October 29, 2008
Today was another Pushing Daisies day and my friend Nadia’s birthday, so celebratory pie was in order!
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup butter, melted
1 cup chopped pecans
½ cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 unbaked pastry shell
In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs sugar, corn syrup and vanilla. Add butter and mix well. Stir in pecans and chocolate chips. Pour into pie shell.
Bake at 350º for 50-55 minutes or until set. Cool on a wire rack.
October 23, 2008
Pear pie with Gruyère cheese baked into the crust.
Inspired by Pushing Daisies!
For the filling I used:
About 5 cups pear, peeled, thinly sliced (1 bosc, 3 comice, 5 seckel)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp salt
Once I tossed that together, filled the pie crust, added the top crust, and grated generous amounts of gruyere over it all, I baked it at 425 for 10 minutes and then reduced the heat to 375 for 35 minutes.
Easy as!
July 20, 2008
Based on recipe from The Good Housekeeping Book of Illustrated Desserts.
For 1-Crust Pie
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup shortening
3-4 tbsp cold water
In medium bowl, with fork, stir flour and salt. With pastry blender, cut shortening into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse crumbles. Sprinkle cold water, a tbsp at a time, into mixture. Mix lightly with fork after each addition, until dough is just moist enough to hold together. Shape into smooth ball. On lightly floured surface, with floured rolling pin, roll out dough into round about 1/8 inch thick. Cut dough about 1 1/2 inches larger around than upside-down 9-inch pie plate. Roll dough around rolling pin; transfer to pie plate and unroll. Ease into bottom and up side. Make decorative edge.
To bake without filling, preheat oven to 425°. With fork, prick bottom and side of crust in many places. Bake 15 min. Cool.
For 2-Crust Pie
2 cups all-purpose floud
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup shortening
5-6 tbsp cold water
Follow steps for making 1-Crust Pie dough. Shape into two balls, one slightly larger. Roll out larger ball and place in pie plate. Trim egdes. Fill. Roll out smaller ball, cut a few slashes or design in center, center over filling. Make decorative ede.
July 20, 2008
1 pie crust, bought or homemade
5 oz white chocolate
2 tbsp milk
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp grated orange peel
1 cup whipping cream, whipped
2 cups sliced strawberries
Prepare and bake pie crust. Cool completely. Microwave 4 squares white chocolate and milk about 2 min or until almost melted. Stir until melted. Cool to room temp. Beat cream cheese, powdered sugar, and orange peel in small bowlwith mixer on low speed until smooth. Beat in white chocolate mixture. Fold whipped cream into white chocolate muxture. Spread in bottom of pie crust. Arrange strawberries on filling. Drizzle with remaining melted white chocolate. Refrigerate 1 hour or until serving. Store in refrigerator.
Serves 8.
Variations I haven’t tried: raspberries instead of strawberries; german sweet chocolate (with 1/4 cup milk) instead of white; graham cracker crust instead of plain.
