Author Archives: kbecker57

Amy (and Saoirse) were kind enough to host our pie day, and she was also smart enough to pick a pie recipe that didn’t require competing for oven time! I am not usually a huge fan of bananas, but I loved this pie. I even had it for breakfast the next morning. 

The recipe came with two “Baker’s Notes”:

• To crush vanilla wafers, place a handful of cookies in a heavy-duty plastic bag, then roll over the bag with a rolling pin to crush them. When crushed, empty the bag into a measuring cup and repeat until you have the desired amount of crumbs.
• To get the pie slices to release easily from the pie pan, heat up a wet dish cloth in the microwave and heat until hot. Fold the cloth into a 9-inch square and place it on the counter. Place the pie on the hot cloth. In a few  minutes, the heat will soften the butter in the crumb crust enough that slices will slide from the pan.

‘Nilla wafer crust

Banana cream pie
Serves: 8
Source: The Prepared Pantry

Ingredients
For the crust:
2 cups crushed vanilla wafers
1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
6 Tablespoons butter, melted

Banana cream pie

For the filling:
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1 Tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk or light cream
4 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 Tablespoons butter
3 small to medium-sized bananas, sliced

Directions
1. For the crust: crush the vanilla wafers. Place the crushed wafers in a large bowl, add the sugar, and stir to combine. Add the melted butter and combine well. Evenly press the mixture into a buttered 9″ deep-dish pie pan. Place the crust in the freezer to get hard while you make the filling.

2. For the filling: place the sugar, flour, cornstarch, and salt in a saucepan. Add the milk or light cream and whisk together, then whisk in the egg yolks.

3. Heat over low heat, stirring regularly, until the mixture is thick and just begins to bubble. Add the butter and vanilla and stir to combine. Let the mixture cool for 15 minutes.

4. Remove the pie crust from the freezer and spread the banana slices evenly across the bottom of the pie shell. Pour the filling over the banana slices. Chill for several hours.

Mixed berries

The fourth pie we made for #pieday was a berry pie, and Ruthie even got fancy with a lattice top (I think she wanted to win the “contest”). She was on Team Crisco and used all Crisco, even though the crust recipe she used called for part Crisco (1/4 cup) and part butter (2 Tablespoons). 

She was also a little “loosey goosey” with the filling part of the recipe, so the recipe below is our best guess at what actually happened. We baked this pie and the apple together, so this baked at 400 degrees (instead of 425) initially. 

Ready for the oven

Fruits of the forest berry pie
Serves: 8
Source: Lee Bailey’s Country Desserts (also via Epicurious)

Ingredients
For the sweet crust:
1 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons sugar
5 Tablespoons ice water
1/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Crisco, chilled and cut into bits
1 egg, beaten

Bakin’ pies

For the filling:
Approximately 1 1/2 quarts mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries)
1 cup sugar, more to taste
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
Squeeze of lemon juice

Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

2. For the crust: sift together the flour, salt, and sugar. Remove 1/3 cup of this and mix with the ice water to make a paste. Set aside.

3. Place the remaining flour mixture in a food processor and add shortening. Process until coarse. Scrape in the paste and process until this mixture forms a ball. Place ball between 2 sheets of waxed paper and flatten slightly. Refrigerate for about 30 minutes.

4. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface into a 14-inch circle. Line a 9-inch pie pan with the dough, allowing excess to hang over the sides. Trim, leaving about 1/2-inch all around. Fold edges under and crimp. Cut a few slits in the crust and bake 5-7 minutes or until golden.

5. For the filling: mix together ingredients and pour into pie shell. 

6. Lay second pie crust over berries; press along rim to seal. Using kitchen shears, trim overhang to 1 inch. With floured fingers, fold overhang under itself to form a thick rim and crimp edges. Or see how to make a lattice crust here. 

7. Brush top of crust with egg wash; place pie on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes; reduce heat to 375 degrees F and bake until crust is golden and juices are bubbling, 20-25 minutes more.

Our third delicious pie was pecan, courtesy of Sara and “The Joy of Cooking”. She was on Team Crisco for the crust…though I think it is interesting that it is not all shortening, but a mix of shortening and butter. 

Pecan pie would definitely be a good way to use up some of the pecans I receive from my company every year over the holidays! I recently cleared out six years of November issues of Everyday Food, and I came across (and pinned) several variations of pecan pie that also sounded delicious…involving chocolate and booze.

Pecan pie

Team Crisco!

Serves: 8
Source: The Joy of Cooking

Ingredients
For the crust:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup shortening
2 Tablespoons chilled butter
4-5 Tablespoons

For the filling:
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Ready for the oven

1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup light corn syrup
1 cup pecan halves
1 teaspoon vanilla or 1 Tablespoon rum

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Gorgeous (and delish)!

2. For the crust: sift together flour and salt. Measure and combine the shortening and chilled butter. Cut half of the shortening into the flour mixture with a pastry blender or work it in lightly with your fingers until it has the grain of cornmeal. Cut the remaining half of the shortening into the dough until it is pea-sized. 

3. Sprinkle the dough with 4 Tablespoons water. Blend the water lightly into the dough. If needed add 1 teaspoon to 1 Tablespoon more water. When you can gather the dough into a neat ball, stop handling it!

4. Bake pie crust for 5-7 minutes and allow to cool. Decrease heat to 375 degrees F.

5. For the filling: In a large bowl, combine eggs, sugar, salt, butter, and corn syrup, and beat thoroughly. Stir in 1 cup of pecan halves and vanilla (or rum).

6. Add mixture to the pie shell and bake for 40-50 minutes.

Measuring the crust

The second pie of the day was a blueberry crumble pie…though actually this one was the first pie in and out of the oven. We got to smell it (and perhaps drool a little bit) while we were hard at work on all of the other pies. It was certainly worth the wait!

