Mar.
14

Brown Sugar Apple Crumb Pie

Posted by Em at: 6:08 pm | 17 Comments

It’s Pi-day (March 14 = 3/14 = 3.14 = Pi) so I couldn’t possibly let this day go by without posting a, yeah, you guessed it, Pie!  It’s been quite a while since I baked and posted anything but I wanted to honor one of my favorite days of the year.  I’ve made a lot of pies in my day but to be honest, making a good pie crust has always been difficult for me. At least it was difficult until I came across Mike’s recipe for pie crust.  This baby has not failed me once and I continue to make it again and again… and again.  It’s absolutely my go-to recipe when I need a pie crust.  And the filling?  How can you go wrong with brown sugar, apples and a delectable crumb topping!

Yes indeed – have a happy Pi day… March 14… and be sure to help yourself to some pie :)

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Posted in fruit, pie | 17 Comments »

Mar.
15

Oreo Pie

Posted by Em at: 4:45 am | 16 Comments

Today started off as a rather normal Saturday morning.  Nothing overly interesting going on… DH running errands for the household… me taking care of some items for our Home Owner’s Association… the kids playing games.  Then around 1pm my quiet easy-going Saturday changed.  I suddenly realized today is March 14th. Yes… 3/14… which is 3.14… that’ s Pi… and suddenly it hit me…. OH NO!!! It’s PIE DAY and I didn’t make a pie…   I gotta make a pie… and it’s gotta be a quick one since I’ve already lost the whole morning! I asked the kids and DH what kind of pie they wanted and of course they sang out “Chocolate” in perfect unison as if it’d been rehearsed or something! Sure, they may have wanted chocolate pie but I wanted something more interesting… but still something I knew they’d like.  The solution… a super easy Oreo Pie!  If you’re a fan of Oreo cookies, this pie is tailor-made for you :)

Honestly this is super easy.  Just a mere 5 ingredients… Oreo pie crust, Oreo cookies, cream cheese, whipped cream and sugar.  I think it took me about 20 minutes… including clean up!  And when it was served… well… it made me look like a supastah!

 

Oreo Pie

Adapted from Kraft

Ingredients

1 Oreo Pie Crust

12 Oreo cookies

8oz Cream Cheese, softened

1/3 cup sugar

2 cups whipped cream

 

Directions

In a small bowl, smash up 12 of the Oreo cookies… Set aside.

In a medium bowl using a hand mixer, combine the cream cheese and sugar… Beat until light and fluffy.

Add in the whipped cream and the smashed up Oreo cookies… Then use a rubber spatula and combine gently until well blended and the cookies are distributed throughout.

Spoon into the Oreo pie crust and refrigerate about 2 hours or until firm.

Optional garnish… Cut 4 Oreo cookies in half and place the halves, cut side down, around a dollop of whipped cream placed in the center and dusted with Oreo cookie crumbs

Note: the 2 cups of whipped cream is not the same as whipping cream.  For this recipe the cream should be whipped.  Use either freshly whipped cream or Reddi-Whip or Cool Whip or similar… But the cream is to be whipped, not liquid.

I’ve never cared for Oreos so this dessert was easy for me to resist.  I can tell you my husband and kids absolutely loved it and, no lie, they licked their plates clean!  That’s always a compliment :)  As good as it is right now in winter, I can imagine this would be fantastic as a summertime dessert.  Either way, if you like Oreos, you gotta make it :)

Have a delicious (Pi) day!

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Posted in cookies, pie, recipes | 16 Comments »

Dec.
03

French Silk Chocolate Pie

Posted by Em at: 8:01 am | 12 Comments

I’m certain there’s a way to cut a perfect slice of pie… and I’m just as certain that I have no idea what it is. Honestly. I can’t seem to get a picture perfect slice of pie to save my life. But I know there must be a way because I see pictures of pie slices that look, well, perfect. Sadly mine do not. But we’ll just have to live with my “rustic” looking slice :) As previously posted, I made three of my absolute best pies this Thanksgiving. One was a coconut custard pie and one was this truly incredible french silk chocolate pie. It’s rich, full of flavor, can be dressed up elegantly for a holiday table or dressed down for a barbecue. Best of all, it’s easy and soooooo good!  

I think I’ve mentioned a time or ten that I’m not a big fan of chocolate ;-)  I made other desserts for Thanksgiving but I wanted something special that I knew DH and the kids would rave over… and what else could I choose besides something chocolate.  I remember one time many years ago DH and I were out on a date and I found out his favorite pie is French Silk Chocolate.  I considered it odd that a grown man would love what I thought was “chocolate pudding pie” but years later, I now know I was totally wrong and that French Silk Chocolate is not at all the same at chocolate pudding! LOL.  It’s lighter than pudding… but not light as mousse. 

