Chocolate Brownie Pecan Pie

This combination was even better than it sounds, thanks to an extremely (accidentally) crispy crust and some bourbon-vanilla whipped cream (not pictured). I can say without false modesty that this is one of the most delicious pies I've tasted, let alone made.

Pumpkin Pumpkin Pumpkin

A reprise of my earlier pumpkin pie from October, only this time I think it turned out even better. I used Carolyn's all-butter crust technique. What's interesting is, I made it in a hurry, late late late, and cut corners, and basically did all the stuff that would usually make for a piesaster. But in this case, somehow it turned out pretty great: the filling (which Suzanne did the hard work on, because I was in such a calamitous rush) was creamy and pumpkiny and custardly delicious; the crust was flaky and crispy and buttery and light. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of the bourbon-cinnamon-vanilla whipped cream that I served it with. That really took it the extra step.

Sugarless Apple-Blackberry Pie

Suzanne and I, hippies that we are, are working on drastically reducing our sugar intake; which, as you might imagine, creates some challenges in the pie-making department. However, there are options. This one, for instance, from Ken Haedrich's book Pie (in case you're wondering, it's a book about pie), uses apple juice as a sweetener, and is pretty delicious (though next time around I think I'll slip some honey in there just to make it deliciouser).

Dueling Caramel Apple Pies

While we were gallivanting around celebrating Thanksgiving, some excellent neighbors fed and entertained our gluttonous, attention-starved cats. As a reward, I promised each of them a pie. (The neighbors, not the cats). I originally intended to customize the pie-making to individual preference, but wound up getting lazy and making the same type of pie for each: caramel apple. It's a hard, cruel, world. They don't seem too upset though.

Thanksgiving Pie: Sugarless Honey Pumpkin Pie

Contrary to my earlier pieatus announcement, I wound up making a pumpkin pie for thanksgiving. Here it is, honey-sweetened, sugarless and tasty. Also featured today: photos of Carolyn's cherry pie, with some photos of crust edge shaping and foil top-protecting.

Pie-atus

On a temporary hiatus this week-
last weekend was a wash due to unexpected and conflicting doctor's warnings for my lovely life-partner. First it was gluten intolerance, then that was rescinded, and now it seems to be, not gluten intolerance, but a potato intolerance, which for complicated reasons appears to be just as crazy (many flours include potato, and sugar and fruit at the same time are apparently forbidden). This is pie-recipe-complexifying stuff, folks.

But, this will just make future pies more interesting. And I hope those of you who are counting, are mollified by the fact that I made two pies last week, and am still way ahead on the numbers (by about five extra pies, approximately).

Also, you're all cooking and/or eating pie for the holiday. Make and eat delicious pies, friends.

And in the meantime enjoy this article:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2011/11/17/142460593/for-the-origins-of-pie-look-to-the-humble-magpie

and, um, this one. which I hereby swear I will never attempt:
http://www.neatorama.com/2011/11/22/a-cherry-pie-an-apple-pie-and-a-pumpkin-pie-each-cooked-inside-a-separate-cake-and-then-all-cooked-together-inside-another-cake/

and this one, which i may someday attempt if I have a few too many Sazeracs first:
http://www.extremeholidayideas.com/Extreme_Pumpkin_Pie.html

and this one, which is actually pretty tempting:
http://www.cakespy.com/blog-old/2009/5/27/triple-threat-the-cookie-cake-pie.html

Peach and Apple Pie with Lattice Top

A splendidly unseasonal pie, using farmers' market peaches that we froze back in early September, and thawed for peach pie (by request for a treasured guest). Since the frozen peaches shrank in volume and looked like a dilapidated brown pool of limp dishrags when thawed, I added a sliced apple and some dried cranberries. The filling, amazingly, turned out terrific. This is also my first part-shortening crust, and the results were good enough (though I wound up underbaking the bottom crust) that there will be many more. Details, as always, below.

Savory Sweet Potato Pie with Poppy-Seed-Cheddar Crust

This pie was possibly a better idea in theory than in reality (if you can read the title of this post without drooling, something's wrong with you). The crust was great, but to my tastebuds the filling was somewhat bland and disappointing. 

The recipe's from Mollie Katzen's Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook.

Details below:

Guest Pie: Nina's Vegan Apple Galette

Awesome east coast pal Nina made a pie and sent me the pictures. Here's what she says:

I was pretty nervous about it since I've never attempted anything like this before, but it was fantastic. Baked and tender, and perfect with a little almond dream faux ice cream. Here's the recipe:
http://urbanvegan.net/search/?q=galette

 

I promise not to slack on my weekly piemaking, but I do hereby invite readers to send in their own pie success stories (please include at least one photo and a recipe!). The world needs more homemade pie!

