Chocolate Chip Pie & a Great Pie Crust! December 6, 2011

I’ve been using a pie crust for a year or two now and haven’t been the happiest with it.  So when I went to make this pie, I wanted to find a new pie crust.  I ended up trying Barefoot Contessa’s Perfect Pie Crust – and that it was!  I didn’t want to wait to give the crust a try so I used my crust scraps, sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon and baked them for about 10 minutes and then…ate, them all!!!  So good!  Flaky, not too bland, a nice touch of sweetness.  I was very happy with the results.

The recipe makes 2-10 inch crusts – I halved it for 1 crust, but you may be able to freeze half the dough for another day.  The only tricky part of halving the recipe is the shortening.  For the full recipe, you need 1/3 cup, which is 5 1/3 T – take half of that for one crust.  It is doable, you just gotta think about it!

The Chocolate Chip pie was wonderful!  It is great at room temp (tastes like cookie dough!) and also warmed for a few second in the microwave (gooey and chocolatey!).  It is pretty rich, so you don’t need a huge piece and a dollop of whipped cream or scoop of ice cream adds a nice touch to the pie.  Enjoy it any way you want or try it all different ways until it’s gone!

Perfect Pie Crust

12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) very cold unsalted butter

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1/3 cup very cold vegetable shortening

6 to 8 tablespoons (about 1/2 cup) ice water

Dice the butter and return it to the refrigerator while you prepare the flour mixture. Place the flour, salt, and sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse a few times to mix.  (I used a pastry blended which worked fine) Add the butter and shortening. Pulse 8 to 12 times, until the butter is the size of peas. With the machine running, pour the ice water down the feed tube and pulse the machine until the dough begins to form a ball. Dump out on a floured board and roll into a ball. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough in half. Roll each piece on a well-floured board into a circle, rolling from the center to the edge, turning and flouring the dough to make sure it doesn’t stick to the board. Fold the dough in half, place in a pie pan, and unfold to fit the pan. Repeat with the top crust.

Recipe from Food Network

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1 (9 inch) pie shell

Preheat oven to 325.  Combine cooled melted butter or margarine and sugar, eggs, pecans, flour and chocolate chips; mix well.

Pour the mixture into the unbaked pastry shell and bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour. Let cool and serve.

Recipe adopted from Allrecipes.com

Recipes to my below desserts December 2, 2010

Go here for the Caramel Pumpkin Gingersnap Cheesecake.  The two changes I would make to this recipe would be to leave the caramel off the gingersnap crust.  Parts of the crust ended up pretty much caramelized and not really chewable…I would add the extra caramel to the top of the cheesecake after baking and also probably leave the sugar out of the crust.

Apple Pie

3/4 cup  sugar

1 heaping Tablespoon cinnamon

6-8 granny smith apples, sliced

1 1/2 Tablespoon butter

2-3 Tablespoons flour

unbaked pie shell

Topping:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix sugar, cinnamon and flour.  Add apples and mix so all apples get coated.  Heap into unbaked pie shell.  Dot with butter.  Mix topping ingredients with a pastry blender.  Sprinkle on top of apples.  Bake 45-55 minutes.  (Next time I would cut my apples thinner and maybe bake a touch longer, my apples still had some crunch to them.)

Recipe from Mom who adopted it from Prized Recipes to Cook and Savor by PRCS

What I made for Thanksgiving.. November 29, 2010

Dessert!  That’s what I was in charge of, and if any of you know me, it was perfect because I love my sweets.  Although Thanksgiving dinner is such a delicious meal all together with the turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, I love it!

I made Apple pie and a Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake with Gingerbread Crust.  Overall they both turned out very good.  I would make a few changes to both the next time I make them and I will note those changes when I post the recipes in a few days.  For now, here are pictures:  Apple Pie before baking and Pumpkin Cheesecake…sorry a bit blurry.

 

Rhubarb Custard Pie October 5, 2010

I’ve never made or tasted this pie before this one.  It has just the right amount of sweetness and tartness to it.  Thanks to our lovely rhubarb plant that is taking over my husband’s beautiful landscaping for allowing me to make this. 

If you’re looking for a simple recipe to use up that rhubarb you have growin’ try this recipe — so easy!

Rhubarb Custard Pie

3 beaten eggs

1 1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup flour

4 c diced rhubarb

1 pie shell

Mix all ingredients together and put in the pie shell.  Bake at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes.

Recipe from Favorite Recipes MOPS at Bethel CRC

Simply Blueberry Pie August 9, 2010

Well, I went blueberry picking again this year!  Can’t get enough of those blueberries.  I froze a bunch last year and I  ran out of them by the end of the fall, so needless to say I should be freezing twice or probably three times as many.