A key step in this crust is to roll it out between two sheets of wax paper.

I think the crumble idea would be great for an apple pie too!

Blueberry crumble pie
Serves: 8

Beautiful crimping!

Source: Kelly’s mom

Ingredients
For the crust:
1 3/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Wesson oil
3 Tablespoons cold water

For the filling:
5 cups blueberries
1 1/4 cup sugar to taste
3-4 heaping Tablespoons flour
Cinnamon

Blueberry filling

For the topping: 
3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
6 Tablespoons salted butter
Leftover pie crust
Cinnamon

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. For the crust: in a medium bowl, mix together flour and salt. Add oil and water and roll out between two sheets of wax paper. Place crust in pie pan, trim excess crust with kitchen shears, and crimp the edges. Save extra pie crust for the topping.

Ready to eat

3. For the filling: in a large bowl, mix together blueberries, sugar, and flour. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Place in unbaked pie shell.

4. For the topping: in a medium bowl, mix together flour and sugar, then cut in butter and leftover pie crust. Sprinkle with cinnamon and spread on top of blueberry mixture.

5. Wrap aluminum foil around the crust and bake at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes. Remove foil and reduce heat to 350 degrees F and bake for an additional 20 minutes or until bubbly. Allow to cool before serving.

With a little (ok, a lot) of help from some friends, and a fun “pie day”, I think I’ve conquered my fear of making pie crust. It was more a fear of the unknown, and those types of fears are usually bigger in your head than reality…and happily that turned out to be the case for pie crust. I’m not a huge pie-for-dessert person anyway, so learning to make pie hasn’t ever been too high on my “bucket list.” Pie day also means lots of pie recipes to share with you over the next few weeks, which is perfect since Thanksgiving is just around the corner!

There were many variations of pie crust recipes, mostly varying by the type of fat used (Crisco, vegetable oil, or butter). I decided to put myself on Team Butter and turned to a recipe from the trusty Everyday Food magazine.

Here are a few tips from my experience:

• Make the dough first since it needs to be refrigerated for an hour (we didn’t do this)
• I used a pastry blender instead of a food processor and that worked just fine.
• I did need the full 1/2 cup of water for the dough.
• You can prep the apples while the pie dough is being refrigerated. They will not turn brown once you mix in the lemon juice, flour, sugar, and spices (they will also taste delicious like that).
• Make sure you put enough flour on the wax paper before you roll out the dough.
• Baking it on a cookie sheets is important, our pie runneth over.
• We put aluminum foil along the edges of the crust  just before we turned the oven down from 450 degrees to 375 degrees.
• Apple pie takes a long time to cook, and cool!

Ready to go in the fridge

Basic pie dough
Makes 2 crusts
Source: Everyday Food, November 2006

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 sticks (16 Tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water

Directions

Rolling out the dough

1. In a food processor, combine flour, salt, and sugar; pulse to combine. Add butter; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal, with just a few pea-size pieces of butter remaining.

2. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup ice water. Pulse until dough is crumbly but holds together when squeezed with fingers (if necessary, add up to 1/4 cup more water, 1 Tablespoon at a time). To help ensure a flaky crust, do not overprocess.

3. Transfer half of dough (still crumbly) onto a piece of plastic wrap. Form dough into a disk 3/4-inch thick; wrap tightly in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hours (and up to 3 days). Repeat with remaining dough. Disks can be frozen, tightly wrapped, up to 3 months. Thaw before using.

Apple pie
Serves: 8

This was 9 apples

Source: Everyday Food, November 2006

Ingredients
1/4 cup all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled)
1 recipe (2 disks) basic pie dough
2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 1 lemon)
4 pounds apples (8-10)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, beaten
Sugar to sprinkle on top of pie (optional)

Directions

Ready to go in the oven, need to work on crimping skills

1. Lightly flour a large piece of waxed paper; place a disk of dough in center. Rolling from center outward, form into a 12-inch circle. (Use paper to rotate dough, and flour rolling pin and paper as necessary to prevent sticking). Transfer dough (still on paper) to a baking sheet; cover and refrigerate. Repeat with second disk of dough.

Voila!

2. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F, with a rack set in lowest position. Remove first circle of dough from refrigerator; wrap around rolling pin (discarding paper), and carefully unroll over a 9-inch pie plate. Gently lift edges and lower dough into the pie plate so it hugs bottom and sides. Avoid stretching the dough, which will make it shrink during baking. Refrigerate.

3. Place lemon juice in a large bowl. Peel, core, and cut apples into 1/4-inch thick slices; halve crosswise, and add to lemon juice (to keep them from turning brown) as you work. Add sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt; toss to combine.

Delish!

4. Remove dough-lined pie plate from refrigerator. Fill with apple mixture, gently packing apples and mounding slightly in center; dot with butter. Lightly brush rim of pie shell with water. Remove remaining circle of dough from the refrigerator. Lay over apples; press along moistened rim to seal. Using kitchen shears, trim overhang to 1 inch.

5. With floured fingers, fold overhang under itself to form a thick rim; pinch between thumb and forefinger to form a uniform edge around the rim of the pie plate. To crimp edges: with thumb and index finger of one hand, gently press dough against knuckle of other hand; continue around the pie.

6. With a floured paring knife, cut 5-6 slits in top of pie, radiating from center. Brush top of crust with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar; place pie plate on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes; reduce heat to 375 degrees F and bake until crust is golden and juices are bubbling, 50-60 minutes more. If edges brown too quickly, cover with aluminum foild. Cool completely, at last 6 hours, before serving.