interesting life commentary? nope. pie.

Pie #8

Blueberry Peach

Now that I have a feel for the basic pie makin rules, I've become more comfortable and able to have fun playing around with the filling.  I wanted to do more with the prep of the fruit as opposed to just mixing about all the ingredients. I started with the blueberries and sauteed them in butter, brown sugar, Grand Marnier, (an orange liquour*), ginger, and orange and lemon zest. Just when they started to juice, I combined them with the peaches which had been tossed with lemon juice, sugar, and cinnamon before adding tapioca and sugar to everything.  

 

I've always used cornstarch over tapioca, but really liked the solidity the tapioca provided without the gelatin texture that I tend to get from cornstarch.  The crust worked out great. I had frozen it a few days prior to baking it, which I found was insanely helpful while rolling it out, as the more cooperative the dough is the less I mess with it, which makes my chances better for getting my favorite flaky/chewy combo. The pie was pretty tart. This worked out great, because the perfect thing for a tart pie is extra whipped cream. Especially when it's a frangelico infused ginger cream, which is pictured here, sideways, as I have become too frustrated to fix whatever is making it difficult for me to place it upright.

I'm beginning to realize the sort of pie-fixation that's overcome me during this project. I think about pies much more than I care to admit. This weekend my knee threw a fit, so I had to forego my pie making.  In its place Ben & I whipped up a peanut butter mousse brownie. It was a gooey, chewy, delicious treat... but the only thing I could think about while eating it was why it was inferior to pie. Chocolate tortes and Brownies have long since been my dessert of choice (although pumpkin anything trumps everything, always), so to find myself questioning my sweet loyalties was quite a shock. But pie's done it. It has stolen my heart. 

Speaking of things I love...

 I received an unexpected delivery from the UPS guy on Thursday. It was this:

  a Williams-Sonoma pie dish that I have literally been dreaming about. Along with it was a note from my sweet mom. She knows how to spoil people better than anyone I know. Adding to the fact it had been a particularly rough day, opening this package was better than Christmas morning.  Per her request, it will soon hold a lemon meringue... and as my tenth pie! I hope to do my mother proud! I love my mom so much. & not just because she bought me a pie pan. Although it certainly helps that she bought said pie pan as a distraction from homework which then allows me to make pies to distract from my school work! My mom is an enabler of the best kind &, fact: has the ability to make anything better. Even the most awesome pie pan is now cooler, which I didn't think was possible.  But that's my mom: making the impossible possible each and every day. 

If I haven't made it apparent, I like food. So much so, that there are very few things I refuse to eat. One of them is cherry pie. When I was in the 5th grade I went with Jill Fowler to her dad's work picnic, where I had the wise idea of entering a cherry pie eating contest. I may have won the contest, but in the end it was the cherry pie which was truly victorious, and I the defeated. After too much time spent with a trash bin, a strong hatred of canned cherry pie filling was born and I vowed to never eat cherry pie again- from a can or not. And I haven't considered it since. Until now. After offering to pick up the next pie filling, Ben returned with a giant bag of cherries and added a twist to my pie challenge: to make a cherry pie that even I will enjoy. I think I'm up for it. After all, it's been well over ten years since the unfortunate picnic incident. I'll be fine, right? I'm hoping to find something to add to it so it's not a straight-up cherry pie. Chocolate maybe? Any suggestions are welcome. I want to give cherry pie a licking it won't soon forget... a licking of my plate! *ba-dum-ching!* 

 .......anyone?... no?....... 

well, try this one on for size:

When the Liberty Bell was forged, the Philadelphia city council decided to celebrate the inauguration by having a pie baking competition. There would be two categories. The best bell-shaped pie and the best overall pie. Competition was furious but all ended well as one of the winners was a popular senior nun from their local community who baked a superb vegetable dish. It had to be. Everybody knows that Mother Teresa Wins No Bell Peas Pie.

or maybe third times a charm....

Many years ago there was a small town that had several bakeries. One of these was run by the aunts of a man named Penn. He and his aunts baked the best pies in the state. Not only that, but they were also the least expensive. Now the other bakers could make pretty delicious pies, but Penn always sold more, for no one could beat the 'pie rates of Penn's aunts'.

 -----*-----

*Cooking with liqueurs is one of my favorite things. Liqueurs offer a sweetness and a variety of unique flavors that you just can't achieve with extracts. I recently learned that alcohol is what helps keep a cake fluffy. If you ever omit vanilla extract from a recipe, your end result will be much more dense. (Crazy science!) So if having to make a purchase from a liquor store is offsetting, keep in mind that alcohol is essential to the success of your baked goods, and besides that, there's only a 5% difference in alcohol between liqueurs and extracts! (Which explains why that debate kid in my high school was always smelled like vanilla...) Once you try brownies with frangelico, you'll never go back.  As long as you can keep the frangelico out of your diet coke, there should be no problem with introducing some liqueurs into the spice cabinet. The best part is they come in bigger bottles than extracts which works great for swapping with friends!*

*after thought: i realized this could be summed up as "go buy booze! it'll make your cakes taste great! don't forget to share with friends!" which is just funny enough to make me not go back and edit myself. :)