Archive for the ‘Desserts’ Category

Fancy Pies

Monday, January 11th, 2010

Hi, I’m Valerie, and this is my first post here.  Jenny gave me an account here, so I thought I’d take advantage of it.

This year I made pies for our family’s Thanksgiving dinner.  I love making pastry, so I was super excited!  I decided to make two pecan pies, an apple pie, and a pumpkin pie.  The pumpkin pie was the classic recipe from Libby’s.  I love that recipe – it really doesn’t need any improvements.

I’ve never been a big fan of pecan pie, because it’s usually overwhelmingly sweet.  That’s why I was so glad to find this recipe, which uses less sugar.  Instead of drowning the flavor in syrupy sweetness, it uses molasses to give a rich, warm taste to compliment the pecans.  All of my aunts and uncles loved it.

I gave these pies a twisted fluting pattern.

The apple pie was also a fancier variation called Grandma Ople’s Apple Pie.  First I put the pie together, covering it with a woven lattice crust on top.  The exciting part was this caramel topping that I cooked over the stove, then poured over the whole top of the crust so it soaked down into the apples.  The pie ended up with this wonderful crispy top.

Beautiful lattice top crust with a caramel layer.

Not your grandma’s pumpkin pie

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

I like cutting corners, but only to the degree that I can get away with it. Trust me when I say that these mini pumpkin pies are *so* worth the extra effort.

not your grandma's pumpkin pie

Photo by Nathan Clendenin

Crust:

2 1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 T. molasses
2 t. ground ginger
1 t. cinnamon
1 c. salted butter (cut into 1 cm cubes, very cold)
1/4 c. water (more, if necessary)

Mix first five ingredients together. I like to use a pastry cutter to really work in the molasses. Then, cut the butter into the flour mixture until shaggy. (I never understood that term until I started working on this recipe. Trust me when I say that you will too.) Slowly add the water and work the dough until moist and doughy throughout. Refrigerate dough for at least 3 hours.

Filling:

1 pkg. cream cheese
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
1 can pureed pumpkin
1 t. ground cinnamon
1/2 t. ground ginger
dash of ground cloves

With electric mixer, mix thoroughly cream cheese and brown sugar. Stir in condensed milk, eggs, and pureed pumpkin. Finally, mix in cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.

Putting it together:

Adding flour if necessary, push a tablespoon of dough into each muffin cup and up the sides. It’s important to make sure there are no holes in the mini pie crust. Spoon filling into crusts until full. Bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees for approximately 40 minutes. You want the filling to be nice and puffy and the crust to be golden brown.