I went ahead and made this week's recipe earlier than necessary. I was in a baking mood on Saturday (when I made the Potato Bread) and since I was not assigned pie-baking for my Thanksgiving contribution this year (sob...) I figured I might as well make it right away. And actually, in case you're wondering what I've done to be forbidden from Thanksgiving Pie Baking, I've done nothing. My niece, Natalie, was doing a fundraiser for school - selling pies - and my mother bought three. (I bought one. Boston Creme. It's pretty tasty, too.)
Anyway, back to TWD.
This week's recipe, Dorie's Thanksgiving Twofer Pie, was chosen by Vibi of La casserole carrée, and can be found on page 321 of Baking: From My Home to Yours.
Now, I love pumpkin pie. And I love pecan pie. And the thought of I combining them sounded intriguing and appealing. So the first thing I did was to calculate measurements so I could double the recipe. I figured I'd make one normal-sized pie and a bunch of mini pies to distribute among friends and their families.
I made enough dough for 3 single crusts (using Dorie's recommended "Good for Almost Everything" pie crust),
figuring that I'd be using a bit more than just two crusts' worth, lining a bunch of individual mini pie pans in addition to my standard-sized pie pan.
Oh, and since I don't actually HAVE mini pie pans, I used 8 7-oz ramekins I bought recently. They're deeper than pie pans, and I was looking forward to a surplus of filling.
(I fluted the edges on the little ones, too, but apparently I didn't take pictures.)
I put the pie plate and all the ramekins into the fridge to chill while I made the filling.
First I made the pumpkin portion in my food processor...
oooh...bubbles....
I let that sit in the food processor while I made the pecan pie portion.
Once that was whisked together, I brought out all the ramekins and the pie pan and set them out on two baking sheets.
And then I filled them, first with the pumpkin batter, then the pecan pieces, and then the pecan pie filling mixture.
Cute, huh?
And then it was into the oven with all of them.
I'd preheated my oven to 450 degrees, F, as instructed. I brought both pans over to the stovetop so I could get them both in quickly.
And then I opened the oven door.
Ooops....
Here's what I pulled out:
I hear your horrified shrieks. "Egad! What is THAT???!!!"
Heh heh...it's the um butter that was supposed to go into the pecan pie filling mixture after I'd first melted and then cooled it.
I put it in the ramekin and into my preheating oven and set the timer for one minute. I'm assuming that when the timer went off I ignored it, thinking it was just the oven announcing that it's internal temp had reached 450.
This oily, blackened mess explains why the hallway smoke detector went off, I'm thinking.
Oh well, too late to do anything about it now.
I put the pans into the oven and baked, first at 450 for ten minutes, and then at 300 for a while. I took the normal-sized pie out at about the 50 minute mark, and left the ramekins in for about another fifteen minutes.
I left them to cool, shooing my family away as needed until after dinner.
I'd roasted a chicken, complete with stuffing, and onions, our late-season kohlrabi crop, and two of the butternut squashes we grew all cut up around the chicken. Julia finished dinner first and showed no interest in dessert. Bill ate too much at dinner and said he'd have a slice later.
Alex, however, was ready, willing, and able.
Fork in hand, he attacked. (No whipped cream for him - he doesn't like the stuff. I still adore him, though, despite this obvious flaw in his character.)
Here is the much-anticipated Alex-Eating-Pie segment of our show...
Oh, and that's paint on his face. Actually, Julia and a little friend of hers were painting, so I'm not sure why Alex got paint on his face. Or why I didn't see it earlier in the day and get rid of it. I was probably too focused on pie-making.
I know that looks like such a mess on his plate...it was the first slice, and the pie was still a bit soft. Anyway, there's the first bite.
He liked it, in case you weren't sure.
I think I'd just told him to keep his mouth CLOSED because no one, including me, wanted to see a big mess of chewed-up pie.
You can see he's really struggling to keep the lips shut.
And that's all that was left after he was done.
He liked it, obviously. I gave Julia a slice later - she had about three bites and said it was good, and she was done. I ate the rest of hers.
I thought it was good...my only complaint was the rum - it was too strong. If I was going to make this again, I'd either eliminate or drastically reduce the amount. And there wasn't a ton in the recipe, either, but the flavor just overpowered everything else.
Bill had a slice later that night. He liked it, too.
We talked about it, though, and agreed that we preferred our pumpkin and pecan pies as separate entities. I guess we're pie purists. At least where holiday pies are concerned.
I gave some of the mini pies to our friends across the street and was told the next day that they were great. I also gave some to the parents of one of Alex's friends. I haven't heard how they liked it.
And that left us with the big pie and one remaining mini pie.
On Sunday, we had Alex's friend and his parents to dinner. Alex had played at their house that afternoon. Before dinner was ready, Alex was thirsty and yanked open the door to the fridge, in search of apple juice.
And the pie plate, previously perched precariously on a plate of baked potatoes, slid out and flipped over in midair, landing, pie-down, on the floor.
So much for the rest of that.
And Alex at the remaining mini pie after dinner that night.
Thus concludes the stories of the Thanksgiving Twofer Pie.
If you'd like to read more stories and opinions, please visit the Tuesdays With Dorie website and be awed and intimidated at the huge list of members. Then go read their pie posts. Keep in mind, though, that not all the entries will be up today - there may be many who post after Thanksgiving. So keep going back to the blog list for more - because after all, reading is calorie-free!