Dutch Apple Pie

This was my first try at an apple pie. 

It was, as so often happens, nearly a complete disaster, and imperfect in many ways. (Rest assured that I'll tell you all about them). Yet: it was also a success, insofar as deliciousness goes. Yum. Pie is good even when it's bad. 

As a pie seeker, I quest for piefection. But in the meantime, this stuff still tastes tasty.

Pumpkin Pie

The first pumpkin pie of the season!

Tamale Pie!

Let's be honest. This isn't really pie. But it looks like pie, and it's delicious like pie. Therefore...

Savory Tomato Pie with Kale-Walnut Pesto

As promised, I've jumped away from the sweet plum pies (for now!) and made a savory pie. In this case, a tomato pie with kale pesto. It tasted as good as that sounds, and maybe even better.

Apple-Plum!

As must by now be pretty obvious, we collected a lot of plums from the plum tree in our yard. Thus, when it came time to make a pie for friends Jonathan and Jenny, I followed the recipe for purple plum pie that I've been using, but mixed in about half apples and some extra spices.



The results were pretty good! I added lots of extra cinnamon, some extra nutmeg, and some ground cloves. And one large apple, sliced thin, went in with the frozen plums. The result was a bit like plum pie and a bit like apple pie.

My crust, though I followed Carolyn's magic pie crust technique, wasn't perfect: despite prebaking, the bottom was still a bit soft (though, the following day, cold from the fridge, it was just fine... so maybe the problem was serving it still-warm), and the streusel-ish top came out a bit mushy. Also, I completely forgot to decorate the edges, and overall this is a pretty ugly-looking beast of a pie. But the flavor was just fine, and the ugliness didn't seem to bother anyone too much. Any warm home-made pie tends to look pretty good with some vanilla ice cream on one side and a fork on the other...

All this plum pie is probably getting boring for the two of you who read this regularly, but fear not: apple-pie season approaches, as does pumpkin-pie season, sweet-potato-pie season, and, oh yeah, creative savory pie season. Yum.

One last note: if you're a Portland resident, be aware that I just purchased a special plastic pie carrier. Suzanne was a little doubtful as to whether I would actually need to carry pie places: I protested that I want to give people pie and this will make it easier.

This means that all you have to do is ask, and I will bring you a freaking fresh-baked pie (and, for that matter, if you want me to make something in particular, as long as it's in season I'll do it). So ask for some pie. Because you deserve it.

Sunblock for Pies

Carolyn Walters has offered more pie wisdom, and I thought I'd share it with any readers who may benefit from it. The photos she sent speak for themselves, I won't try to take any credit or add any advice. The dilemma is: how to keep a crust-top from burning? The solution, in a word: foil.

In her words:

I have a couple photos on how to protect a pie crust while baking -- wasn'tsure if you already knew of this technique.  I was overcooking pie edges foryears before I heard about this. 

Figgy Flop-Tart

You wouldn't know it from looking at the (pretty luscious) photos, but this fig & plum tart was a complete and utter failure. So much so that Suzanne and I could barely get through a slice apiece, even in the name of research.

Purple Plum Pies, Plural

This week: two plum pies.

Purple Plum Pie

This turned out pretty delicious. Our backyard plum tree is exploding with ripe plums and we've been using as many of them as possible: jam, chutney, plum sauce, plum liqueur. (And of course plum tart from the week before last). So plum pie was the logical next step. This was a randomly Google find of a recipe, originally from http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Purple-Plum-Pie, but using Carolyn's magic pie crust techniques.

Carolyn's Top-Secret Magic Pie Crust Technique: Part 3

Today: The thrilling conclusion of this weekend's pie trilogy!
If you haven't already, you'll want to peruse Part 1, which outlines dough-making, then Part 2, which shows rolling out and shaping. Today we see pictures of the results, after Carolyn put the crust to work in the form of a savory Red and Yellow Pepper Tart.

Carolyn's Top-Secret Magic Pie Crust Technique: Part 2

Welcome back to our instructional extravaganza, in which guest piemaker Carolyn Walters shows us her pie-making magic. You may want to check out yesterday's post if you haven't already-- we're beginning today's session with yesterday's refrigerated dough.