If you decide to make this pie (and I most surely hope you do!) my one piece of advice would be the following… when you think you’ve mixed it enough…. you haven’t, keep mixing!  This goes for creaming the butter and sugar… and it goes for adding the eggs.  Because I wanted the creamiest, lightest mouthfeel possible, I used caster sugar since it’s so very fine and blends pretty easily.  Even so, I decided to mix, mix, mix a long time. But the end result was certainly worth it :)   This pie was indeed something special… DH loved it… the kids loved it and even a non-chocoholic like me, well I loved it too.

 

If you’d like the recipe, click here.  I added a layer of freshly whipped cream (sweetened with a touch of vanilla sugar) and some freshly grated chocolate over the whole pie.  I’m so glad I made it – being that it’s DH’s favorite I have a sneaky feeling he’ll ask me to make it again.  Today is our wedding anniversary… maybe I shoulda saved this pie for tonight?  Naaaaaah, never postpone dessert ;-)

Have a delicious day!

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Posted in Chocolate, pie | 12 Comments »

Nov.
28

Coconut Custard Pie

Posted by Em at: 7:05 pm | 12 Comments

While this pie certainly won’t win a prize for Ms. Photogenic, she most surely could take the prize for Best-in-Class. This was my first attempt at making custard pie and I just had a hankerin for coconut so I turned it into Coconut Custard Pie.  If you’re not a coconut fan, just leave it out and make this a custard pie.  But either way, you just gotta make it because Holy Mother this is one of the three best pies I’ve made in my entire life (and I’ll be blogging the other two real soon!!!)

Prior to March of this year, I would’ve said I truly disliked coconut.  Then something just changed and I started to not dislike it. After a few months I realized that I was looking for ways to incorporate coconut into my baking and cooking.  I made chicken dishes with coconut… and cakes with coconut, loving both equally.  I can’t figure out what exactly happened but now I actually do like coconut a great deal.  The texture used to really turn me off but no longer is that the case.  Eh, go figure ;-)

About a week ago I started planning out our Thanksgiving menu and decided on Pumpkin Cheesecake for the dessert (yes, I will most definitely be blogging that fabulous creation in the near future!).  Then it hit me that no one in the family really is into pumpkin… except me… so I made the chocolate “turkey” cupcakes that I posted yesterday.  I thought it was all covered :)  Then the night before Thanksgiving I started experiencing pangs of gilt that I hadn’t really made a “nice dessert” for Thanksgiving Dinner.  I mean, sure, the “turkey” cupcakes are cute but they’re not “nice dessert” worthy.  

Out of literally nowhere I came up with the idea of making custard pie!  I just love custard pie even though I’d never made one I figured it couldn’t be that hard. And then my coconut craving kicked in and I decided on coconut custard pie.  Oooooh!  I was giddy with excitement… until… until I realized no one in the family would eat it… except me.  ARGH!  But I went ahead with the idea and made it anyway LOL! LOL! LOL!  But don’t worry… I decided to make a French Silk Chocolate Pie which I knew the family would love and boy was I right. I’ll most assuredly be blogging about that one very soon!!! But today is Coconut Custard Pie… an incredibly good, thoroughly satisfying Coconut Custard Pie that I do believe is among the three best pies I’ve ever made.  And that, my friends, is one helluvan endorsement for my first time out of the gate!  If you’re not into coconut then don’t worry, just omit it and make this as a custard pie.  It’ll be JUST as good – really it will!!!  I’m sure I could’ve made this with coconut milk for more flavor but I didn’t think of it until later.  Regardless, this pie turned out fantastic and I hope you like it too :)

 

 

Coconut Custard Pie 

Ingredients

1 (9 inch) unbaked pie crust (not frozen, just unbaked)
3 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg separated
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
3 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

Method

Preheat oven to 400°F

Separate one egg… white in one small bowl, yolk in a separate small bowl.

In a medium saucepan, combine the milk and heavy cream.  Heat until just starting to boil – be sure to watch it because it will go from barely simmering to heavy boiling rather quickly. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large bowl, using a hand mixer, combine the one egg yolk, the three whole eggs (beaten), sugar, salt and vanilla.  Mix thoroughly.  

Slowly… slowly add in the hot milk mixture continuing to beat continuously so that the egg mixture already in the bowl does not “cook”.  Once the hot milk mixture is completely blended in, add in the coconut and mix well.  Add in the food coloring if you’d like a more yellow-colored pie.

Place the unbaked pie crust on a cookie sheet lined with a silicon mat.  Brush the insides (bottom, sides and top) with the egg white to help prevent the crust from getting soggy.  Carefully pour the custard mixture into the pie crust.

