Pie-triotism: Blueberry-Cream Cheese-Sour Cream and Peach-Strawberry

Two pies for a 4th of July picnic. One was blueberry-cream cheese, with a graham-cracker crust; the other, peach-strawberry with a lattice top.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of either pie (I really meant to, but the sun-dazed, and beer-dazed, state I was in by the time the pie was served, caused me to forget). So, please see the above photographic evidence that pie was eaten.

It's a photo of a vacancy where a pie once was.

Honey-Sweetened Cherry Pie

Pretty much my usual crust recipe here, with a lattice top (ugly and a bit fragmented because I was in a hurry and trying to do other stuff at the same time... pies and multitasking don't go well together!). What's really special here is the cherries, which came from pals Melina and Maxamilion's cherry tree. 

Vacation Fruit Pies! Strawberry and Strawberry-Peach

 

On vacation with family! The farmer's market was so exciting that I made two pies instead of one. Strawberry and Peach-Strawberry. (Pictured above: special guest tasters Elijah and Kaylee Thomson.)

Peach-Ginger Pie

I had frozen peaches (put away last September from the bounty of the local farmer's market), and I wanted to use them. I also was craving ginger. So I did some googling and decided to use this recipe (I also found this and  this, in case you're doing a survey of the literature).

Salted Caramel Apple Pie

Another salty-sweet recipe from Four & Twenty Blackbirds! (See also the Salty Honey Pie from a couple weeks ago). This pie, a request from our friend Georgia, turned out close to perfect, though it could have been better if I'd done a couple things differently. But all in all, delicious.

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.

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.

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...

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. 

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: