Groundhog Pie Graduation

Saturday's Groundhog Pie party, marking my 25th year of throwing groundhog parties, was something of a pie year graduation.  Somehow I determined that I needed to make all the pies for over twenty guests and it was hectic and silly and I was immensely proud of the results.

Farmer's Cheese Minis

On the savory table, we had two of the featured Groundhog Pies: sausage and apple in a cheddar cheese crust.  From Kate McDermott's The Art of Pie, the recipe is a keeper. 
The Mister also used ground pork to bake chorizo empanadas with a cilantro cream.
I made 48 Farmer's Cheese and Thyme mini-pies well in advance (recipe from Hand Pies), a few dozen curried carrot in turmeric crust mini-pies that morning and a galette of leeks, mushrooms and goat cheese on puff pastry popped into the oven at the last minute.

"Ground Hog" Pork Sausage and Apple in Cheddar Crust

With the sweets, I had bakes cranberry orange mini-pies and Winter Apple (apple with cranberries, walnuts and dried fruits soaked in spice tea) to represent winter, and homemade lemon curd on almond meringue to represent spring.  A cousin brought a delicious chocolate pie and Dianthus made a peanut butter pudding to fill a brownie crust to round things out.

I'd say that the party was successful enough that I am ready to end Year of Pie, but there is dough in the freezer, I still haven't baked a pie with a hot water crust, and I just learned of multiple books that show up in searches for "witch pie" so not quite yet.

Winter Apple: Apple with cranberries, walnuts, and spiced fruit

Funky Pie and Progress

Blue cheese, kale, onion and a little bacon

Old blue cheese smoldering in the fridge and some vague recollections of a blue cheese kale tart recipe, led to this umami bomb of a dish, which I somehow insisted on calling a pie rather than a quiche.  It was full of caramelized onions, kale from our garden and lots of blue cheese.  I was pleased.

The other half of the pastry dough went toward a blackberry blueberry pie with a crumble top.  While it was delicious fresh out of the oven, it was actually better chilled the next morning with time to set, and, of course, blackberry pie makes a fabulous breakfast.  Blackberries were from the farmers' market and blueberries commercially frozen.  Pastry was the Magpie recipe (butter and stick form Crisco) with one cup (of the 2 1/2 total) of the flour whole wheat.  Filling was mostly from Art of Pie (tapioca thickened) and crumble top was made up on the spot.

Blackberry blueberry cut while it was too hot

In other pie news, I know my mother-in-law loves me because she baked a peach pie (using the last of last year's frozen Colorado peaches!) for my birthday celebration with them.  (True, my mother-in-law has never been anything but open and loving and has expressed affection with words and deeds, but peach pie with Colorado peaches is my language).

The Mister's extended family has an annual pot-luck after a gathering at the cemetery on Memorial weekend.  There were several pies available-- goopy cherry, goopy strawberry, goopy cherry cream (which I later learned was cherry cheesecake, but if you are going to bake it in a pie crust and top it with a bunch of pie filling, I am going to consider it a pie). and mincemeat.  I ate the mincemeat because I am sure it must be a family specialty of one is serving mincemeat in May.  I had a bite of Aster's strawberry, which just reminded me that whole strawberries don't make a great pie, and I avoided the other's because I have become a cherry pie snob (I love a good cherry pie and I have no interest in pre-prepared cherry pie filling.  I was like this before MiL further spoiled it for me by sharing pies made with the rare tart cherries from her trees.)

On the way back to Oklahoma from Kansas, we bought convenience store  Moon Pies.  They needed more moisture and more flavor, but I suppose they were okay.

Yeah, we melted a plastic tray, but baked some great cookies

Every batch had issues, but every batch was tasty

In other baking news, during finals I baked macaroons (the delicious French sandwich cookies, not the delicious balls of coconut) with Aster, Dianthus and some college students.  They were tasty although disasters ensued.  Dianthus and I have since made macaroons from a mix and Friday night he rolled sushi as he is practicing for competitive cooking, and both macaroons and sushi trays were challenges on the recent season of Master Chef Junior.  I made not-quite-macaroons for the Mister Family Pot-Luck and for friends in Kansas, where we covered them with chocolate ganache, while chocolate coconut cream and strawberry-rhubarb sauce.

Rolling sushi

Yes, someone has shorter hair now, too.

Pies Baked Year of Pie (Continued)
June
Blue Cheese Kale
Blackberry Rhubarb
May
Coconut Chocolate (sweetened condense milk base.  Just fine.).
Rhubarb
April 30
Dairy free coconut custard (invented at the last moment.  Just fine.)

Creating a monster

Dianthus was not pleased that I did most of the piping of the whipped cream onto the Easter lemon-curd pavlova (I thought I was being very clever when I decided that a lemon curd pavolova is just an upside-down crustless lemon meringue pie-- but was not particularly surprised to learn that many others, including Nigella, have already had similar ideas), because he is going to be a competitive child baker, according to him.

