mmm…pie. Excuse the length of this post, however it does contain my cool pie gadget, crust recipe, and more pie porn.
Ellen Cherry, You aren’t from NC are you? Big Blue is not a state related reference, however here is a pie clue to my (general) location:
Shoe-fly pie! Whoo-hoo! Such an oddity, but terribly good as a special treat!
I have been wanting to make a pecan pie since last winter but kept holding off cause they are so sweet. (Though healthier than the non-nut shoe-fly, right?! How is that for absurd logic?) I spent hours looking at recipes online for pies (yes, obsessed, I know). That was when I discovered chess pie. I travel a bit but never had seen one, I don’t think we really have them here. I think I have to do a Derby pie, maybe it will feed both the pecan and the chess pie jones. Oh, I would CERTAINLY not forget the chocolate!
phil417, I understand what your are saying in regard to your kids. When we used to visit my grandparents when I was small, I was always amazed that Gram could easily make a pie a day, including meals. How amazing, she could do this so easily! Mix-mix, roll, pour, bake. Done! All before lunch!
I inherited her rolling pin, pretty deep-dish pie plate, and sweet tooth.
I do like pies that defy gravity. My first ever pie when I was a kid was lemon meringue. I remember wanting to make one just because they were tall and I thought that was impressive. Oh, and how tall my meringue peaks were! You never forget your first.
The apple pie was made in a deep dish and I just mounded as many apples and cranberries up as I could, as tall as I could. I don’t use a corer, I hand peel and cut the apples into chunks for the most part. They stack taller as well as there is less waste if I hand core and cut.
The crust here is also very easy to work with. I got the recipe from a chef/baker friend of mine. He is a professional chef and told me that the easiest pie crust to work with was a butter/cream cheese/flour mix. I had never heard of such a thing, he insisted that was how many picture perfect desserts where made. Though I had never seen this recipe anywhere, he said it is used often for desserts cause it can’t be over mixed, was very reliable and easy to work with. It has almost a cookie like texture when baked. I always do lattice crusts and can do so with any pie dough, but this particular dough is so easy to work with that anyone could weave a top in a snap. The one in this picture is a little thicker than it should be, perhaps, but I like this crust and tend to leave it a little thick just cause I enjoy it. It does make a picture perfect crust and I have had many people tell me it is a very tasty dessert crust.
His crust:
*1 lb. butter
1 lb. cream cheese
3 lbs. flour
Cream butter and cream cheese, add flour till mixed. Can not over mix. Will be stiff. Separate into pie crust sized balls, flatten and wrap in saran or waxed paper. Chill for one hour, roll out crust.*
I don’t make this much dough at a time, but the proportions are pretty easy to scale. Flatten means into a disc, does not mean roll all the way out.
I do regular butter crusts, too, but for deserts this is a nice change. If I have cream cheese around, I make this one. Never lard, I am a vegetarian, too, but not vegan.
This picture is a top view of that pie. (see the cranberries thru the top? Mmm…tasty!)
My favorite pie gadget is in this photo. Maybe it is a common thing, but I love it none the less. I don’t know as most all my kitchen stuff has come from my parents or my grandma, I don’t shop for that sort of thing. The gadget is my tupperware rolling mat. It has concentric circles on it so that you can roll out the appropriate sized crust for your pie plate, perfectly circular. See the metric conversion chart in that corner? handy, too. If you look close you can see how the white of the mat is more transparent in some parts (reddish, like the counter). Dampen the counter and the mat sticks so that it will not slip while rolling out the dough. It is good for cutting out the strips for the lattice also, though I accidentally cut too deeply once and now it has a score on one edge. Bummer, but maybe I’ll come across one to replace it one day. It still functions fine. It was my Mom’s, though she did not use it too frequently. Stores easily, too. I roll it around Gram’s pin and pop it in the drawer. I love my tupperware pie crust mat, can you tell?
gonzomax- I may need a piebird to go with my mat and pin. I like the traditional blackbird!