First, let's pull yesterday's dough out of the refrigerator so that it can warm up just a little (if it's too cold it'll crack instead of rolling out properly; if it's too warm it'll fall apart-- so we want to just warm it up enough to be handled). You can actually warm it a bit with your hands, being sure to rotate it and pay attention to the edges, until it's just soft enough to be malleable all over.

Carolyn's Top-Secret Magic Pie Crust Technique: Part 1

Today is a special episode of our series, in which we watch pie expert Carolyn Walters demonstrate her super-magic pie crust techniques, which she originally learned in person from renowned chef Madame Kuony in Milwaukee in 1981 and has been using to win local pie contests ever since.  If that isn't enough to establish pie-master credibility, here's a photo of her delicious rhubarb pie (of which slices were eaten so quickly that no photos of the whole pie remain):

Not convinced? How about a close-up of the incredibly flaky crust?

OK, now that we're all drooling, let's talk about how this sort of thing is done.

Lemon Meringue!

I asked Suzanne what kinda pie to make and she said, without hesitation, Lemon Meringue.

I wound up taking photos at night, so they're not so great, but this is more or less what it looked like:

Plum Kuchen Tart

I still haven't decided for sure if tarts count towards my pie-a-week project, but since Suzanne was returning from a week away, and the plum tree in our backyard is nearing a complete ripeness explosion, I decided to surprise her with a plum pie, and the recipe that seemed most like what I was looking for was a tart. A Kuchen tart, to be precise. More below:

Mixed-Berry Pie

This one was a birthday present for Georgia Gunesch. I used the same recipe, basically, for both the pie crust and filling, as listed here; however, I used a mix of marionberries, blackberries, raspberries, and white raspberries, which were pretty on their own but quickly picked up the black-red-purple colors once mixed in. The overall flavor was pretty dominated by the marionberries.

First, the end-result photo, then details about the making of, below.

Yum. More details below...

Double-Pie Birthday Edition: Chocolate Cream and Strawberry Rhubarb!

Yesterday, in honor of Suzanne's birthday, I made two pies: a chocolate cream pie with a whipped cream topping, and a strawberry rhubarb pie with a closed top.

For info about the making of, keep reading below.

Peach-Strawberry Pie with Lattice Top

This was the same recipe(s) as last week's Peach Pie, only with about a cup of sliced strawberries substituted in for peaches. By and large it was a success, though in some ways slightly disappointing after last week's peachy perfection.

Comments and reviews below, after the pretty picture.

Peach Pie with Lattice Top

This may have been even better than the Marionberry pie. I used exactly the same crust recipe, and it worked very well. The peach pie filling recipe is from the Baking Illustrated book.

How did it taste?

Pretty much like summer perfection. I was hoping for a bit more peach blast. But I think this is actually a good balance: not too tart, not too sweet. Definitely the taste of fresh summer peaches. I sort of craved more cinnamon, more lemon, more sugar- but all of those might have actually made it taste less like the fruit itself, and the fruit is what's important here. Next time I may be tempted to experiment a bit more but for now it's just right.

How Was The Texture?

Good. I'd put in a bit less starch next time, since it had a slight tendency to gumminess; but the texture of the peaches themselves seems unaffected, and the filling had great structure and wasn't loose at all. 

Tomato and Cheddar Pie!

Another savory pie, this one from a recipe in a Bon Appetit magazine. I don't usually get recipes from magazines... but this magazine was staring me down, it had a pie theme, and this one jumped out at me once I started browsing. Not too hard to make... but will it taste good? Let's find out.

Here's what it looked like fresh out of the oven:

Sadly, after letting it sit for an interminable hour (the recipe calls for 1-3 hours of waiting!) I cut it open and it turned to a mushy gooey liquid mess. I'm not yet sure what I did wrong but it must have been something substantial.

It still tasted good, and the crust (for which I decided to stick with Mark Bittman's recipe (see last Sunday's marionberry pie post), with no sugar and a little whole wheat flour added) was great. But the center just didn't come together. I don't know why.

The recipe:
http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/08/tomato-and-cheddar-pie

Well, the two reasons I'm so pie-centric right now are (1) to eat pie; (2) to learn how to bake great pies.
Chalk this one up to a learning experience toward the second goal.

Bean Pie (with Millet Crust)

This one's really a savory tart, not a pie. I don't care! Enjoy. (I'm on track to make three pies this week, so stay tuned. This is just a practice round.)

First Pie! Marionberry with Lattice Top

Welcome! This isn't my first pie ever (though I haven't made many in my life, maybe five or six in my life?). But this is my first pie in the pie-a-week project. It came out far better than expected.
First, pictures: