Gluten-Free Blueberry Cream Cheese

As promised, this post delves into the mysteries of the Blueberry Sour Cream/Cream Cheese pie.

This is one of my favorite recipes yet. This week's version is gluten-free, by virtue of using, not graham cracker crumbs, but crumbs from Annie's Gluten-Free Ginger Snap Bunnies. Which I expected to be a disappointment, but it's actually excellent; maybe better than the graham cracker version.

The real magic here is the blueberry-cream cheese axis. Sweet, sour, fresh and creamy.

Peanut-Chocolate Pielets

An experiment: tiny pies made in a muffin pan. In this case, each has a pie crust, peanuts, a pecan-pie-like peanut-butter & corn-syrup filling, and a healthy dose of dark chocolate.

Not a complete success (as usual, I underbaked, so that the crusts were mushy and the filling gooey)... but successful enough that I'm going to keep trying.

Also, yum.

Night of two Pies, part 2: Honey-Sweetened Berry Pie

The second pie of the evening: a honey-sweetened berry pie. Quite good, sweet and tart and flavorful.

Maple Cream Pie

Here in the dead of winter, there isn't a lot of fresh fruit in season. But we do have sugar and dairy. So why not make a Maple Cream Pie?

Chocolate Custard Cream Cheese Pie

Maybe just because it was New Year's Eve and everyone who tasted it was a little drunk, but this pie is one of the most ridiculously delicious things I've ever tasted. And everyone who scarfed a slice seemed to agree.

It's chocolatey, with a cream-cheese bite, and a texture midway between cheesecake and gelato. Pretty amazing. And it wasn't too difficult to prepare.

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.

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.