Ever since blueberry season arrived, I’ve been wanting to make a blueberry pie.  When I was pregnant with Regan and went to good ‘ol Baker Square Restaurant, I always ordered their blueberry pie, delicious!  (before my pregnancy I would always get one of their rich chocolaty ones, which are good too!)  So I was very motivated to make a homemade blueberry pie.  I saw the recipe on Pioneer Women a few weeks back.  The recipe looked simple enough, so last week I whipped it together.  Yes, whipped, it was so easy to make, as was the pie crust that I also found on her site.  The outcome, delicious!  The only thing I would do next time would be to make it with ‘baking blueberries’ instead of ‘eating blueberries’, just to taste the difference.  I may still go pick some baking ones this year.

Blueberry Pie

Ingredients

2 pints (to 3 Pints) Blueberries

Sugar

1 dash (to 2 Dashes) Of Nutmeg

2 Tablespoons (to 3 Tablespoons) Flour (optional)

2 whole Pie Crusts

1 stick Butter, Sliced Into Pats

Preparation Instructions

In a large bowl place 2-3 pints of fresh blueberries. Coat them with regular white sugar, not too much, just enough to bring out the natural sweetness.

Throw in a dash or two of nutmeg and a few tablespoons of all purpose flour. If you would prefer a pie that is more juicy you can leave out the flour.

Pour the blueberries into a pie crust and top with 8-10 small pats of butter. Cover with a second pie crust. Press both edges together, tucking the dough under as needed, working all the way around the edge of the pie.

While pinching the top and bottom crusts together, form the edge into a sort of lip. Then pinch the dough between your thumb and index finger all the way around the edge of the pie for a fluted look. Cut three or four slits in the top of the pie for ventilation.  (I also brushed the top of the crust with an egg wash and wanted to sprinkle a bit of sugar on top but forgot…so I did after I took it out of the oven.)

Bake in a 400º oven for approximately 35-40 minutes.

Sylvia’s Perfect Pie Crust

Ingredients

1-½ cup Crisco (vegetable Shortening)

3 cups All-purpose Flour

1 whole Egg

5 Tablespoons Cold Water

1 Tablespoon White Vinegar

1 teaspoon Salt

Preparation Instructions

In a large bowl, with a pastry cutter, gradually work the Crisco into the flour for about 3 or 4 minutes until it resembles a coarse meal. In a small bowl, beat an egg with a fork and then pour it into the flour/shortening mixture. Add 5 tablespoons of cold water, 1 tablespoon of white vinegar and 1 teaspoon of salt. Stir together gently until all of the ingredients are incorporated.

Separate the dough into thirds. Form 3 evenly sized balls of dough and place each dough into a large Ziploc bag. Using a rolling pin, slightly flatten each ball of dough (about ½ inch thick) to make rolling easier later. Seal the bags and place them in the freezer until you need them. (If you will be using it immediately it’s still a good idea to put in the freezer for about 15 to 20 minutes to chill.)

When you are ready to use the dough to make a crust, remove from the freezer and allow to thaw for 15 minutes. On a floured surface roll the dough, starting at the center and working your way out. (Sprinkle some flour over top of the dough if it’s a bit too moist.) If the dough is sticking to the countertop use a metal spatula and carefully scrape it up and flip it over and continue rolling until it’s about ½ inch larger in diameter than your pie pan.

With a spatula, lift the dough carefully from the surface of the counter into the pie pan. Gently press the dough against the corner of the pan. Go around the pie pan pinching and tucking the dough to make a clean edge.

Recipes from The Pioneer Women

Coconut Cream Pie February 16, 2008

This is another recipe I got from my mother-in-law.  This is one of those recipes I can see Sandra Lee making on her Semi-Homemade show.  It’s simple and quick.

Instead of using a pre-made pie crust, I made an Animal Cracker Cookie crust.  I was very happy how the crust turned out as well as the pie! 

 Coconut Cream Pie

2 Pkgs (6 serving size) Instant Vanilla Pudding

2 Cups Milk

1 Cup Coconut

2 Pkgs Dream Whip (prepared separately according to directions on box) or Cool Whip (8 oz)

Beat the pudding powder with the milk until well blended, about 5 minutes.  Add 1 Cup Coconut and fold in 1 Pkg prepared Dream Whip.  Pour into baked pie shell and top with the other prepared Dream Whip or Cool Whip.  Sprinkle additional toasted coconut over topping.

Animal Cracker Cookie Crust

1 1/4 Cups crushed Animal Crackers

6 Tbsp melted Butter

Mix cookie crumbs and butter together.  Put in pie plate and press down to cover bottom and sides.  Cook at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.