Two of Three Pies

[minoanmiss]

Not Three Sisters Pie , which I should make one day -- yellow squash, green beans, corn milk, and Gruyere would make an awesome quiche. But anyway.

1 pie crust (Trader Joe's are my favorite, because they contain simple ingredients and no lard), unbaked

2 quinces
2 pears
as many apples as you want to get rid of (I used 8? maybe 10? but I bought a wide pie pan. For 9 inches probably 6 apples would be sufficient)
1 pint good wuality lemonade
1 bottle ginger beer
2 tbsp honey
a couple pinches salt.


Peel the quinces and cut into eighths lengthwise (you know, half, half, cut out quartered cores, half again). Put in pan with lemonade, ginger beer, honey, and salt, add water to cover if necessary, and bring to a strong simmer. Cook quince till fork tender. Meanwhile:

Peel, core, cut up pears the same way. Put in one bowl. Peel, core, cut up apples same way. Put in another.

When quinces are done remove to a bowl, draining off as much juice as possible back into the pot. Add about a pint of water and bring to a boil. add the apples and cook at a strong simmer till fork tender. Remove to a bowl. Add pears, etc. Remove to a thurd bowl. Drain as much juice as possible into pan. strain juice if needed, pour back into pan, and reduce until it turns syrupy and jellylike (I need to take the temperature on that). Pour into a bowl, get a brush, and set aside.

Put piecrust in pan. Arrange apples, pears, and quince in pan. (I tried to do an alternating pattern this time. Next time I'm going to do a spiral of quince, which is redder, and pear, which is paler, across the apple.) Brush thoroughly with reduced juices.

From here I will describe what I did vs what I should have done.

What I did: curled edges of dough over fruit, and brushed with remaining syrup, and sprinkled with raw sugar.

What I should have done: curled edges of dough over fruit, brushed dough with neutral oil, and fitted a collar of foil over the dough, leaving the fruit exposed.

I then put it in a 375 oven for 45 minutes.

What I did: When I took the pie out for the first time, the fruit had given off more juice, but the piecrust around the sides was nicely browned. So at this point I had to apply a foil collar to a hot pie, which was fun.

What I should have done: uncovered the pie crust, brushed it with the remaining syrup, and sprinkled it with the raw sugar. It would have been firm but pale.

I then put the pie back in, reduced the heat to 315 degrees, and baked for another 45 minutes.

What I would have done: put the pie back in, left it at 375, and baked another 30 minutes or until the painted dough edge was golden and crusp.

At any rate, yay pie!





This taught me a new skill!

Based on Serious Eats' Yogurt Cheesecake, with significant changes.

1 quart whole milk Greek Yogurt
1 stick butter, softened
6 egg whites for merengue making (no egg yolk, everything freshly de-greased, etc)
1&1/2 cups white sugar, divided
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar or citric acid (I have a big jar of citric acid so that's what I used)
1/2 cup milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 packet granulated gelatin
1 blind baked pie crust

I changed their order.

Put the half cup of milk in something heatproof and stir in the gelatin as thoroughly as you can, but don't worry about lumps.

I brought an inch of water to a boil in a big saucepan, turned to a strong simmer, put the mixer bowl over it, and added the egg whites, salt, acid, and 1 cup sugar. I then began "stirring and scraping" and taking the temperature until this came to 170. (I was supposed to take it to 175 but it seemed to work fine). NGL, this was tedious and made my cranky leg hurt from standing, and took about 12 minutes. But the triumph when I reached 170 was considerable.

Hook the bowl onto the mixer and whisk on high until you have shiny marshmallow fluff, about 2-3n minutes. Meanwhile, place the container of gelatin and milk into the pot with boiling water to start warming up. Also NGL, the whisking egg whites smelled sulfurous like a soft boiled egg. I was a bit worried. Scrape into a clean bowl and leave the spatula with it.

Take the mixer bowl, put it back on the mixer, and beat the stick of butter. When it's fluffed, add the sugar across about a minute and keep beating until it's nicely creamed as for cake. turn the mixer down and add the yogurt in approx half-cup scoops, beating each in before adding the next. When all the yogurt has been beaten in, turn off the mixer and scrape it down.

Go back to the milk and gelatin. Either by boiling the water or by microwaving, heat and stir until the gelatin dissolves. when that's accomplished, add the vanilla to the milk-dissolved gelatin, then turn the mixer back on.

