It's All About... Texture, Texture, Texture

If flavor could completely rule out texture, then my Sugar Free Chocolate Cream Pie with Sugar Free Meringue might have been doable.  The flavor of this pie for Week 23, however, did not have that capacity.

For Week 23 I wanted to celebrate a friend and long time member of my church by baking a pie.  Carole's birthday came as she was packing up her life to move to the east side of the county where she would no longer be able to attend our church.  Carole is diabetic, so I promised I would deliver a sugar free pie that she could eat at our next women's gathering.  I found a recipe called the Best Tasting Sugar Free Chocolate Cream Pie from Suite101.com, and based on the name I thought it might deliver the proper results.

Covering hot custard or cream filling with plastic wrap directly on it can help keep the filling from forming a "skin"

Hot filling ready for meringue topping

Whipping up sugar free meringue topping

Beautiful pie with fluffy meringue waiting to be baked

Overbaked meringue on a not so delicious pie.  Bummer.

Sadly, as I have already stated, the pie was not one of my successes.  All of the women gathered that evening were quite gracious toward my disappointing pie, but the truth remains....

The crust was excellent, as I stuck with the All Butter Crust recipe I have grown so fond of using.  The flavor of the filling was decent, but the texture and denseness were, um, let's just say I still squirm at the memory of it in my mouth.  The sugar free meringue topping is also a rather unpleasant memory--both overcooked and strangely textured.

While the company for the evening was delightful and entertaining, the dessert was laughable and will not be attempted again.  

Full of Light and Life

The Raspberry Chiffon Pie I made during Week 22 was made for our Easter celebration at my in-laws.  Living in Southern California, the odds that Easter would fall on a warm and sunny day were quite favorable.  I wanted a pie that would not be heavy, as well as a pie that would be full of life and brightness to remind us of the celebration of Christ's resurrection. Upon reading through this recipe from the Summer Entertaining magazine by Cook's Illustrated (Summer 2009), this pie would fit the bill.

The crust for this pie, a pat-in-the-pan crust, is a new one for me.  Along with some of the usual ingredients for crust--flour, sugar and butter--this recipe also called for cream cheese to help stabilize it and keep the juicy raspberries from making a soggy mess of the bottom of the pie.  After mixing up the ingredients for the crust, which looked like loose crumbs, I put the crumbly crust in the pie pan, and pressed them around the base and up the sides of the pan.  Although I placed the crust in the refrigerator, following the directions, I did not leave it in for the full hour as directed because we had to leave for my in-laws.  I did not think taking it out 15 minutes early would make a big difference, but I was wrong!  While baking, the sides of the crust slipped down into the base.  When I pulled it out of the oven, I tried to manipulate the sides of the crust while it was still hot to form into a more attractive crust.  This sort of worked, but next time I will just make sure the crust refrigerates for at least an hour before baking to see if the problem can be solved that way.  Otherwise, I believe there could have been better instruction on this crust, perhaps involving pie weights?

Pat-in-the-Pan crust before baking

Pat-in-the-Pan crust after baking... hmmm... need to try again...

The fruit and chiffon layers were very easy to put together.  Part of the recipe calls for fresh raspberries, but all the stores in our area did not have them in their produce sections (I checked 4 stores!).

Fruit layer added to the crust

Chiffon topping the fruit layer

Whipped topping finishing off the Raspberry Chiffon Pie

Easter pie--light, bright, and full of life

The completed Raspberry Chiffon Pie, apart from its misshapen crust, was exactly what I hoped my Easter pie would be: light, bright, and full of life.  I definitely will be making this one again.

Company Pie

The pie I made for the fifth week was a Raspberry ButtermilkPie.  This pie was pulled together last minute, while most of my family had come down with head colds.  Needless to say, I was looking for a pie that I could make with only half of my brain alert.  My mom saved the day, so to speak, when she emailed me an article printed in the November 2012 issue of Real Simple magazine, entitled “10 ideas for: Pie”. 

Knowing that we were not going to be having guests over, due to the status of my family’s health, I was not overly worried about a clean kitchen or killing my friends with the germs that were so rampant around our house last weekend. 

Humble ingredients

For this pie I followed the basic flaky piecrust listed in the article, of which each of the 10 pies listed would use.  The crust was easy to make, flaky and buttery, and held up very well over the course of 2 days.  I par-baked it, as directed, as the filling also needed to be baked.   

The filling consisted of buttermilk sugar, flour, egg yolks, vanilla, and salt whisked together, poured into the pan, and baked.  Very simple. 

Buttermilk pie beginning to bake

After cooling on the counter for a couple hours, I chilled the pie in the refrigerator until we were ready to eat it.  The final step to this pie was to top it with 1/3 cup raspberry jam and ¼ cup toasted sliced almonds.

Topping with raspberry jam

End result topped with toasted sliced almonds

The verdict: two thumbs up from the family.  I was not really sure what the body of the pie would taste like, whether it would be gummy or custardy.  To my surprise the texture and flavor was a bit like eating cheesecake.  The thin layer of raspberry jam and sprinkled almonds were a perfect finish to a simple pie.  I will definitely be making Raspberry Buttermilk Pie again and next time we will have company.  

Happy taste-tester going for a hands-only approach.

Good pie.  Happy husband.

I Thought I Saw A Graham Cracker In There

This third pie was made at the request of a new friend and his visiting girlfriend from Israel. 

I was excited to make a  Banana Cream Pie because I was going to try out a new pastry crust for the pie.  Typically I stick to my grandma’s oil crust, as I love its taste and texture.  However, as I was reading about some of the downfalls of cream pies being a crust that does not hold up when refrigerated, I knew this would be a great week to try out a new crust that had been tested by America’s Test Kitchen.  The consensus from their thorough testing is that a pastry crust rolled out on graham cracker crumbs would provide a more stable crust that could withstand refrigeration, without the sogginess that generally follows.

The crust did turn out quite magnificent, though the process was much more involved than my grandma’s crust, using both butter and shortening, and requiring both refrigeration time and freezer time.  The addition of the graham cracker crumbs added a nice flavor to the crust that complemented the filling well.  As for sogginess… there was none of that.  Even the second day! 

Complete pastry crust with graham cracker crumbs rolled in.

Homemade whipped cream.  Remind me why I ever buy the stuff in a can?

Ready to dish up!

The Banana Cream Pie was delicious and while I would not want to take the time for this particular crust on every pie, it did make a difference, and a notable one at that.  Our friends went away full and content.  I couldn't ask for more than that!

*As a side note, my 3 ½ year old son declared that his favorite part was not the crust or the filling, but the white stuff (homemade whipped cream) on top. :)