So this morning I asked for his help in decorating pies for the elementary school carnival cake walk.  He quickly volunteered and then asked me to get down the pastry bags and tips.  When that fell apart and the chocolate did not temper, he still managed to smoodge some molten chocolate on-to a rose leaf and make a pretty good impression of the veins.  We were decidedly more successful with the powdered sugar star and opted (wisely, I think) to leave the lemon buttermilk pies unadorned.

For those of you following at home:

April 27 Chocolate chess* (2, one for the carnival, one for my students), lemon buttermilk (2, one for the carnival, one for my students) and leftover chocolate (for my family and friend).

April 16  Lemon Curd Pavlova

and Dianthus did knead the hot cross buns and make his grandparents pancakes from scratch as well.

Notice the rose leaves

A boy and his buns

*Chocolate Chess is amazing and I seem to have zero recipes for it, despite owning four rather large pie books, a bunch of dessert cookbooks and a veritable slew of general cookbooks that include at least one pie.  It was a revelation and will be added to the repertoire.  I also used the Magpie crust and it was excellent and the combination of the Martha Stewart and Sweets buttermilk pie worked with duck eggs.

Chooolate Chess and Lemon Buttermilk

Pi Week, Pie Plans, and a Spoiler

I baked seven pies last week.  It was one of the most productive and least productive spring breaks ever.  It just seemed fitting that Pi Day (March 14 . . . 3.14) during Year of Pie should start out with pies for breakfast, and then the Mister became involved and well, things just got out of hand.

Pi Day Breakfast: Spanikopita and The Mister's Quiche 

As I was plotting the pie plan (which now includes taking requests to bake friends pies for the their birthdays, even if a request for "lemon meringue" puts me into a tizzy because, "I don't do lemon meringue"), I realized that I needed to be clear that I am NOT an expert pie baker.  I am planning on exploring pies this year and becoming a better pie baker and maybe sharing some of what I learn.  I'll be watching Waitress (many people say I should) and American Pie (strangely, nobody has suggested it) and I'll be finding more novels featuring the magic of baking along the lines of PIE or Nightbird or Bliss Bakery.

I'm going to start a blog feature, People of Pie. And I will start with my grandmother, with whom my last conversation (exactly 16 years ago?) was about pie.  And I will start that just as soon as I can write about her eating the horrid peach pie I baked her for her last days without crying (okay, I plan to write it before I can do so without crying because I do plan to write it someday soon).

I also hope to get better at food styling and photographing pies.  Or not.

SPOILER: If it is just about the pie, you can skip my blog and read The Art of the Pie because Kate McDermott is already a non-professional pie baking advocate who has written all the tips (for pie and life, keeping cool is essential; you should host a pie pot-luck and give everyone a blue ribbon for bringing a pie; measure fruit by filling your pie shell, "smoosh" your dough) and she starts out by talking about helping bake her grandmother's last pie.  The book has been written.  You only need me for cute kid pictures and to bake you a birthday pie.

Coconut Cream from Magpie

Shaker Pie Prep

Shaker Blood Orange 

Needs some styling help

Still life with St. Patrick's Day Lime

Dianthus proud of his lemon meringue

Shaker Lemon

Year of Pies Baking and Eating Progress (first)

Pies Baked

March 2017  Buttermilk,
plus more buttermilk, pumpkin, cranberry walnut tart and combined cranberry buttermilk with students 8 students

Two college students made the lovely braided crust.

February 2017 Bastila

Additional Pies Eaten

March 2017  Coconut Cream, Jerry's Diner   Merely okay.  Forgettable crust, strong flavor of coconut flavoring, possibly in the meringue as well.

Circumference Divided By Diameter 2016

The [My Family] Pie Workshop happened!

Three of my cousins and I baked pies last weekend!

That's a peach between the Pi and the 2016

First suggested in 2000, when my parents were in China and I baked pies at my grandparents for a larger family Thanksgiving gathering, the [My Family] Pie Workshop had reached mythical someday status.  We agreed we were going to bake pies together . . . someday.

And then last Saturday we did.

We baked two buttermilk and two peach pies, whipped cream, made several bad math puns and laughed a lot.  All (pies, puns, and company) was excellent.

The technique will remain a secret*, but I present here the

Summer 2016 Lucky** Pie Crust Recipe

1/2 C unsalted butter (8 oz., 1 stick)

Members of [My Family]

1 spoonful Crisco
1 1/4 C flour
3 Tbs. cornmeal
1/4 tsp. salt
3-7 Tbs. ice cold water


*Ha!  Keep cold.  Freeze the butter.  Squish-knead the butter into the flour.  Chill as a disk. Chill before rolling.  These are not actual secrets.
You can read them in many books, including those that I use: The Gourmet Cookbook, Martha Stewart's Pies and Tarts (the 1980s version), The Pie and Pastry Bible, The Sweet Life, and Betty Crocker.  The Buttermilk filling was based on Martha Stewart and the peach from the Gourmet Cookbook.


**Somehow I've had better luck with pie crusts this summer than I have in years.  While this is probably attributable to the fact that I have made more pies this summer than I have in years, or maybe that I've watched a great deal of The Great British Baking Show, I think that it may be the addition of cornmeal (and sometimes a teaspoon of powdered sugar) and I am not about to mess with these ratios that work.