The pie's the limit

Sometimes I worry my blog looks like it's written by some ultra-fickle bipolar person. My last post discusses my interest in eating less sugar and experimenting with healthier baking options, but this one is all about making pies. Sugar, butter, and egg filled pies. A friend, who is clearly a bad influence, came over the other day to do some experimental baking. I'm always up for experimental baking (see last post), and I had a spare pound of butter in my fridge, so I thought, why not? A couple of hours and four full-sized pies later we'd created two creations of varying worth taste-wise.

The first came of my desire to do something with grapefruit curd. I'm a big fan of lime and lemon curds in baking and was curious about experimenting with other citrus. Also, grapefruit seems to be the new 'it' curd on the food blog block, and I do so desperately want to stay current. The grapefruit curd on it's own would have been fine, but I wanted to add a few more elements. I've enjoyed cocktails that combined grapefruit and mint, so I decided that mint and grapefruit would be a fine combination. I paired the grapefruit curd with a mint whipped cream and a ginger snap crust. Somewhere along the way it became too complicated and the final result was more befuddling than tasty. Also, I didn't get a picture of this one as it was difficult to serve and ultimately not much to look at.

The second experimental pie was the result of googling grapefruit curd a few too many times and coming upon mango curd. Turns out curds aren't restricted to citrus as I'd always imagined! If you mix enough egg yolks and sugar with anything, it turns out a curd will be born. I made a standard pie crust for this one and filled it with the mango curd. I layered some strawberries on top for good measure. This pie came out much better than the first, and I believe if mangos were actually in season, it would be better still.

Not a great picture of not a bad pie.

I think after the bacchanal of pie making (and pie eating) that occured this weekend (luckily we had some friends over to watch the season premiere of Mad Men, so we had some help), I'll lay off baking full stop for a while. Sticking to fruits and vegetables not in pie shells for a while might be in my best interests. At least until my manic pie-happy side returns to post yet again.

Pie day

Back in middle school algebra, we used to celebrate Pi Day on March 14 (3.14) by bringing in assorted pies. It was my favorite day in math class and to this day I have a soft spot for that particular mathematical constant. At any rate, it's obviously no where near March 14 (although it feels warm enough to be!), but I didn't let that stop me from having a pie day this weekend. A friend of mine has recently become enamored with mini pies and has decided that they are the new cupcake (ie: thing in New York City that people will inexplicably pay over $4 for). As her baking friend, she wanted to get me in on the ground floor of her mini pie making venture. Although, I wasn't initially wholly convinced of the business model, I couldn't help but be on board with spending Saturday afternoon making 19 mini pies.

Not quite a commercial kitchen yet, but it's a working progress.

Our initial baking day was primarily experimental. We mostly just gathered ingredients in our kitchens that we thought might be nice pied together in small tins. This led to some interesting combinations. My personal favorite was our take on a key lime pie (well, but that I used regular limes) with a ginger snap crust and raspberries on top. We made another that we called a "mojito pie" with the same filling and a mint whipped cream on top. I had some Baileys in my fridge leftover from Christmas, so we also made some Bailey's cream pies with oreo crusts. These were, predictably, awesome. We also sprinkled one with espresso powder and called it a "White Russian pie." If there's a market for cocktail themed mini pies, we are about to corner it.

Little pie friends ready for the oven.

We made some savory pies too--some with traditional pie crusts and others with crushed pretzels as a base. We incorporated bacon into a number of pies because as it turns out it works well with all of the following (not necessarily all in one pie): Gorgonzola, fig onion preserves, pumpkin seeds, and apples. The one thing I learned from this experience, as I realized I'd never really made mini pies before, is that I need to lighten up on the crust. I put the thickness of crust that would have been totally appropriate for a traditionally sized pie, but ended up being somewhat overwhelming in a mini pie. Lesson learned!

This should tide me over quite nicely until mid-March.