Category: Pie

Pie Baking Time of Year

9/23/2019

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It is raining in Phoenix! It is always wonderful when that happens.
And, first of all, let me apologize for jumping the gun last week and calling it Fall when it really is the Autumnal Equinox today! Oops. I guess I was overly anxious. On the other hand, I got started on so many Fall things early! One of them being that delicious Peach Pie you see pictured above. Now that it is raining and the weather is cooling down, it is definitely the Pie Baking time of year!

Now, you can peruse through our pie baking section of the blog and find a nice amount of delicious pie recipes to get you started. But, I was just looking through our Pie e-book,For the Love of Pie, and feeling just a little bit proud of ourselves for all of the really good info and recipes that are in that book. If you are a beginning pie baker, you should really get it. If you are a seasoned baker, you should really get it, too. It contains the classic recipes that you will want to make for the holidays, plus some vegan recipes and some delicious specialty recipes that we made up ourselves. Click here to order it for yourself!

OH! And before I forget to tell you, we are offering a special deal on the Pie book to celebrate Fall! So, from today until the end of September, (That is September 30th, 2019), We are offering the book for 50% off!

That's right! Just click here and then use code FALLWINKS when you check out to get 50% off of For the Love of Pie!

A rainy day is the best day for pie! If it is already getting cold in your part of the world, baking a pie sure helps to warm up the house. In more ways than one! Happy Baking!

What kind of rolling pin do you favor? Inquiring bakers want to know.

Don't you just love a pretty pie dish?

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Renny's Recipes: Blueberry Hand Pies

8/28/2019

3 Comments

Hey guys! I know it's been awhile! I was working on a few recipes and trying to find a way to sleep in the middle of everything else in life and so the blog took the hit. But I'm BACK today with a DELICIOUS recipe! If you follow us on social media (DO you follow us on Social Media? Because... ahem, you should) you'll remember that I posted this picture:

And told you I had something delicious brewing. So here it is, blueberry hand pies! We've talked about hand pies before. They are fun, tasty, and "handy" (hahahahaha.) I was talking to my mom about making them and wanted to do it in a fast and efficient way. So, I experimented a little bit and here is what I came up with to make a lot of hand pies all at once!

So, I came up with this idea of rolling out the pie crust dough and filling the hand pies so it wouldn't take so long to get each individual pie done. My mom thought about using a ravioli slicer. That would be a great idea, except I don't have one.

I toyed with cutting the dough to a perfect square and making hash marks, but in the end, I liked the method I came up with.

You roll out your pie dough, and then use a big round cookie cutter to mark the spot for each one. In this photo I cut each one out individually, but you don't have to. Just use the cookie cutter to make a mark in the dough so you can see where the center of your hand pie is. You can wait until you put the top crust on before cutting it out completely.

I used a cookie scoop to get the blueberry filling on the center of each circle. Once each circle had a dollop of filling I rolled out the top crust and laid it over everything. Then I was able to center my cookie cutter over the blueberry filling lump to cut out each hand pie.

Then, if you want to get fancy, you can use a fork to press down the edges to make them look pretty, but you don't have to. You can press them together with your finger.

I would recommend using a knife to cut slices in the top however. Place the hand pies on a cookie sheet.

Then you put your hand pies in a pre-heated oven (to 400 degrees Fahrenheit) and bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on how dark you like them.

My little one loves to help me bake, and she LOVES blueberries, so she really enjoyed the filling while she helped me make these hand pies.

This filling is amazing guys! Here is the recipe!

Blueberry Pie Filling

1 lb blueberries, washed
1/2 cup sugar
1 TBSP cornstarch
1 TBSP lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla

Pour washed blueberries into a pot and cook over medium heat about 3 minutes.
Stir in sugar, cornstarch and lemon juice until there are no lumps
Bring to a boil, stirring regularly
boil for 5 minutes
remove from heat and stir in vanilla

You can add more sugar if you like it more sweet, but to me, this had the perfect level of sweetness.

I could not stop eating this blueberry filling! After making our blueberry hand pies I had a little extra leftover. I enjoyed it atop some ice cream!

These hand pies are fun and easy to make! If you recall, we have our pie e-book, For the Love of Pie, which you can buy in our Etsy shop!

Also, if you subscribe to get our emails (why wouldn't you?) check your emails out today for a special surprise!

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Pecan Pie-Why Mess with a Good Thing?

11/13/2018

2 Comments

This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support

When we were working on our pie book and developing new recipes, one of my friends asked me if we made Chocolate Pecan Pie. She hadn't seen a recipe for it, but was thinking that the combination of flavors sounded good. I told her that I would give it a try and bring her one if it was successful. So, I started scouring Pinterest for the many versions of Chocolate Pecan Pie available.

One of my first tries.

Most of the recipes I found simply added chocolate chips to the pie, along with the pecans. So, I tried a version of that idea. It seemed promising. The pie looks really delicious, right? Well, my husband was unimpressed with the flavor. I have to admit that I was as well. I feel like the best part of the Pecan Pie is the custard below the pecans. In this case, the chocolate overpowered that creamy texture and rich flavor. Not to mention that as the chocolate chips cooled and rehardened, it made the pie difficult to slice! So, I checked off the chocolate chip method as a fail.

One of the beauties of Pecan Pie is that it is really super easy to whip up. A lot of the recipes I found made the process so much more difficult, so I gave those a hard pass. One day I was discussing the Chocolate Pecan Pie idea with Maddy and she suggested I toast and candy the pecans with brown sugar and cocoa powder to see if that would give the hint of chocolate that we wanted. I thought, "Genius!" So, I gave it a try. The pecans came out really tasty after I toasted them in a skillet with butter, brown sugar and cocoa powder. And, the crumbs from the toasting left a sort of chocolate swirl through the custard part of the pie. But, when it was baked all together, the flavor of the chocolate really didn't come through at all. I still liked this idea though, and may explore it further.

To make a long story short, the Chocolate Pecan Pie didn't make it into the ebook and my friend hasn't received her pie. A couple of other suggestions I may try are:

Add chocolate syrup or cocoa to the custard mix.
Simply bake the pie in a chocolate crust.
Just drizzle chocolate syrup over the pie after it is baked!

But really, I think the moral of this story is that not every really good thing has to be chocolate! I know, I know, unbelievable! But I have tweaked my Pecan Pie recipe over the years until it is a family favorite, with the perfect balance between the amount of pecans and the custard below them. My husband is firmly in the camp of not messing with the Pecan Pie at all! It is his all time favorite! Sometimes you just don't mess with a good thing.

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Pie Baking Time of Year

Renny's Recipes: Blueberry Hand Pies

Pecan Pie-Why Mess with a Good Thing?

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