Bake for 35 minutes then carefully… carefully place strips of aluminum foil over the exposed crust to prevent it from getting too dark (depending on your oven you may have to do this earlier than 35 minutes into baking – just keep an eye on it and protect the crust when it’s to your desired shade of brown). Reduce the oven temp to 250°F, return pie to oven and bake for about another 20 minutes or until the filling is just about set… Not so jiggly that it’s like liquid but also not so totally firm that it’s solid.

Remove from oven and cool on rack. When pie is just about room temperature place in refrigerator and chill for at least 2 hours before serving.  

Have a delicious day!

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E870F3868.png" style="border: none; background: transparent;"/>

Posted in pie, recipes | 12 Comments »

Jul.
08


If it’s Tuesday, I’m baking with Dorie :) And this week’s recipe is the Double Crusted Blueberry Pie from “Baking From My Home To Yours”. Believe it or not, I’ve never had blueberry pie before in my entire life but that certainly didn’t stop me because pretty much any way you look at it, I simply LOVE to bake!!

This week’s TWD host was Amy at South In Your Mouth and while I did fret over what in the world I was going to do with an entire blueberry pie, I ventured on undaunted. DJ and his son don’t eat fruit pies… except for apple. DJ’s daughter on the other hand is quite the adventurous eater and would certainly join me in at least trying a slice. The big concern was what to do with the rest of the pie. Let’s be honest, ingredients cost money and nothing’s getting any cheaper. For me, baking is a hobby… albeit a serious hobby… and I can’t actually justify making a whole pie if 90% of it’s just going in the bin. Normally I’d take the rest to work or gift it to neighbors. But this week DJ and I will be on vacation (yes, right now as you’re reading this I’m enjoying some much needed rest-&-relaxation but thank goodness for Blogger’s auto-scheduler feature that keeps the new posts coming!!) and I baked the pie over the Independence Day holiday weekend when all of the “good” neighbors are gone. We’re vacationing with one of my absolute dearest friends and her husband who, as luck would have it, just happens to love blueberry pie! Woohoo!!! Dilemma over. Problem solved. I’ll take a slice or two more of the pie, freeze it and later break it up and add it to home made vanilla ice cream. Now THAT sounds good! And my girlfriend’s husband will have about half a blueberry pie to enjoy :)

Anyway… I digress… a common problem in my blog posts… and if you think this is bad, seeing me in action during a real-live conversation would drive you mad! LOL LOL LOL!

Dorie’s recipe for the Double Crusted Blueberry Pie begins with making her Good For Almost Everything Pie Crust. Recall from this post here, I’ve made the pie crust before. I’ve made it by hand with less than stellar results because as I mentioned in that post I do not own a food processor. Now go ahead and get ready to have yourself a fun little giggle… or a great big guffaw… when I tell you that this time I thought I’d be smarter and use a blender to make the pie crust. Oh yeah, this was pretty much just as disastrous as last time when I tried doing it by hand. I fussed, I fumed, I cursed up a blue streak and the end result is that I will not make this fantastic tasting pie crust again without a food processor. Sure, I’ve made other pie crusts before with no problem but Dorie’s Good For Almost Everything Pie Crust just causes me way too much stress and the only thing I can figure is when she says you need a food processor for it, she ain’t just a whistlin’ dixie… she means it! Thank goodness my birthday is this week and I’ve lamented to DH, my mother and my sister that I really do need a food processor… I’m hoping they’ll combine forces and maybe… jussssst maybe… I’ll have a big box with a brand new super duper food processor come birthday day :) :) :)

Anyway… I digress… again!


For the filling I used a bag of Trader Joe’s Frozen Wild Blueberries. M’mmmm sooooo delish. I didn’t realize that wild blueberries are smaller than regular blueberries so when I opened the bag and saw those petite lil berries I was just a tad bit concerned. Did I buy the wrong thing? Nope, the label said wild blueberries. Did someone put the wrong wrapper on these little berries? Hmmm… guess not since now I know wild blueberries are petite!

How does the pie taste? Well, I can honestly say the pie has a very good blueberry flavor. But it’s sweet… very very sweet. And that could flat out be my own fault. I’m not really sure. Since I’ve never had blueberry pie before, I have nothing to compare it to. Perhaps I should have reduced the amount of granulated sugar since I used frozen wild blueberries instead of regular fresh blueberries.

The pie crust is awesome – I will not lie. Dorie’s pie crust is arguably the best pie crust I’ve ever tasted. It’s light, it’s flaky, it’s delicious… everything I want when I eat pie crust. But making it just increases my stress level dramatically… and that hardly seems worth it. Unless…. Unless… I get a new fancy dancy food processor for my birthday! LOL

So now that you’ve seen the fruits of my labors (all puns intended) check out the rest of the group who also bakes Tuesdays With Dorie.

Have a delicious day :)

 

Posted in Tuesdays with Dorie, pie | 15 Comments »

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