We're having a pie baking contest!
With summer coming, and all the seasonal fruits coming soon...it's becoming pie baking time. Let's have a pie baking contest! What kind of pie are you bringing to the table? Do you use a traditional recipe, or do you put your own spin on it? Where did your recipe come from? Are you willing to share the recipe? Please do!
I'm not a big pie baker...guess I've always been intimidated by pie crust ever since I watched my sister try to make it when I was a kid, and she spent the entire time cursing at the dough because it kept falling apart on her. Flash forward 30 years or so...and I still don't make pie crust....I often rely on Pillsbury....or ask someone else to bring the pies!
For the contest though, I'll be making the traditional dutch apple pie with a crumb crust....my husband's favorite. I will splurge & make homemade vanilla bean ice cream to go with it though.
What about you?
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6 Comments:
OK I'm a bit ahead of you : ) Sunday morning I went out to my garden and picked rhubarb and made a pie for Sunday Dinner's dessert. Being Mother's Day, my daughter, daughter-in-law and I had already decided we weren't cooking. We had Chinese takeout delivered. This is my daughter favorite and is her birthday 'pie' choice.
RHUBARB-CHERRY PIE
mix 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 2½ cups cutup rhubarb, 1 can (21-oz) cherrie pie filling, ½ teaspoon allspice in a sauce pan, bring to a boil, stir constantly for one minute until thickened. Let cool.
Prepare pie crust for 10-inch deep dish pie plate. Roll out wider that plate letting crust hang over the edge. Spread filling in pie plate, fold dough over filling, letting it form folds naturally.
Bake 10 minutes at 450º. Reduce heat to 350º and cook another 35 to 45 minutes. Let cool completely before serving.
NanaJoie at 9:01AM on 05/13/08
Ah...pie. Rather have pie than cake and many other desserts.
I use my no-fail crust each and every time, and only use a recipe if it is a cream or custard pie as my memory for each is befuddled.
I can never pick just one.
In June I love fresh Strawberry best, with a cream-cheese (or goat) under the berries and piles of whipped cream. Or strawberry-rhubarb.
In the summer I like to just dump as many berries in the crust as I can...whatever I can get my hands on. Mixed berry pie with ginger and I am happy. Gooseberry makes me swoon...
I have never been an apple fan, but the DH loves it, so I make it now and again.
Chess, shoofly, pumpkin, sweet potato, lemon, margarita, raspberry cream, pecan...there are so many! Sheesh, coming here always makes me hungry! Since I can't pin down a pie filling recipe,
this is the "simply can't fail" crust. It really can't. My heavy-handed, can-barely-boil-water friend can do this with ease. :)
3 1/2 cups flour (unbleached!)
1 stick cold butter (unsalted!)
1/2 cup shortening (could use butter flavor or lard also)
1 egg
1-3 tbsp vinegar
ice water (keep the ice in it)
Dump flour in a bowl. Add butter and shortening and with fingertips (!!Don't mash with your whole hand!) mix and rub the ingredients until you have coarse crumbs similar to coarse cornmeal. You do not want chunks of butter left in this.
Make a well in the center. In a cup beat the egg with 2 tbsp vinegar and put in the well. Add a few tbsp ice water and with a long-tined fork, quickly flip the moist center thru the crumbs. Add more ice water, a couple tbsp at a time, til the dough starts to come together as you work it gently with the fork.
Once it is mostly cohesive, push it together into a rough ball and chill for 20 minutes before using.
Don't over-work the dough, it does not by any means have to be smooth like bread dough. Don't roll it out more than twice ever, preferably only once, or you get hard crust that is not flaky at all.
It really is not hard and can be thrown together in a matter of minutes.
You can do all butter, but you get a softer dough, and you can do all shortening, but I think it is greasy and tasteless and too hard.
sadiepix at 3:14PM on 05/13/08
Hmm I do enjoy pie but last time I tried making my favorite (lemon meringue), it kind of explosed. I've been scared away from pies ever since.
Hillary
Chew on That
Chew on That at 5:24PM on 05/13/08
I was hoping someone would post about this! I just made a new dessert for Mother's Day and everyone loved it! I called them "Cherry Bombs", and I used puff-pastry and made little popovers, but this would make a killer pie filling.
I used approx. 2 lbs. of fresh cherries and mascerated them in 2 T. dark rum and 2 T. sherry with lots of cinnamon and 2 T. sugar and 2 T. apricot jam (see the commonality?). I threw in a 1/2 t. of cayenne just for kick, however, less adventurous palates can avoid it.
I just wrapped everything in puff pastry, kinda sloppy-like, and brushed with an egg wash and topped with crystallized sugar. But I froze 1/2 the filling to use with a real pie crust sometime this month.
These little "bombs" were a three-bite hit with my mom, my boyfriend's mom and grandma, my sister and her mother-in-law. Not too sweet and the alcohol bakes off and leaves a spicy tartness that was awesome. Good luck!
rosezilla at 5:56PM on 05/13/08
This past week my middle sister came home to celebrate my birthday, I made my dad's favorite cherry pie and my sister ended up eating half of it, our poor dad was so sad I had to make another one the next day!
I entered this pie into a contest earlier this year, the recipes are in the post and I can say anyone afraid of pie crust should try Dorie Greenspan's Good For Almost Everything Pie Dough, the crust is very forgiving and easy to work with and the crust so flaky and the flavor so good you'll never want to buy pie dough ever again!
http://www.thekitchn.com/thekitchn/dessert/bittersweet-baking-honorable-mention-best-bittersweet-story-042574
Next up, Cooks Illustrated's Banana Cream Pie. We do enjoy our pie!
bobcatsteph3 at 9:57PM on 05/13/08
@sadiepix - thanks for the recipe....I'll have to try that!
@bobcatsteph3 - thank you for your link as well....I am bound & determined to make a good pie crust this summer.
@rosezilla - those cherry bombs sound yummy! I have puff pastry in the freezer...those are definitely doable!
@NanaJoie- just in time for rhubarb season....great recipe!
@Hillary - glad to know I'm not the only one...don't give up either!
My sister is heading down to Amish country tomorrow on an errand....I've put in a request for one of their pies...they are always the best! ;-)
mepolo at 11:32AM on 05/16/08