Joppa Hill farm stand. Hand pies and mini pies have become popular wholesale offerings, with gluten-free varieties available at Dishon Bakery in Manchester.
Today, Cline balances her full-time communications career with producing hundreds of pies for the holidays, sometimes more than 400 in a season. Her dream is to open a pie shop where people can share their own pie memories. “People have these very strong sensory connections through pie,” she says. “I believe it’s part of what connects all of us as a culture and a country.” For more information, visit slightlycrookedpies.com