Carefully and slowly pour this mixture into the yogurt -- if it hits the side of the bowl it may solidify, but the whisk may fling it all over the place. Try to spend about a minute pouring it in so it incorporates smoothly. When that's all mixed, turn off the mixer and unhook the mixer bowl.

In three additions, fold in the egg whites to the yogurt mix. Pour into the pie crust, cover with plastic wrap, and refridgerate till set.

This time I left it a snowy white plain of dairy, but next time I think I may scatter freeeze dried fruit over the top, or maybe chocolate mini chips.

Comments

[amaebi]

Those sound beautiful.

[minoanmiss]

There was also a pumpkin pie, but the main notable facts about that are that I parbaked the crust and that I swapped out "pumpkin spice" for cardamom, nutmeg, and ginger, so I didn't think it warranted a whole recipe.

(And that's where I put the yolks from the Yogurt Pie)

[acelightning73]

My "pumpkin pie spice" consists of
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon mace
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
pinch of black pepper

Easiest pumpin pie ever:

1 can of pumpkin puree
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Spice mix, as above

Blend them very thoroughly. Pour into a pre-baked or even unbaked pie crust. Place in an oven that has been preheated to 375 degrees F. Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to 325. Bake for another 45 minutes, then check for doneness. If the filling jiggles like jelly when you jiggle the pan, it's not quite done yet. Insert the blade of a dinner knife (not serrated) into the filling halfway between the center and the edge. If the blade comes out almost clean, the pie is done. Take it out of the oven and put it on a wire rack to cool. Once it has cooled to room temperature, put it in the refrigerator to chill. Serve with excessive amounts of sweetened whipped cream - or for the real New England experience, serve a wedge of sharp New England cheddar cheese next to each wedge of pie.

[minoanmiss]

That is a true classic. But one of my hosts doesn't like cinnamon, so I adjusted the spice mix. I honestly don't like cloves, and cardamom's resinous edge can fill in for it, so I put in one rounded tsp of cardamom, 2 tsp of freeze dried ginger (or of fresh grated) and 1/2 tsp of fresh grated nutmeg.

I had meant to make the pie with cream and sugar rather than sweetened condensed milk (the flavor is lighter and fruitier) but there was no cream! So I had to beat a stick of butter with all those egg yolks and drizzle in a half cup of milk. It seemed to work, though.

[amaebi]

Ah, I was going to ask you what sort of milk you use. :)

[acelightning73]

I use sweetened condensed milk for anything vaguely custard-like. The processing that condenses the milk makes the custard cook up even and creamy-textured. (It works for flan, coconut cream pie, and similar dishes.

My spice mixture comes from my father's memories of his grandmother's cooking - she liked allspice and cloves. And she's also the one who put a pinch of black pepper in the mixture as well. My great-grandmother Minnie, who was a Lowell mill girl, was apparently a very good cook - she also replaced the powdered mustard in baked beans with ginger, because she didn't like mustard. Where do you get freeze-dried ginger?

[minoanmiss]

I get freeze dried Ginger from Penzeys.

I am a Jamaican and Sweetened Condensed Milk runs in my blood, but I really do like pumpkin pie a little better with cream and sugar. ahahah.

[acelightning73]

Oh, that freeze-dried ginger!

I always put large amounts of sweetened whipped cream on my pumpkin pie, there's my cream and sugar ;-)

[oracne]

PIE.

I tried a new-to-me chess pie recipe, and ended up overbaking it a tad, but the resulting crusty top was in fact delightfully nom.

[minoanmiss]

What kind of chess pie? Lemon or another flavor?

[oracne]

Vanilla. I finally tried out the version in Fannie Farmer, which includes cider vinegar (I've tried probably 5 or 6 different chess pie recipes).

[senmut]

yum pie

[minoanmiss]

Yay pie!

[rachelkg]

I told my mom I’d only caught part of your discussion of the quince-pear-apple one and would have to ask; hooray for blogging. ‘twas epic.

[minoanmiss]

blushes What was epic was that perfectly cooked turkey!

[acelightning73]

Do you mean "American" lemonade, lemon juice and sugar? Or mildly alcoholic "European lemonade"?

[minoanmiss]

American lemonade. I needed lemon, sugar, and water, so hey, there it was.

[acelightning73]

Makes perfect sense to me.

When I order iced tea, I often get asked if I want sugar or lemon in it. If I wanted to drink something that tasted of lemon and sugar, I'd order lemonade.