PORTLAND (AP) — Bakers navigate an obstacle course of 50-pound flour and sugar bags, industrial-sized tubs of Crisco and half-empty beer bottles. Six pumpkin pies waft autumn into this Southeast Portland home; seven peach-apricots wait their turn. A couple of dozen young adults chat about summer internships and reminisce about holiday cooking adventures, over the thump of hip-hop from the stereo.

This evening seems to be another success for the Ladies Pie Society, a wacky philanthropy of twentysomethings who give away pie — just because. The group started as a Reed College club and grew into an unorthodox catering company, serving cost-free dessert everywhere from festivals to fundraisers.

But, at quarter of 10, disaster strikes. The pies are so runny, you could slurp them with a straw.

Tessa Hulls, the 22-year-old leader, paces in paint-splattered jeans and an apron that says “Jesus Loves You.” She wants answers: Did anybody read the recipe? Maybe they used too much evaporated milk? People are counting on these pies.

“We’ve surpassed every obstacle!” cries Matt Koren, a veteran baker wearing rumpled dress clothes and a red apron. “Now we’ll surpass this one!”

In 2005, some women’s rugby players at Reed liked drinking and making pie. So they did, and the Ladies Pie Society was born.

When Hulls took over last year, she applied her life philosophy: “If something is worth doing, it’s worth overdoing.”

The bakers became an official student group, vowing to serve free pie on campus. They wooed the finance committee with — what else? — pie. The college paid a few hundred dollars a semester for ingredients, aprons, even a celebrity gossip magazine to amuse bakers.

Every Wednesday, the Pie Society took over Hulls’ life. She shopped at Cash & Carry, bicycling home with saddlebags full of apples, clutching a canister of Crisco. Then she cooked an elaborate pre-pie supper for dozens of friends, a tradition inspired by her godmother.

“She taught me that food can be this amazing way to bring people together,” Hulls says.

Ladies Pie Society gatherings attracted an eclectic crowd, including men willing to overlook the name. Koren, for example, was a natural fit. He grew up in an Italian-Slovenian family that loved to cook, and he sold homemade cinnamon rolls and Russian teacakes at Reed’s cafe. But most members ate, drank whiskey and danced while the real bakers squeezed into Hulls’ tiny kitchen. When asked, they followed instructions:

“Peel this apple.”

“Add a tablespoon of that.”

Things got so goofy, shortening wound up in bookshelves.

“I’d come home and be, like, ‘Who are all these people in my house?’” says Jade Bryant, Hulls’ former roommate. But she, too, got sucked in.

Reedies learned to line up outside the library every Thursday with forks or chopsticks.

“Pie! Pie! Pie!” they chanted.

Out came the week’s goods. Apple or berry, pecan or pumpkin. And once, during finals week, quiche (for protein, of course). People without utensils sliced pie with student ID cards or scooped gooey fistfuls.

At first, a dozen pies lasted 10 minutes. Not for long.

Like so many college experiences, the Pie Society could have fizzled when its leaders left that phase of their lives behind.

Hulls, who majored in art, graduated this spring and lined up mural-painting gigs. Another master baker moved to Florida. Koren used his psychology degree to score a job advising college students as a “success coach.”

But, they decided, maybe the Pie Society could survive in the post-college world. When Hulls toured a possible rental house near Portland’s Northeast Alberta Street, she inspected the kitchen.

“I bake a lot of pie,” she warned her future roommates.

They began finding community gatherings to cater and, as word spread, taking orders. The group baked free pies for Pedalpalooza, the Iron Artist sculpt-off and Moon Castle Ballyhoo. At each event, the society collected donations — and new members, bringing the ranks to a couple dozen.

Katie Cagle and her boyfriend heard about the Pie Society from a friend and asked the group to bake for their low-budget commitment ceremony. The society arrived at the couple’s home in a rainbow of aprons, carrying more than a dozen pies. Cagle chuckles describing her grandmother, an old-school Southern lady, cutting around a decoration in the shape of, uh, male anatomy.

“I’m really impressed by this whole group,” says Cagle, a 24-year-old with reddish hair and a warm smile. “There’s so much creativity and community-building.”

Which brings us to the baking party in Southeast Portland.

Hulls decided the Pie Society needs two branches. A community chapter will mobilize for festivals, parties, fundraisers and other events. A campus chapter will bake pies for Reed — but probably not every week, says Caitlin McKenna, heiress of the college group (and the evening’s hostess).

“I’m not an art major,” she says, making a playful dig at Hulls.

The party grows and grows, drawing from both crowds. Cagle liked her commitment pies so much, she attends her first baking night. Plus, she booked the group for a women’s crisis-line fundraiser. Zeke Martinez, Reed’s rugby coach, is here. Ditto for a future doctor who sat out the summer, buried in physics labs. A sophomore who just transferred to Reed learned about the Pie Society during new-student week.

Hulls has a mission: Teaching casual bakers to take over the group’s Reed operations. And making a dozen or so pies to deliver to campus the next day.

Crouching on the floor, she demonstrates crust-making, mixing flour and Crisco in a huge bowl. “You try to not touch it with your hands too much.” Once the dough is ready, she rolls a pie’s worth between wax-paper sheets and lines a foil tin in less than two minutes.

The Pie Society doesn’t finesse its creations. Ingredients are not gourmet. As McKenna says, “We bake in bulk.”

With such mass production, the Pie Society has faced strange predicaments. Once, beer spilled in a pie (it tasted OK). In a time crunch, the group persuaded a bar to bake pies in its industrial ovens.

But never has a recipe come out as badly as this batch of pumpkin.

The bakers get to the bottom of it: Nobody added eggs. A restaurant might start from scratch, but not the Ladies Pie Society. They pour warm, orange liquid out of the crusts, add eggs, refill the crusts and return them to the oven.

Hey, it’s pie. And it’s free.

Having handed the campus chapter back to Reed, alumni skip pie drop-off the next day.

The student bakers line up tins of pumpkin and peach-apricot, 13 in all, on a bench outside the library. People cluster around, politely at first. Soon they grab slices and scarf them down. Nobody seems to detect the egg fiasco.

McKenna, the new queen of campus pies, surveys the frenzy.

“Is this some kind of pie-eating contest?” a guy asks.

“No,” McKenna replies. “It’s the Ladies Pie Society!”

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On the Net:

Reed College: http://www.reed.edu/